European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 14, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday october 14,1987 columns. Carl Rowan Strong egos at play in nil strike negotiations the National football league players strike is costing the players an average of 15,000 a week the owners More than is million a week with comparable losses to stadium work ers television networks local to stations newspapers in nil towns and More. It is a foolish strike involving Multi millionaire owners turned socialists for convenience $230,000-a-Ycar players who cry thai they Are slaves seeking free Dom and negotiators whose egos and manhood arc at stake. The whole destructive mess we arc told comes Down to something called free Agency the desire of football players to shop around and find the bes Deal after four years in the nil. The players and their supporters say they want to be free the Way television personalities authors and other americans arc. The owners say the nil could not survive without their right to control the movement of players from one team to another and without team a getting compensation when team b lures away a Star player. My strike solution requires players and owners to accept two truths the players need to understand that authors to stars and other americans arc not unrestricted free  i be never had a Book contract that did not give the publisher first refusal on my next manuscript. Every contract i have says the employer has an option to renew that contract for a certain number of years based on Good Faith negotiations As to pay increases and other emoluments. I am free of course to go elsewhere if Good Faith bargaining Falls Short of another offer. Football fans expect from an Art Monk a Waller Payton a Joe Mon Tana a loyalty that says i m staying put As Long As this team matches my Best  the players Union ought not ask for More than that. The owners must realize that there Are unnecessary elements of slavery in the current system. They get away with a Martin Gottlieb warn draft under which one team claims a col lege Star who hereafter has no bargain ing rights except with the team that drafted him. The players so far Are willing to leave the draft system alone. But they rightly resent a system under which the football tycoons own them to the Point that any team offering them greater compensation must literally buy them from the original owner. Any owner who cannot keep a Star player by Matching or better ing another franchise s offer ought not get a dime for the loss of that player. What i am suggesting then is a free Agency that is limited a free Agency that protects a team s integrity through con tracts that arc binding upon both players and owners with the first owner having the right to match or better any other offer. But there would be none of the compensation Barrier that has made it virtually impossible for a player to move from one team to another under favor Able circumstances. We can prevent the Likely chaos of absolute free Agency and we can rid football of the taints of slavery if both sides will accept these principles of fairness. But if the owners arc secretly entertaining the notion they can bust the players Union or the players representatives think they can bring Rich owners to their Knees this strike will go on and on doing great injury to a lot of restau rants ban bus companies souvenir Ven Dors hot dog and Beer purveyors and others. The owners of nil franchises Are sit Ting atop licenses to Coin Money. The players Are making the kind of Money they May never again see. Both groups ought to be smart enough to accept the Compromise i have outlined and then Lethe show go on. North America syndic inc. 3 things proved by Bork confirmation hearings the born Battle proved three things beyond dispute a new Era has arrived in the South. The exercise of enormous political Power by Blacks there has been unmistakable stunning and altogether terrific. Old lady liberalism in t particularly dead aft Rall. The Reagan presidency in t particularly alive. But liberals should t feel too Good because i it s not Clear that Bork would have been a relatively awful Justice. Remember the fellow who lost his key Down the Street but looked for it up the Street when asked Why he was looking up the Street he said because the Light s better  Well the Senate judiciary committee wanted to know what kind of Justice Bork would be. But the senators could t ask him certain questions so they were in the dark. They had no Choice but to go up the Street and look into his record. There the Light was Osgood they found not one record but several. But what about the key and now what would the Senate have the nerve to reject Bork and confirm Orrin Hatch to do so would be to say we Don t mind having a Hartline conserva Tive so Long As he in t particularly  2 some have expressed the concern that after the exhumation of his record that Bork has been through future would be justices will refrain from writing and speaking boldly. However Bork tried an unusual path to the supreme court one none of the current justices used. By writing and speaking he became the Darling of the conservatives. To put it in electoral terms he won the nomination by appealing to the staunch activists in his party and he lost the general election by in so doing losing the Center anyway this whole episode was Peculiar perhaps unique the balance of the court was widely perceive Dlo be at stake and the government was deeply divided. Change anything about the situation and Bork would have been a much stronger nominee even with his controversial writings. There is another matter of precedent however future nominees will presumably be less eager to talk at Senate hearings. Bork was doing a lot better before reopened his Mouth. 3 the Campaign against Bork was often unfair even hysterical. No doubt Bork is unpopular partly because the Ameri can people believe they have a constitutional right to privacy whether the Constitution says so or not. But after the Campaign that was run against Bork maybe the reason some people oppose him is that the think he wants to personally Check out their bedrooms. Actually some of the bitter political combat yielded useful information. Sen. Patrick Leahy had the nerve to ask about Bork s history of Volunteer Legal work an Community involvement a history that is non existent. Now Robert Bork is not a bad fellow. It s just that people who do Volunteer work often do so because they think it will be interesting and satisfying. But Bork functions in the realm of intellect and theory. Volunteer work probably never seemed to him to raise interesting constitutional issues. And who says a Justice deciding a Case should consider some Legal theory Why should t he just consider the words of the Constitution and the Laws Legal precedent the facts of the Case and his own sense of Justice the phrase sense of Justice raises More questions Thanet answers. But we have always picked judges for Wisdom. We expect them to apply their sense of Justice. Bork has spent much of his life trying to minimize the role of a Justice s sense of Justice. His desire to do that probably stems from an instinct to keep things in his realm the intellectual. 4 the liberalism at work in the anti Berk move ment is unmistakably interest group liberalism. Instinct suggests that it can Only take liberalism and the democrats so far. Anyway Bork s problems May Only show that anybody who wants to move the american political system off dead Center and the Bork nomination was a bold Effort to do precisely that will have a Heck of a time. The liberals made major Progress in the courts inthe 1950s. 60 and 70s. But in 1987 All they have done is stave off a counter revolutionary thrust. Big Deal