Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 45

9 vi 1 ports Minneapolis Star and Tribune i Friday September 241982 ID. .1 i Moves made torisiimeNFL ir negotiations management council has attempted to start up negotiations with the union again by telling Garvey the league will guarantee that the players would receive all $13 billion of Its last offer by the time the proposed five-year contract expires in 1986. In turn, however, the league wants a concession from Garvey: He must abandon the wage scale concept Included in all of the union's offers since negotiations began In February. Garvey, whose last proposal totals $1.6 billion over four years, denied that he has ever received an offer of such a guarantee from the league. The guarantee of a full $1.6 billion payout by the league is crucial, because $1.2 billion of the offer Is based on an estimate that player salaries will increase 15 percent per year over the length of the contract through Individual negotiations with teams.

If that estimate proves too high, there could be a large amount of money undistributed to the players by 1986. From News Services 1 -The negotiators for the striking NFL players and the club owners moved Thursday to resume bargaining after the league officially called off the 12 games scheduled Sunday. Ed Garvey, executive director of the players association, sent a message to Jack Donlan, head of the NFL Management Council, stating that the union is prepared to negotiate around the clock. Donlan's reply said, "We are and have been ready to bargain for months. We are prepared to meet with you at a mutually agreeable location.

I will call you tomorrow (Friday) morning about establishing a site." No negotiations have been held since last Friday, when the union amended its original proposal and asked that 50 percent of the league's $2.1 billion television package be allocated to wages and benefits. The union previously had asked that 55 percent of the owners' gross receipts go to wages and benefits. NFL sources said yesterday, that the Associated Press Wide racelvcr John Jefferson pitched a football to halfback Eddie Lee Ivery before an Informal workout called by the striking Green Bay players. The Packers practiced at St. Norbert College In West dePere, a Green Bay suburb.

Twins players recall that being on strike is not a ball NFL continued on page 2D By Joel Bierlg Staff Writer Jack O'Connor thought about the striking NFL players and shook his head. "I see they're out throwing the football, having fun," O'Connor "The first week, we did that too. And we played golf. It was fun to play golf. "But then It got to the point where I was sitting home at 5 o'clock In the afternoon and I was saying.

'Gosh, I shouldn't be O'Connor, a 24-year-old Twins pitcher, becomes uneasy at the A Jack O'Connor Subscription TV will carry yk Stars Twins home games I Strike. "I don't even want to talk about that" catcher Sal Butera said. "I had enough of that stuff last year." Pitcher Don Cooper remembers having to give up bis apartment in the Twin Cities and move back home to Maspeth, N.Y. "I really started to feel It at the end," said Cooper, then a rookie. "As it got longer and longer, It got worse and worse." Ron Davis, then with the Yankees, wound up working as a waiter in a New York restaurant He did it out of boredom as much as need.

"I didn't want to sit in the house for 50 days," the Twins relief pitcher said. I lit I i in mm it, it i "I couldn't go swimming for 50 straight days." Most of the Twins say they understand and support the football players' decision to strike. "I'm with 'em 100 percent," Davis said. "They're in the same field, the entertainment business, and there's no way I'd badmouth another entertainer. "It's a bad thing, going on strike, but sometimes you've got to do it You can't be stuck In the rear end and be told, "You've got to take If And yet in the Twins' clubhouse, there was a sense of relief that somebody else is doing the striking 4 rV I I t.1 if IY this year.

"No baseball player can say you "7. don't have a right to strike," Cooper said. "But it's going to be a long winter if there's no football. Bartenders are going to be teed off. Bettors are going to be teed off.

Bookies are going to be teed off. Heck, back home in New York, there's a bookie on every street" Cooper is happy that baseball players won't be the target of the bookies' anger. So is outfielder Dave Engle. Engle senses the public's -1 Twins continued on page 2D V) By John Carman Staff Writer Spectrum, the new Twin Cities subscription TV station, announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement to broadcast home games of the Minnesota Twins and North Stars. Starting in November, all North Stars home games will be broadcast to paying subscribers.

Fifty of the 81 Twins home game next year also will be broadcast The cost for the service, called Spec-, tram Sports, will be $19.95 a month. Customers who subscribe both to Spectrum's movie channel and to Spectrum Sports will be billed $29.90 a month. That cost-does not include a $50 installation charge. Spectrum KTMA-TV (Ch. 23) began broadcasting a 1.7 million-watt UHF signal Wednesday from Its transmitter In Shoreview.

The com-, pany says it already has signed 11,000 customers for its separate movie channel. Spectrum transmits a scrambled signal, which is decoded by special devices attached to its customers' TV sets. thought of strikes called by unions and not umpires. Only recently has he recovered from last summer's 50-day baseball strike a walkout that sapped the spirit and finances of a rookie from Yucca Valley, "Calif. "It put me In the red," O'Connor recalled.

"I couldn't afford to leave town and then come all the way back after the strike. So we stayed here, but I had to take out a loan to live on." O'Connor sighed. "I had to pay It back at the beginning of this year." In the Twins' clubhouse, there is only one topic as repugnant as losing. "get no immediate payoff." He said Spectrum Sports would have to sign 20,000 subscribers before reaching a break-even point. Commercial advertising time will be sold for the broadcasts.

No decision has been reached concerning technical personnel or game announcers. Calvin Griffith, president of the Twins, said he expects the home, broadcasts to generate Increased interest in the baseball team and to boost attendance. Home attendance this year is virtually certain to fall under a million. Grif fth added that revenue from the subscription TV venture would put "a little extra, money in our coffers" to help the team keep Its players under contract Asked how much money the television agreement would generate, Griffith answered, "Who can tell?" Spectrum is a subsidiary of Home Entertainment Network, based in Cincinnati. It has subscription TV subscribers In Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, and Chicago, In addition to the Twin Cities.

regularity. "I simply disciplined my strike tone better," said Gaetti, a 24-year-old. right-handed bitter who made the Jump from double-A to the majors in one easy lesson. "I learned to lay off that breaking ball, take it more often than not" Batting coach Jim Lemon noted, "Gaetti is strong enough to handle any pitch be can reach. Early in the year, be was having trouble with that breaking ball because he wai inclined to chase It and miss it-, "We wanted to make him aware of 11 and tried to move him a little closer to the plate.

He has adapted well, mainly on his own, and the way he Gaetti continued on page 3D A-rC" -iS' "it Spectrum's signal reaches an estimated 60-mile radius from the Shoreview transmitter. Outside the immediate coverage area, the sports games will be available to cable TV systems in the Upper Midwest The announcement Is expected to have no immediate effect on existing TV coverage of the two teams. KMSP-TV (Ch. 9) broadcasts 52 Twins games a year, 48 of them road games, and 25 North Stars road games. Stuart Swartz, KMSP-TV general manager, said his station will continue to broadcast those games.

Subscription TV coverage will be the result of a letter of Intent signed at the Metrodome, binding Spectrum, into a venture with Twin-Star Productions, a production company formed by the two teams last year. Gordon Gund, co-owner of the North Stars, said the Initial Investment will be $2 million, split evenly between Spectrum and Twin-Star. Net profits from the subscription TV venture will be split Michael Downs, vice president and general manager of Spectrum In the Twin Cities, said the sports teams ByTomBriere Staff Writer One pitch a breaking ball low and away almost drove Twins third baseman Gary Gaetti back to the minor leagues In mid-May and early June. Twenty-four borne runs and 81 runs batted in later, Gaetti is one of the rookie toasts of Minnesota management I So what saved him? In short he adjusted to major league pltcnlng. Never a liability at third base during April and May, Gaetti -made better bat-on-ball contact as the season wore on, partially minimized bis strike-outs and started to hit home runs and drive in runs with more Gaetti has straightened out trouble with low outside curve i 1 1:1 Staff Photo by DuaneBraley Washburn spikes North Martha Spriggs, co-captaln of tho Washburn High help.

Washburn, 2-0 In the Minneapolis Confer: School volleyball team, went high for the ball ence, went on to defeat host North, 0-2 In the con -Wednesday night aa teammates Rene Anderson ference, 18-5 18-0. (No. 3) and Karen VanEvery (No. 4) prepared to i Gary Gaetti 'Ml Jil i i.