Balls and Strikes and Strikes

FORTY THOUSAND famished fans. Concession lines stringing from home plate to the 360 sign in the left field power alley. The $3 million ostentation over the right center field wall flashing apologies to Philly aficionadoes every other inning. The largest Sunday night crowd of the year and not a vendor in the place.

Outside a flock of white caps roamed the Veterans Stadium steps. A few hawkers occasionally chant "Don't buy food" to the passing latecomers.

A few hours earlier, just about the time when Henry Aaron was taking his second to last whacks at batting practice, 150 of Philadelphia's ballpark salesmen walked off the job.

At first it was just a couple of rowdy vendors who broke from the line leading into the stadium. They yelled about how Nilon Brothers, the local concessionaires, had been doing some routine exploiting--not letting the vendors in on time to sell a few rounds before the National Anthem, making them work without a contract since the early days of spring and not giving them a place to change from street clothes to pajama-blue vendor coats.

When a couple of the older, more established vendors from the old Connie Mack Stadium set broke line and joined what was mostly a collection of soon to be returning college student vendors, then the strike line began to look more appetizing to the unconvinced. Most of the kids reasoned that if a few of the more revered career men were willing to pass up a possible fifty bucks, then they shouldn't mind losing a share of the Saturday night pie.

After all, there had been much discontent in vendor ranks throughout the first half of the baseball season. The late entrances and lack of a changing room--even the ever-swelling ranks of recently hired vendors--antagonized the old hawkers, but these grievances had been standard since the opening of the stadium four years ago.

It didn't take long for the chants to reach the employer's ears. "All right, let's go back to work," a management lieutenant said prematurely in a "joke's over" attitude. But only the first row of vendors could make out his words over the jeers of the professionally loud vendors.

After the lieutenant admitted his defeat, a new, but soon to be legendary, figure emerged from the stadium--the union representative. For the majority of the vendors, who didn't even realize that the vendors were organized, the vision of a union representative added a note of surprise and legitimacy to the proceedings. But to those who knew that the vendors were really members of Local 232 of the Bartenders, Waitresses and Concessionaires International, the revelation that this chum in a $150 pressed suit with color coordinated shoes, was actually "one of us" was even more of a shocker.

Although the union rep had not even been voted in by the rank and file, and had never held a union meeting, he immediately tried to take control of the impromptu walkout. "I know that I haven't been that good a union rep," he said defensively, "but this show of support is so strong that now we really have something to go in with, but let's go back to work, and we will work this thing out later."

It didn't take long for an exchange of "Go back to work?" and "Who is this guy anyway?" to occur. And while the police gently nudged the workers into an area where they would be less troublesome, the young college kids and the kids just out of high school listened to the vendors who held union jobs outside of the ballpark explaining how the union officials and representatives might not be representing the vendors' interests.

It was Nilon himself who came out next, in a bid to get the workers in before the pre-game show. As the vendors crowded in on the boss, disrespect emerged. "You can listen to me and go to work or you can stay out here, and lose money," said the man most likely to be hurt by the walkout. But his reminders of big crowds and big money were drowned out by the unleashed anger of the vendors who by this time were clamoring for "freedom issues."

As Nilon left, insisting that the union is at fault and that the vendors' grievances were with the union, the vendors agreed that no one was to work that game or any game until both problems with the union and Nilon were straightened out.

It didn't take long for Nilon to greet the vendors next morning with more deals of going back to work and negotiating later. The union rep arrived with a high card from the mythical local's down town office, but he didn't play his hand until after Nilon spoke. Nilon immediately began threatening everyone with pink slips and court injunctions. Then the union rep took over and introduced his friend from downtown, who startlingly declared that he was against the strike, and it was the vendor's tough luck if Nilon fired people. Of course, he insisted on an immediate return to work.

And back to work all the vendors went, confident that Nilon would now negotiate with a new union rep, confident that the issues would be met. This confidence continued right through the homestand.

But when the Phils came back to town for those key games against the Redlegs and Astros at the end of August, after a two week hiatus, much of the confidence had gone the way of the 25, 30 and 35 cent Coke.

They stood in line as usual, waiting a little longer than usual to be let in. While in line the old union rep came around to say that the contract was signed, that he had settled for the same 17 per cent cut as the last two years, for another three years.

And it didn't take long for the word to get out that the union's recently elected union rep--who was more militant than the old rep--was no longer working, having been fired sometime during the Astro series.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly why a group so united in outrage as the vendors that first Saturday night could be so contented in complacency 20 days later. Many of the more active strikers went back to college, others were no longer fascinated with the thrill of labor-management confrontations.

But the root of the problem lay in how easy it was for both management and union to manipulate the vendors. About half the vendors work at the stadium only for college spending money and it was easy for these students to pass up a few surplus dollars at the end of a lucrative season. But the other half, the career vendors, couldn't afford to return to the picket line and forfeit a possible $200-300 during a long homestand work stoppage.

With a job that requires no skills beyond a healthy chest x-ray, the employer could have fired the whole lot that Sunday morning, and hired enough beer and dog men to work the next homestand without any difficulty.

Many of the vendors on those waning days of the pennant race contented themselves with the knowledge that they had the solidarity and the guts to walkout on one of the biggest nights of the season and they they really stood up to the employer and screamed right into the boss's face. But when the Phillies come north from Florida next spring, and the same conditions exist as last year, that Saturday night strike will be of little consolation.