Event Date: May 29th, 1985
Event Description: 'Slingers Seek Back Pay
Source: UPI
The San Antonio Gunslingers staged a brief no-pay, no-play strike Wednesday but returned to practice when warned their action would kill the U.S.Football League franchise.
One player said team president Bud Haun told them if they continued holding out, “the shop is going to fold.”
He also assured the disgruntled players the two overdue paychecks would be available Thursday, the San Antonio Light reported.
After Haun and the players met, one Gunslinger, who will miss the season's last four games because of injury, picked up his shoulder pads and left Alamo Stadium.
“It's a no-win situation,” the paper quoted another player as saying. “They told us the same garbage they told us eight weeks ago.”
A team source speculated that owner Clinton Manges' financial dealings with a Mormon group had not progressed as anticipated, causing the cash shortfall.
General manager Roger Gill said money was wired to the team bank Wednesday but management was unable to furnish the players with cashiers' checks.
“I feel reasonably sure they'll be paid (today),” Gill said.
“Basically, everybody's distraught about not being paid,” defensive lineman Jeff Gaylord said. “That's what we play the game for at the professional level.”
Gaylord said Haun told the players Manges' projected financial arrangements will underwrite team salaries for the rest of the season. The players are owed their May 14 pay as well as this week's check.
The USFL Players Association has filed a grievance on behalf of the players for the May 14 checks, but any result from that procedure still is more than a week away.
“Of course they're discouraged and disheartened,” coach Jim Bates said. “But if they as a group of people refuse to play, I don't know what other alternative there would be (to shutting down). You hate to go into all the ramifications of folding an outfit. They have a real responsibility to play it (the season) out.”
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