Andy Scores! Vol 3 - Part 2/4: A Force in Cleveland

Big crowds in Cleveland. A Detroit summer imperiled. Contract disputes and a triumph. And a MVP competition.

To read Part 1 of Volume 3, click here.

To read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Volume 2, click here, here, and here.

To read Volume 1, published back in April, become a subscriber (only $7.99 a month!) by clicking above. Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2 of Volume 1.

The following is Andy Chapman in his own words:

“I scored some of my best goals in Richfield Coliseum. And it was jam packed. We would be getting 17,000 for some of the games. At the time, the Cleveland Cavaliers were averaging 7,000. We averaged 12,000-13,000. The Cleveland Plain Dealer gave us front page coverage. I just happened to be on fire every time we had a playoff game. I had a hat trick against Baltimore.

The Plain Dealer did a story that year: who has been the best acquisition for a Cleveland sports team this year? One was a baseball player, then me, and then Bernie Kosar. I lost it in a vote to Bernie Kosar. He had been drafted by the Browns. He was number one and I was number two. So I got a lot of exposure going into that summer and I knew my contract was running out. Bart Wolstein, who was the principal owner, and his son Scott, typical businessmen, were all over me, knowing my contract was running out.

The scary thing is, my contract was going through to September 30. We are knocked out of the playoffs in May. With all my 12-month contracts, I never had to do soccer camps. Me and Bill [Kentling] had a deal where I could go off and play outdoor in the summer, whether it was the Cleveland Cobras or the Detroit Express. When I negotiated that contract from 1983 to 1985, I said to Bill, ‘You give me what I need and you negotiate with the Express what you want for a loan fee. If you get a loan fee, whatever it is, you get to keep it.’

So I was happy. And Bill was happy because he could recoup some of his money for loaning me out. My stock was extremely high because we won the 1982 championship in Detroit. Everybody knew the Express. They played at the Silverdome, I was getting  a lot of ink in the newspapers and on local TV, so Bill took a gamble. And he got a great deal out of it. It was a deal that worked. And we knew I didn’t stay behind for soccer camps because I went to play outdoors. That was the understanding: I don’t do camps because I’m playing.

So here’s this contract that the Force has bought and it gets to May and I’m not gonna go play outdoor soccer and there was nothing written in my contract that they could loan me out. Bill and I just had a gentleman’s agreement. Now I’m in Cleveland. Those fuckers ran summer soccer camps and they flogged the players to fucking death from 9am to 5pm all summer.

They are basically putting a gun to my head saying I’m going to be working camps all summer. I was like, ‘Fuck that, Scott, I’m not doing that.’ I had an agent at the time, Rick Brode. He was a big-time agent in Detroit. The Wolsteins were saying if I didn’t show up for the camps, they could just not pay me. Pattie and I were in Cleveland that summer of 1985.

I briefly came back to Wichita that summer to do Jim Hershberger’s Most Versatile Performer contest (MVP). The first year I came in second to [NBA point guard] Darnell Valentine and the second year I won the whole thing. We are in negotiations with the Force. Pattie and I fly back to Wichita to participate in the MVP. I win it and come back with $22,000.”

[The Most Versatile Performer (MVP) competition that year featured golf, racquetball, basketball, cycling, pitch-pass-kick, blockade-and-calisthenics, swimming, kayaking, jet skiing, and cross country running. Participants included: NFL players Steve Largent, Roy Green, Steve Grogan, and Paul Coffman; NBA players Xavier McDaniel, Darnell Valentine, Dominique Wilkins; and Olympic medalists Dave Wottle and Bob Seagren.]

“We buy a condo in Cuyahoga Falls with that. I put $12,000 down on it. We are negotiating with Scott Wolstein and I’m asking for a lot of cash upfront and a two-year contract. He’s saying I don’t need any money upfront because I just won the MVP contest. I said that didn’t have anything to do with what we were doing in Cleveland. They got worn down and he gave me a four-year contract for $125,000 a year. A $500,000 contract overall. It was a changing point for me.

That was the start of what I thought was going to be four years in Cleveland, which was fantastic because it was close to Detroit. Pattie started working at a PR firm in March or April of 1985 in Detroit. She cracked the Proctor and Gamble contract. She started killing it. We hadn’t been married more than a year and were feeling real good. I thought I’d be there for four years. Pattie is doing well, going back and forth from Detroit.

In January of 1986, we find out we are going to have our first child: Lily. It was then they started to talk about the salary caps. So, as we went through, certain owners were taking liberties and started to mess with the players’ money in 1986. The 1986 season ended and Cleveland didn’t do as well as expected. And the Force had a big wage bill. That’s when the shit started to hit the fan: in June of 1986.

The league implemented a salary cap. They could reduce everybody’s salary by 30%. Basically, Bart Wolstein did that to every player. So when I was expecting my big monthly check on June 1, they basically said you’ve been paid for the season. They said, ‘You players are not getting paid now that we aren’t playing and when you come back on October 1, you are all getting a 30% pay reduction.’

Eventually, I got all that money back. John Kerr was the head of the union for us and I had a relationship with John because he made a lot of visits around the different franchises because we wanted to create a union. It was John Kerr and the union that changed things like all salaries became guaranteed. If someone signed a minimum, after three months, if the club decided they didn’t want him around anymore, they could just cut him.

The union fought for and got things like: if you completed four games, then your salary was guaranteed. That took a few seasons to do. There were arguments about whether the preseason counted or if it were just league games. The union became quite strong. They were associated with the NFL union at the time. They worked out of the same offices in Washington DC.

So, at the time, on June 1, I’m thinking I’m getting a big lump of my salary and then the Wolsteins stop paying the players. I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ Pattie was pregnant with our first daughter, who was due in October, so it was a bit of a stressful time. There was a realization from all the players that the contracts, with the salary cap, were dramatically changing.”

Next Week: Part 3 of Volume 3 of Andy Scores!…