They Played a Game But Only a Few Came

On the outfield grass, where the glare of the lights confronted the darkness beyond the leaning fence, out of range of catcalls muffled by the steel and concrete grandstand, 22 faceless figures played out the last act of a melodrama which had long since climaxed and was now crawling along to a predictable finale. This was a North American Soccer League (NASL) professional soccer game between the Boston Minutemen and the Miami Toros, two last-place clubs. Although 200 spectators looked on, the press had shown mercy and stayed away.

The game had featured a raspy recording of the national anthem and a hat trick by Bert Bowery, one of three starting Minutemen players who had weathered the entire season. But neither goals nor patriotism helped Boston, which went on to lose its tenth straight in overtime, after its lead vanished with three minutes remaining.

If this were not enough, a light drizzle turned to a downpour, leaving concentric ripples in pools collecting on the grass and washing away the faded chalk outlines of the soccer field. One sensed that a drama critic would have written "overkill" and "too long."

August 15, 1976: the once healthy franchise of the Boston Minutemen had lapsed into a coma. It was viable in name alone, and only an optimist with a fortune could hope to revive the patient.

But this failure was unexpected.

Three months before, the Minutemen had been predicting a third consecutive NASL Northern Division title, and were laying plans to make Harvard Stadium their new home in anticipation of larger crowds. In 1974, average attendance had reached 10,000 and the following season, 20,000 fans had squeezed and jostled to see Pele and the New York Cosmos play.

Dream Team

Not only did Boston have skilled players, but the roster seemed a dream conceived on Madison Avenue. Boston had as its established star Eusebio, second only to Pele at the peak of his career. There was also Ade Coker, a young, temperamental character with flashy moves, and Shep Messing '72, a top American player who led the NASL in goals-against average last year. Messing also brought the Minutemen his playboy reputation--"the Joe Namath of soccer," they billed him.

But the Harvard stadium deal fell through, leaving owner John C. Sterge to seek refuge in suburban Quincy. Then in mid-June, the same week that baseball's Charlie Finley peddled a couple pounds of flesh for $3.5 million and caused a major uproar, Sterge began his own purge, selling eight starting players in three weeks. It was time to prepare the obituaries.

No More Cheerleaders

Coach Hubert Vogelsinger resigned and the Minutemen began to lose consistently. Attendance dropped to a low of 150, and the team vacated its, "permanent home," which had greeted it with open arms and North Quincy High cheerleaders, to play out the script in that soggy minor league ball park in Pawtucket, R. I.

As the rain and the curtain come down, we are left to ask, "So what?" It's sentimental, but why dig up the Minutemen from obscurity? Because the parallel drawn between John Sterge and Charlie Finaly is not so absurd. The Minutemen demise provides a textbook example of what may be the Appomattox of professional sports.

The fate of the Minutemen cannot be explained away as easily as some owners might wish. It is not just another hard luck expansion team. The Minutemen's problems "were not the city of Boston" nor "the game of soccer," as Vogelsinger said when he resigned. Boston is a top breeding ground for United States soccer, with youth soccer leagues outdrawing little league baseball in many towns.

And the NASL is not the WFL. If Sports Illustrated can be believed, soccer is "on the verge of becoming a major spectator sport." It has even had to contend with the infamous Sports Illustrated cover jinx.

Sterge, like most owners of professional teams, saw the Minutemen as an investment, but he did not possess a mattressfull of green bills. The thought that the Minutemen would one day be profitable, a false hope for most owners, must have lingered in his mind. This attitude is at the root of the mass garage sale and the team's downfall.

One can see the effect of this outlook in that first Pele game--a pinnacle for Boston professional soccer, but the beginning of the end. Taking advantage of Pele's appeal, the Minutemen oversold the stadium by several thousand people. As a result, often frenzied fans flooded to the edge of the playing field and mobbed Pele, injuring him slightly. After that, fans, players and the game of soccer would no longer head Sterge's list of priorities.

Low-Rent District

This past season, Sterge chose not to meet the high rental fee for Harvard Stadium, imagining that fans would not mind driving to Quincy--20 minutes south of Boston--to view soccer on a telephone booth of a field at 5 p. m. (since there were no lights for night games). He was mistaken.

Nevertheless, regular admission was hiked this season from $3 to $5. This backfired too as attendance plummeted. The price of a game was no longer comparable to that of a movie or a grandstand seat at Fenway Park.

Faced with financial problems, Sterge reached late June seemingly not knowing how his team was going to go from one town to the next. Unwilling to sink more money into the club, he used the theory of the three sailors stranded and hungry on a raft: sacrifice one so the rest will have plane fare back to Boston. So the sales commenced.

The real story in this scenario is the subsequent fan reaction--an almost total boycott that seemed almost the result of some joint action. The stadium deteriorated from a bowl of crackling rice crispies to a scattering of sceptical, soggy corn flakes.

The fans are fed up with paying first-class prices for secondrate action and minor league treatment while their favorite stars disappear. This trend is surfacing in other sports, and often the players are partly to blame. With reserve clauses falling everywhere and players selling their services to the highest bidders, they may be treading on their own long-range interests. Professional sports are not the escape from reality.

Even the Boston Bruins, whose tickets were jealously hoarded by corporations and streams of long lost counsins for several sellout years, had seats available last season as Bobby Orr headed for Chicago via the hospital, and Phil Esposito was traded to New York. As the 1976-77 season begins, the Bruins have 2,000 fewer season ticket holders than they did last year. A similar story is being repeated in big league towns throughout the country.

Let's hope that professional sports do not reach the point they did in Pawtucket when the Minutemen even forgot to bring a game ball.

The fate of the Boston Minuteman franchise may be announced today as the NASL general meetings wind up in Minneapolis. Sterge failed to put up the required bond by October 11, although he says he is still interested in Boston soccer. There are several potential buyers floating around the Twin Cities, if the NASL gives up on Sterge. The possibility also exists that the league will move the Minutemen elsewhere.