NBA All-Star ultimatum paid off for players

Long before the labor lockout in 1998-99 and before whatever awaits the NBA this summer in a new labor negotiation, in 1964 a group of players became pioneers of a sort, banding together to fight for a pension, among other things.


The howling blizzard outside the Boston Garden was an appropriate metaphor for what was happening inside on that January night.


Angry team owners fumed in a hallway inside the arena as their star players, including Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson, barricaded themselves in a locker room and announced they would not play unless they were guaranteed benefits originally forwarded to the commissioner's office the previous summer.


The players wanted a pension. They wanted athletic trainers on every team. They wanted improved playing conditions — no more Sunday afternoon games after a Saturday night game.


The players had tried to tell Commissioner Walter Kennedy that they were serious at a meeting several months earlier.


"We brought in our reps," said former Boston Celtics All-Star Tom Heinsohn, "and they kept us in the lobby and never brought us upstairs."


The owners were definitely listening now.


Heinsohn was the president of the players' association, a position for which he had plenty of practice. He studied labor relations as a student at Holy Cross. He worked on pension plans in an insurance business during NBA off-seasons. His father had been a union official.


He was the one handing the All-Stars a sheet to sign as they arrived at the arena.


"We had a fairly good consensus as they dribbled in," Heinsohn said. "We relayed what we wanted to do and they all signed the paper that they would support this thing.


"We went down and talked to the commissioner at about 5 o'clock and told him that because they hadn't met with us, we were not going to play unless they met our demands. They had a board of governors meeting that day and nobody talked to us."


The game was a couple of hours from tipoff. The line of irritated owners grew quickly outside the locker room.