MIAMI – A Pro Football Hall of Fame without Lawrence Taylor is no Hall of Fame at all, and so yesterday justice was served when LT became the 16th Giant in Canton.
No matter how much cocaine is in his baggage,he belongs in there every bit as much as Sam Huff and Frank Gifford and Y.A. Tittle and Mel Hein and Wellington Mara. He belongs in there as much as Jim Brown and Paul Hornung and Bobby Layne, troubled giants who weren’t football Giants. Taylor was hell on quarterbacks on the field and it doesn’t matter that he is forever hell on himself off it.
Taylor was Frank Sinatra. He did it his way. His way often wasn’t the right way. It was often the churlish, belligerent, arrogant way. None of it changes the fact that he was the greatest linebacker ever to play the game. He played on the edge and he lived on the edge and made the Hall of Fame on the edge yesterday following a spirited debate between the voices of reason and the morality police inside the Brickell meeting room of the Hyatt Hotel. Eight nay votes by the Pro Football Writers could have 86’d No. 56. There were no more than seven.
“I’m very happy he’s in,” Well Mara said. “He was a great team player. He made players who were with him play better, too. He was just totally dedicated to winning the game for his team.”
Here is how LT made it. The Post takes you behind the closed doors of the marathon four-hour session that saw Taylor join Eric Dickerson, Ozzie Newsome, Tom Mack and Billy Shaw in the Class of ’99. *THE merits of 11 of the 15 candidates have been argued, and now Hall of Fame Executive VP John Bankert introduced presenter Vinny DiTrani.
DiTrani, the sage football writer from The Record of Hackensack who has covered the Giants for 25 years, stood up. He spoke for five minutes.
“I want to tell you not what he did on the field,” DiTrani began in his soft-spoken way, “but how he did it.
“Having seen just about every game he played, I never saw him take a play off. He played the game hard but he played the game clean. He never used a forearm on the quarterback. He had respect for the officials, for his teammates and for other players.”
Now DiTrani mentioned the game on Monday night television when Taylor broke Joe Theismann’s leg. “He hurt the guy and really felt badly about it,” DiTrani said. “And he was a great team player. The sacks were just a means toward winning, and that’s what was important to him, was winning.”
DiTrani mentioned the night in New Orleans when LT recorded three sacks with one arm strapped down. “The last thing I said,” DiTrani said, “was if someone were to come up to me and said, ‘How do I play this game?’ I would give him tapes of Taylor and say, ‘Watch 56, that’s how you play this game.’ There’s no way this man should not be in the Hall of Fame.”
Peter King of CNN-SI stood up next and talked about some of the Hall of Fame highlights in LT’s 10-time Pro Bowl career.
“One time he put himself back in a preseason game when the Browns were moving to stop the Browns,” King said. “I was on the field at the end of the game. The Giants were up by three points and Marty Schottenheimer had put his first-stringers back to work on his two-minute offense. LT starts screaming, ‘Andy, Andy, Andy,’ to [Giant LB] Andy Headen, ‘Get the hell off, I’m coming in!’ Then LT launches himself 10 feet in the air to stop Kevin Mack or Earnest Byner, I can’t remember which one.”
King went on, “Our bylaws are very clear. Paul Hornung was thrown out [for one year] for gambling. Jimmy Brown was up for numerous assault cases and he made it. Bobby Layne was a ferocious drinker and he made it.”
Paul Zimmerman of SI stood up next. “The bylaws are clear,” Zimmerman said. “Do you determine that a gambler can make it but a guy who uses crack can’t? That a guy guilty of assault can make it but a guy who has trouble with child support can’t? Is that what we’re supposed to be? Are we a Morals Committee?”
Then Zimmerman said: “You’ve gotta be aware of this even though it sounds like a threat. I’ve been hearing this all week, and you’ve gotta think carefully about what you’re doing because if you deny him, then the whole process becomes suspect, and we become suspect. So to the world at-large out there we’re a bunch of [bleeps] who kept LT out.”
When Zimmerman was done, Dave Goldberg of the Associated Press chimed in: “There are worse felons in the Hall of Fame than LT. The damage he did was primarily to himself and to his family.”
Len Shapiro of The Washington Post raised his hand and suggested the anti-Taylor group have its turn.
Steve Schoenfeld of the Arizona Republic stood up. “I know I’m voting against the bylaws,” Schoenfeld said, “but I have a right to feel the way I do. If O.J. were up now, it would be a big story if he were voted in.”
Frank Luksa of the Dallas Morning News got up and Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution got up and said, “We should have the same thing as baseball. Why don’t we change the rules?” and it was decided that there would be a vote to change the rules later on. It would be rejected 24-11-1. Jerry Magee of the San Diego Union-Tribune stood up.
“To me the Pro Football Hall of Fame is a chamber for heroes,” Magee said. “Lawrence Taylor is not my idea of a hero.” Jacksonville radio man Sam Kouvaris went last.
A series of one-liners had erupted at various intervals. DiTrani said: “Just remember, he never did anything to embarrass the NFL on the field.” Don Pierson of the Chicago Tribune said, “To keep him out for breaking the rules, we would have to be breaking the rules.” When one naysayer said, “I don’t care about the bylaws,” he was greeted with, “Then you oughta resign from the committee.”
When it was over, Jerry Green of the Detroit News changed his key vote from nay to an abstention. Taylor issued a statement thanking Bill Parcells, the Giants and Giant fans. He claimed he had been humbled, so much so that he continued his push for the Pro Golf Hall of Fame on a local course. The anti-Taylor lobby sounded just as humbled.
Kouvaris: “Times have changed and that there is a certain social responsibility that I think is expected by the public in a lot of situations. I also think there’s a growing disconnection between players and fans.”
Schoenfeld: “I’m not sure that a guy with a drug problem belongs in the Hall of Fame. But I’m glad he got in. Glad for him. I just hope he knows where Canton, Ohio’s located.”
Whether he knows, LT deserves to be driven there in a limo. A Big Blue limo.
