Pro Football Becomes Too Costly to Laugh : Raiders: Former players look around and see current players without smiles, without stories.

Training camp isn’t what it used to be.

Not for the Raiders. Not for the old Oakland Raiders, who shake their heads at their Los Angeles counterparts and remember how it used to be.

Oh, it still looks the same on the field. Players run. Players sweat. Players hit. Players get hit.

But off the field, there’s something missing.

Like naked girls on horseback, electric trains and tanks.

Really. Tanks for the memories.

Several old-timers prowling the sidelines Monday at St. Edward’s University, where the Raiders are practicing this week with the Dallas Cowboys, agreed that today’s players have a lot more money, but don’t seem to have as much fun as they did.

“When I played in Philadelphia under Dick Vermeil,” said former linebacker Jerry Robinson, “it was all business. We didn’t have fun. There wasn’t any room for fun.

“I had to come to the Raiders to realize there’s another side to training camp. You can enjoy yourself and still win games.”

And enjoy themselves they did.

Stories of the Raiders at their old training site in Santa Rosa have become legendary.

At the center of some of the best was linebacker Ted Hendricks, who played for them from 1975 to 1983.

He was nicknamed the Mad Stork and for good reason.

One afternoon, the Raiders were working on the field when a horse came galloping down the sidelines with a naked girl astride.

The culprit was thought to be Hendricks.

Former Raider quarterback Jim Plunkett, now a club broadcaster, recalled a team meeting held one year on center Dave Dalby’s birthday.

“All of a sudden,” Plunkett said, “the door opened and in came this stripper that Hendricks had gotten. She started taking her clothes off right in the middle of an offensive meeting.”

Bob Chandler, another former Raider working as a broadcaster, remembered his first day of training camp with the Raiders.

Hendricks was also there, wearing a pumpkin for a helmet.

“We played not so much for the money,” Chandler said, “but because it was a great game. After playing with Buffalo, I couldn’t believe how much fun I had coming over here to the Raiders. I hadn’t had that much fun since high school. It was no-holds-barred fun and laughs.”

And it wasn’t just Hendricks. Those were the days of such free spirits as Ken Stabler, John Matuszak and George Buehler.

George Buehler?

He wasn’t really that unusual. Except for the tank.

He reportedly brought a remote-controlled toy tank to camp and would send it down to the office every day to pick up his mail.

“You have to understand about George,” said Plunkett of the offensive lineman who played from 1969-78. “He’s the kind of guy who would be in the huddle and you’d be calling the play and, all of a sudden, he’d look up and watch a plane go by.”

One teammate, whose name could not be recalled by those telling the story, went Buehler one better in the hardware department.

This teammate brought in an electric train and would run it, despite all the noise, at night, according to former Raider running back Charles Smith, whose son, Kevin, is now with the team.

There was Dave Casper, the former tight end, who started throwing every ball he caught one afternoon at training camp over a fence to a group of waiting kids.

Casper was told to stop it.

So he went out, caught another ball and threw that one over to the appreciative kids.

“In seven years with New England and San Francisco, I probably snuck out of training camp once,” Plunkett said. “My first week with the Raiders, I beat that record.”

Despite all the fun and games, or maybe because of it, the Raiders won three Super Bowls and fielded one powerhouse club after another.

Chandler believes it was partially because of the fun and games. Some people might think that the disappearance of all that wild behavior is not necessarily a bad thing, but Chandler and his contemporaries feel it was a good thing for team morale.

“I thought all these guys were crazy when I first got here,” he said. “But when you have that kind of camaraderie, it creates a lasting bond. It was a calculating kind of crazy.

“Hendricks knew what he was doing. He knew he had a role. And that was to keep people loose. So it was a calculating kind of crazy.

“And besides, he’d been crazy since college.”

What’s the difference today? Why does it seem to the old-timers that the laughs are rarer and harder to spot?

Even the practice of forcing rookies to get up on a table at mealtime and sing the fight song of their alma mater is being phased out.

All mentioned today’s big contracts as a prime factor.

“It has to be a big part,” Chandler said. “It forces you to do other things, to get involved in business.”

But Plunkett sees other factors.

“We would play ourselves into shape,” he said. “Now, it’s a 12-month-a-year job.

“You can’t get away with a lot of things because the coaches won’t put up with it. They’re making more money and their jobs are on the line.”

Plunkett was discussing the disappearance of much of the fun from the game, with another former player, Odis McKinney, on a bus in Kansas City last season.

“When we were done,” Plunkett said, “I looked around the bus and none of the players were talking. Not one person was talking to another. They all had headphones on.

“Right there, something was missing.”

And to those who were there in the old days, something is missing from training camp.

And it’s not just the tanks.