Plunkett Not Ready to Plunge Into the Throes of Retirement

OXNARD — Jim Plunkett almost announced his retirement the other day.

This was as close as he got:

“I would like to end it this--no, I hate to say that. I’ll play this year and see what happens.”

He can’t even say the R word. For the hundreds of teammates who’ve come and gone in his 16 pro seasons, it’s r-e-t-i-r-e. But to Plunkett, it’s a-n-a-t-h-e-m-a.

Is this buzzard tough or what? He’s 40, he was out all last season and told he wouldn’t take a snap in mini-camp, which hardly qualified as a good omen. Still, when Marc Wilson signed with the Green Bay Packers, changing the picture in Plunkett’s favor yet again, he was waiting like a puppy on the doorstep. Tenacity triumphed once more and its name is Plunkett.

Didn’t it ever occur to him, say in June, that this might be a good time to call it a c-a-r-e-e-r?

“No,” he said, grinning. “I’m looking for a little crease in the door. At this point in my career, that’s what I have to do.

“(Laughing) I almost got my fingers slammed, but . . .

“What choice did I have?”

Of course, money and glory are involved, but the job isn’t the unmitigated fun you might think. People try to tear your limbs off and sometimes almost succeed. You know you have to leave sometime. All your old comrades are gone.

Most of your recent comrades are gone, too.

“Dave Dalby, of course,” Plunkett said. “Ted Hendricks, Rich Martini. Art and Uppy (Art Shell and Gene Upshaw) in the old, old days. It was a pretty tight group way back when. That’s changed, too.

“One of the last close ones was Kenny Anderson (of the Bengals, drafted in the first round with Plunkett, Archie Manning and Dan Pastorini in 1971). We were talking about it when we played Cincinnati a couple of years ago in an exhibition. I said, ‘Geez, I can only go out and drink beer with one guy on another team I know real well.’ ”

So he makes other friends.

Of course, the dialogue changes, of necessity.

“It’s ‘Old Man,’ ‘Old-Timer,’ ” Plunkett said.

“Like Scratch--Steve Strachan. When I threw him his first TD pass in the NFL, he was so ecstatic. He said when he was growing up in Massachusetts, they used to fight over who was going to be Jim Plunkett in the street football games.”

It isn’t a cannon arm or colt legs that have kept Plunkett around for so long. Physically, he may be the least-gifted man to have played the position for the Raiders in this decade, but it’s 1988 and he’s still in the game.

A veteran quarterback offers a whole dimension by itself. Is Mike Shanahan changing the offense? Plunkett beat him to it the year the Raiders won their last Super Bowl--not to mention their last postseason game.

“It was against Seattle in the AFC championship,” Plunkett said. “They had kicked our butts twice. Even without telling the coaches, I went to each receiver and told them, ‘Instead of running 12 yards out, you run 9 to 10 and you expect the ball. And instead of running your 15- to 17-yard hooks, you run 14-yard hooks and the ball’s going to be on its way.’

“I wasn’t going to help us lose that game by turning the ball over and getting sacked. I was going to get rid of the ball. I could do that. At least, I could then. Here, it’s a little more structured.”

Plunkett said he told then-coach Tom Flores about it afterward.

“He didn’t care as long as we won,” Plunkett said. “That was the old Raider philosophy--just win. Doesn’t matter how you do it.”

One Raider player has suggested that that was the difference between Plunkett and Wilson: Wilson would do what he was told by the coaches. Plunkett might come off and say, “I threw that interception, but you told me to run that play and I’m not running it again.”

Plunkett and Wilson, who played musical chairs from 1983-86, had only a polite relationship.

Wilson had been given the big contract and Plunkett’s job. If you suspect that Plunkett cared enough about who played and who didn’t to get angry, you’d be right.

“Oh, maybe I resented a little bit of both (Wilson’s contract and his promotions) at times,” Plunkett said.

“I always felt I should have been the starter a couple of years ago, coming back off my dislocation in ’85. In ‘83, I was replaced when we were 5-2. Part of that was public sentiment and the press that helped waver Tom.

“I certainly felt slighted, to say the least.”

What good would it have done to say anything? He just wanted to play again.

So Plunkett hung on. After losing the job in ‘83, he returned for the injured Wilson to lead the Super Bowl drive.

After suffering the dislocated shoulder at age 37 in ‘85, he returned to take the job back from Wilson late in ’86.

After undergoing shoulder surgery and sitting out the entire ’87 season at 39, he’s back again.

Raider officials whisper that he could even make it back to the starting lineup, the inferences being several:

--They’re only going so far with Vince Evans.

--They don’t want to rush Steve Beuerlein if they have a choice.

--They don’t want to deal.

Plunkett’s contemporaries have all become civilians. Remember his college batterymate, Randy (the Rabbit) Vataha? The Rabbit is an associate of Boston-based agent Bob Woolf, and negotiated the contract of the Raiders’ Scott Davis, the team’s third first-round pick.

Is Vataha surprised?

Not in the least.

“Jim’s patient,” Vataha said from Boston. “He’s seen it all. He’s not going to panic.

“He’s been released by the 49ers and gone to the Super Bowl.”

What does this game have left to show him?

What does he have left to offer it?

Something, evidently.

“I love this,” Plunkett said. “I’ve been doing it for 26 years. I’ve been putting on pads for that long and I enjoy it. I mean, I really get a thrill out of it.”

He had just finished a morning practice and had run 2 miles. If you look at it right, camp is just like a free membership in a sports club, but with tension and without women in aerobic outfits.

The Plunk-quest continues. Every two years or so, Al Davis goes east to install another of his players in the Hall of Fame, but a Raider as remarkable as any remains behind, clinging to his livelihood. If they want him out of here, they can carry him out cleats-first, or forget it.