Rams and Raiders: Animosity Hurting Both Teams

‘The Raiders impress you as an exciting, tough bunch of renegades who are going to find a way to win. The Rams are a team solving big proglems one by one with (Coach John) Robinson. Ed Hookstratten Los Angeles attorney ‘They’re (the Rams) kind of melting away. It’s almost as if they moved to San Diego. Little by little, the Rams are receding from the consciousness here and the Raiders are coming up.’ Jim Murray Times sports columnist For an exhibition game in Chicago last month, the Cubs and White Sox had a crowd of 42,000.

In Los Angeles each fall, the USC-UCLA football game is a sellout.

Other such rivalries over the years have successfully matched the Jets and Giants, the Dodgers and Angels, and, in their Oakland days, the Raiders and 49ers.

The Raiders and Rams, meeting in an exhibition game each summer, would draw 90,000 to 100,000 at the Coliseum or Rose Bowl, football people believe.

It’s a natural, they say. It would become a big traditional charity event in this community.

But it may never happen. For the last six years, the Rams and Raiders have found it impossible to get together for gin rummy or horseshoes, not to mention exhibition football.

Although the two teams have a regular-season date in Anaheim Dec. 23, they said again the other day that they have no plans to meet in an exhibition game this year--or any year.

The history of their hostility since 1979, the year of their last exhibition meeting, includes two key episodes:

--When the Raiders were new here, the Rams chose not to play them in the exhibitions that would help establish a rival as an L.A. team.

--When the Raiders had made it on their own--they have taken the lead in National Football League gross receipts since winning two recent Super Bowls--they concluded that they no longer needed the Rams.

Thus, smoothly, casually, the ownerships of both clubs could reject an event that would gross $2 million or more each year and net valuable midsummer publicity.

“Incredible, senseless,” said Steve Perkins, who edits the Dallas Cowboys’ weekly fan newspaper. “They’re both crazy.”

Said Beverly Hills attorney Ed Hookstratten, who has ties to both teams: “Their animosity is hurting both teams.”

The animosity has been building for years, growing out of one of the longest and oddest controversies a team sport has known.

It began with the relocation of the teams.

In 1980, when the Rams moved from Los Angeles to Anaheim, other NFL owners unanimously wished them well and let them go in peace--although the Rams’ historic constituency had been in West Side and Valley areas that are more than an hour away from Anaheim Stadium.

Later in 1980, when the Raiders decided to move from Oakland to Los Angeles, the other NFL owners reacted furiously and bitterly, forcing the club back to Oakland for two years.

And today, the fight goes on. It has grown into a unique, complex, three-sided fight:

--Raiders vs. NFL. Federal judges have been contemplating the relatively simple facts in this case for more than four years.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with lower courts that the NFL violated antitrust laws in not allowing the move, judges haven’t finally decided whether the league owes the club $34.5 million in damages, or more, or less.

--Raiders vs. Oakland. State judges still haven’t decided whether a social principle, eminent domain, should be applied to seize a privately owned sports enterprise.

Although neutral lawyers and historians say the activities of football teams were far from the minds of the framers of California’s eminent-domain statute, some judges still aren’t convinced.

--Raiders vs. Rams. Day in and day out, the NFL’s longest lasting fight is most visible on this level because it involves two unusual organizations headed by two of the league’s most unusual club owners, Georgia Frontiere and Al Davis.

Frontiere is the widow of Carroll Rosenbloom, the man who took the Rams out of the Coliseum. She is a former singer and chorus girl who, as his second wife, inherited the club when Rosenbloom drowned at age 72 off a Florida beach in 1979. Remarried, she has no background in football.

Davis, by contrast, has no professional life other than football. Unlike other NFL owners, he is a former football coach who still directs his team’s grand strategy and personnel development. Under NFL rules, Davis has the powers of a majority owner, but he holds only 27% of the club. It is basically owned by Oakland investors. Davis’ title is managing general partner.

Arrayed against the super-wealthy business tycoons who own most NFL clubs, Davis is, in the language of an acquaintance, “a plain, garden-variety millionaire.” Most of his fortune is in his share of a football team worth a total of perhaps $100 million.

Nonetheless, surprising his NFL opponents, Davis has more than held his own in the litigation league, winning every round so far in every court.

But who’s winning the fight for Los Angeles? Where do the Rams and Raiders stand today? Are the differences between the two organizations as great as they seem?

Those and other related questions were considered recently by a variety of sports figures. THE CITY

“The Rams lost something when they moved to Anaheim,” Dick Enberg said.

A former Ram radio announcer who now works for NBC-TV and the Angels, Enberg added: “When their team went away, Ram fans were left with a feeling of rejection. The Coliseum was their stadium--and for (West) L.A. people it’s too far to Anaheim. But the Raiders haven’t yet filled the void in L.A. They haven’t been here long enough to win acceptance.”

In other words, Enberg sees Los Angeles today as a football town in a state of transition, from Rams to Raiders.

“This is like going through a divorce,” he said. “You don’t love the first person anymore and you’ve got a new one now--and you like her a lot--but you aren’t sure you love her.”

Times columnist Jim Murray thinks it’s only a matter of time until the Rams disappear from Los Angeles.

“They’re kind of melting away,” he said. “It’s almost as if they moved to San Diego. Little by little, the Rams are receding from the consciousness here and the Raiders are coming up.”

Murray agrees with those who find Anaheim too distant from Van Nuys, Santa Monica and the 30 or 40 other L.A. population centers on the coast, in the near valleys, or in between.

“Going to Anaheim for a football game is an all-day project,” he said. “It’s like living in Malibu, which is G.U., as they say--geographically unsuitable.”

Melvin Durslag, Herald Examiner columnist who has been writing sports here for more than 45 years, thinks the Raiders have already won Los Angeles.

“And the Rams have won Orange County,” he said. “This isn’t a cross-town rivalry. The Rams call themselves a Los Angeles team, and try to create the illusion they are, but they’re an Orange County team. They represent what amounts to a big city. Today, in effect, Orange County is a major city with a population of two or three million.”

And so, of course, is Los Angeles.

“The Raider-Ram relationship is more like Washington and Baltimore,” Durslag said. “In no way is it a cross-town rivalry. The Angels and Rams don’t want to talk about this, but when Buzzie Bavasi was (with the Angels) he said 85% of their business came from Orange County. Any company doing most of its business in L.A. should keep in mind that the Rams and Angels are Orange County teams.”

That’s all right with Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who, when the Rams defected in 1980, launched the campaign that brought in the Raiders.

“We’re proud of the Raiders,” Bradley said. “They’ve made an enormous economic impact, they’ve provided an emotional outlet for us, and best of all, the youth work they’re doing in Los Angeles is just outstanding.”

THE AREA

Nearly a million ticket buyers paid an NFL-record $18 million to see the Rams and Raiders in home games last year.

The Raider gross, more than $10.2 million, was the largest in the league. The Ram gross, more than $7.7 million, was in the top seven.

What this suggests is that the L.A. area--which basically includes Los Angeles and Orange Counties--is America’s pro football hotbed.

The Rams and Raiders have both flourished in what is probably the world’s most competitive sports and recreational market--a market that has two or more of everything: baseball clubs, NBA teams, college football and basketball teams, beaches, deserts, mountains. In such a market, more than 90,000 pro football season tickets were sold last year--some of them to companies for distribution to employees and customers.

The Rams, with a 69,000-seat stadium, sold 47,800 season tickets.

The Raiders, with a 92,000-seat stadium, sold 44,000 season tickets and drew four crowds of 80,000 or more, including an NFL season-high 92,469 for Denver.

Nationally, both teams are almost immediately recognizable. Football fans everywhere are aware of their symbols--the Rams’ blue and gold horned helmet, and the Raiders’ black pirate shield.

Asked in 1983 why he wanted to be drafted by the Rams, running back Eric Dickerson said, “I’ve always liked their helmets.”

Said Ram public relations director Pete Donovan: “Any young football fan growing up in, say, the East is entranced by the Ram helmet mystique.”

Al LoCasale, the No. 2 Raider who functions regularly as both general manager and public relations director, said the organization’s pirate emblem was a natural after the team was renamed in 1960.

“The winner in the name-the-team contest that year was Senors,” he said. “But the Oakland Senors only lasted 48 hours, when they became the Raiders and adopted black and gold as their colors--along with an emblem similar to the present one.”

So Davis inherited the pirate symbol. But he altered the club’s colors.

“Al always admired black,” LoCasale said. “He likes silver better than gold, though--the Detroit Lions’ silver. So we’ve become the silver and black. College teams stress colors--purple or orange or Big Green or maroon and gold--but we’re the only pro team doing it. And we’re the only pro team without fancy uniforms. No lightning bolts here, no stripes. Just a plain, simple black jersey with a number.”

The formula hasn’t hurt. In the three seasons they’ve represented Los Angeles, the Raiders have a 31-10 record.

The Rams are 21-20 in that time, 19-13 under Coach John Robinson.

THE CLUBS

“They (the Rams and Raiders) are interesting because they’re different,” said Don Klosterman, former vice president of the Rams, now president of the USFL’s Los Angeles Express.

“There aren’t two more different teams in football. The Raiders want to be the toughest guys in town. The Rams just want to run over you with Eric Dickerson.”

Hookstratten, whose clients include Robinson and Raider halfback Marcus Allen, said: “The Raiders impress you as an exciting, tough bunch of renegades who are going to find a way to win. The Rams are a team solving big problems one by one with Robinson.”

The contrast in imagery between the two organizations is stark.

“It’s the Black Shirts (Raiders) vs. the White Collars (Rams),” said Merlin Olsen, the NBC broadcaster who was a Hall of Fame defensive lineman in his Ram days.

Jim Hardy, Coliseum general manager, said: “It’s the Black Shirts vs. White City.”

Enberg said: “The Raiders are the bad guys in black hats, the Rams the good guys in white hats. The Raiders convey aggressiveness and rebelliousness. The Rams, under Robinson, come across as a bunch of successful college men.”

When Ram publicist Donovan was asked how he combats the Raiders’ pirate symbolism, he said: “We market the Rams as a team with class, style, excitement and tradition. We also have the Hollywood connection. We’re farther from Hollywood than they are, but our connection extends back continuously from John Robinson to Roman Gabriel, Merlin Olsen, Bob Waterfield and Jane Russell.”

Dick Daugherty, a Pasadena businessman who played guard on the Rams’ last world championship team in 1951, said: “The Raiders are Patton’s army. The Rams don’t create as much excitement but they’re still the most intently talked about sports team in town.”

Said Klosterman: “The will to win burns deeper in the Raiders than anybody. But John (Robinson) does a great job of getting the Rams to play together.”

Hardy said: “Leadership has made the Raiders the dominant team of football. The difference is between Davis’ experienced leadership and Frontiere’s inexperience.”

Durslag said: “The only significant difference is at the ownership level. The Raider owner is an astute football leader. The Ram owner knows nothing about football.”

From a San Diego perspective, a Charger executive said: “When you think of the Raiders, you think of a successful one-man show (Al Davis), you think of great passing and great defense and winning. When you think of the Rams, you think of Eric Dickerson and John Robinson.”

From a Dallas perspective, Perkins, a veteran Texas NFL reporter, said:

“The difference is one of personality. The Raiders have been a gang of rebels for 20 years. And the Rams have always been a tough, contending but star-crossed team.

“Their coach is going to call the wrong play on the goal line or their quarterback is going to misread Pittsburgh’s middle linebacker in the Super Bowl. Or it’s going to come up raining on the day of a playoff against Minnesota in Los Angeles--where it never rains--but it did that day. The Rams have been snake-bitten for 30 years.”

What astonishes Perkins is that the Rams have lost one part of their image, the defensive part, which identified them for so many years under George Allen, Chuck Knox and Ray Malavasi.

“Teams almost never change image, personality, style,” Perkins said. “The Steelers are still the blue-collar defensive team they were under Jock Sutherland. The 49ers are still the razzle-dazzle, bang-bang, score-in-a-minute team they were with Frankie Albert. The Cowboys have always been a finesse team. But the Rams, mysteriously, are no longer the great defensive team they used to be. The change began when they let their best players go prematurely, Jack Reynolds and those guys.”

Klosterman said: “The Rams are only known for running the ball. The key is to feature defense, and (in the 1970s) we did. We were one of the three or four dominant defensive teams in the league.”

Olsen, one of the reasons for the defensive power and tradition of the Rams in the ‘60s and ‘70s, was asked about the change.

“I haven’t seen the Rams too often in recent years,” he said. “But speaking generally, it’s the performance of the talent that counts in football, not the quality of the talent. And the difference is usually made by motivation. I like what John Robinson is doing with the Rams, but he still has some personnel problems to solve.”

THE FANS

The fans have their opinions, too.

Sam S. Arico, a Los Angeles businessman who follows both teams, said: “There is as big a difference between Ram fans and Raider fans in this community as there is between the clubs. A lot of Raider fans are rowdy, noisy and aggressive. Ram fans are like their team--they’re more traditional.”

Hookstratten agreed. “Raider fans let it all hang out,” he said. “Ram fans are more subdued.”

Daugherty suggests that a psychologist should look into it. “The way the Raiders behave on the field rubs off on their fans,” he said. “And Ram fans today resemble today’s Ram team.”

Los Angeles old-timers characterize the average Raider crowd as unlike any others the city has known in the last half-century. Raider fans seem to have arrived at the Coliseum in black jackets on motorcycles, or in limousines--the limos from the West Side.

“Raider fans think of themselves not so much as spectators as participants,” Coliseum Manager Hardy said. “They’re an extension of the team up there in the seats. The very name of the team, Raiders, excites them. There are also a lot of sophisticates in a Raider crowd--more than the Rams used to draw. In fact, much of the Raiders’ support comes from people who never came to an NFL game before.”

A former Ram quarterback, Hardy sees another kind of fan at Ram games today.

“They don’t raise as much hell in Anaheim,” he said. “They’re staid, God-fearing, Orange County types.”

The unruliness of Raider fans can be overstated, in the opinion of Chief Jesse Brewer, who heads operations at the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau.

“I’ve had Raider season tickets for three years, and (the rowdies) don’t bother me,” Brewer said. “But it’s a fact that the Raiders do attract a lot of aggressive fans and some who are loud, vulgar and rude. They idolize Lyle Alzado, and fight a lot among themselves.”

The fights and other disturbances in the stands have brought a change in Coliseum security arrangements. The police force inside the stadium is growing proportionately faster than the patrol outside. During the Raider era, the police detail inside has been doubled, to more than 100 LAPD officers.

“On game day they’re paid by the Coliseum, but we feel we owe it to the citizens of this city to have them there,” Brewer said.

The detail outside the Coliseum, which includes a horse patrol as well as patrol cars and policemen on foot, has been consistently effective at Raider games, Brewer said.

“In the Coliseum area around the stadium, we’ve had a reduction in game-day crimes against both persons and property,” he said. “There were some Raider games last year when not one crime was reported. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any crime, but there wasn’t much.”

It’s a different matter inside.

“Two beers and they think they’re Alzado,” Brewer said.

THE MEDIA

Sportswriters visiting Los Angeles for pro games frequently describe the Raiders in these terms:

“They don’t even have a public-relations man. That’s the strangest thing about a strange club.”

The Raiders indeed may be the nation’s only big-time sports team without a PR department.

Neither Davis nor LoCasale will discuss either the media or their press relations, but in conversations with newspaper people and others for many years, they have made their position clear.

They object to giving any employee a public-relations title for these reasons:

--”PR guys feel they’re working for the media, not us,” a Raider executive once said. A good publicist can’t be trusted with club secrets because he won’t lie to the press.

--Focusing on winning, Raider employees spend no more than the minimum amount of time on media relations because “PR doesn’t help you win.”

--Following Davis’ instructions, everyone in the organization is to some extent a public relations person who makes himself or herself available to answer reporters’ questions.

Tom Flores, the coach, is more accessible to the press than most NFL coaches. So are his assistants and Raider players, as well as personnel director Ron Wolf and even club lawyers. A Raider attorney once returned a reporter’s call within the hour from Hawaii.

At Anaheim, by contrast, Ram public relations are handled by a conventional PR department with five full-time employees, including two executives, Donovan and Marshall Klein, plus an assistant, John Oswald; a secretary, Lillian Arbenz, and a speakers’ bureau director, Nancy Van Acker.

Except for Robinson, however, Ram executives are harder to reach than Raider executives. The No. 2 Ram, Vice President John Shaw, has been publicly described by beat reporters as shadowy. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

The Rams and Raiders both make their players accessible to the press. They are two of only 10 NFL teams that meet all three Pro Football Writers Assn. requirements--an open locker room during the week, a locker room open to women reporters, and game-day dressing rooms open to women.

“A Raider dressing room is a surprise the first time you see it,” said the Texas writer, Perkins. “You’ve been watching angry Raider players all day and now you expect them to sit by their lockers and bite and bark at you. But they turn out to be great guys, fun to talk to, and as obliging afterward as they were intimidating during the game.”

Describing network relationships with the Raiders, Enberg said:

“No organization does more to make their players available. They don’t have PR people, though, and don’t provide as much information as some clubs. At Pittsburgh and other places, they update the media guide each week so you’ll have fresh information. The Seattle PR guy, Gary Wright, sends you a videotape of last week’s game to help you prepare for this week’s. The Raiders don’t do things like that. The Raiders allow the media to do its job--they don’t do it for you.”

THE FUTURE

Most football people expect the Rams to keep pressing for a Raider exhibition series at the Rose Bowl but they doubt that the Raiders will come.

A Raider spokesman has said: “We fought the NFL to get into the Coliseum. Why should we leave it to play in the Rose Bowl? Why do that to our fans?”

In the opinion of some NFL observers, the Raiders are jockeying for a home-and-home Ram exhibition series in which a majority of the proceeds would be retained by the home club in alternate years.

Most NFL charity funds are raised another way--by the sale of products through the league’s marketing subsidiary, NFL Properties, which is wholly owned by the 28 clubs.

In the meantime, the Raiders, ignoring the Rams, have scheduled three Coliseum exhibitions this summer against the champion San Francisco 49ers, who were 15-1 last year; the runner-up Miami Dolphins, 14-2, and the Washington Redskins, 11-5.

“It’s the best preseason schedule I’ve ever heard of,” said Coliseum manager Hardy.

The Rams will play home exhibitions against the Houston Oilers, 3-13; the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-7, and the New England Patriots, 9-7.

In seasons ahead, the Raiders think they will need luxury boxes at the Coliseum to stay abreast of the Rams and other NFL clubs financially. The Rams have 108 such boxes in Anaheim.

Although the Raiders are first in the league in gross receipts, box revenue isn’t included in NFL grosses--meaning that it doesn’t have to be shared with visiting teams--and some clubs rent their luxury suites for an extra $2 million or $3 million a year.

“The Raiders should have had their boxes three years ago,” said Bill Robertson, who headed the Coliseum Commission campaign to get the Raider franchise. “The project has been delayed by the court cases. The Raiders haven’t wanted to invest in box seats with all the uncertainty.”

There isn’t a lot of wealth behind the Raiders, who are one of only four NFL clubs without a majority owner. The others are Green Bay, Dallas and the New York Giants.

Five years down the road, will the Rams or the Raiders be ahead in the battle for patronage in the L.A. area?

Said Murray: “You have to go with Al Davis. Al could spot a football player from the back of a moving train.”

Olsen said: “They’ll both do all right if they win. This is no place for a loser. Los Angeles is a town of spectators--not fans--and the spectators will go where the action is.”