What We All Need Is Some Indoor Football

A few of us were standing around the other night, and somebody happened to mention the irony that here we were heading into summer, the time of year when you’d most like to get outside and go see a game, and we didn’t have any local team to cheer for. June, July and August were coming. What we were supposed to fill them with?

Naturally, we started talking about what kind of sports team we’d like here, what kind made the most sense for one of the 10 largest markets in the country. Of course it couldn’t be baseball. We’d all read in the paper that baseball was passe. The signs, like the cicadas, were everywhere:

In The Washington Post’s Sunday op-ed section two weeks ago, someone wrote about the difficulty in giving away tickets to a Baltimore game 45 miles away, and concluded therefore that baseball had no future in Washington. Hard to argue with logic like that.

Just last Saturday, in the letters section, some ageist argued against baseball and for soccer, dismissing baseball as “more for the slower, older generation,” while soccer--the sport of the ‘80s, as we all know--was “a new generation sport.” (It’s a good thing I sat down to read it; standing and reading causes those in my slower, older generation to keel over.) I’d like to ask this sports wizard a question: Did the NASL die, or is it sleeping?

For years I listened to soccer optimists promise, “Just wait ‘til these kids grow up,” the assumption being you couldn’t build a stadium large enough to hold all the soccer fans being bred. Well, they’ve grown up. They’ve got cars of their own and money to spend, and if you look carefully you can see them driving to Baltimore to watch baseball. So, soccer’s the “new generation sport.” Do tell. Who would this guy have as commissioner, Gary Hart? Or should he just be awarded the Bimini franchise?

Anyway, baseball was out. So were hockey and basketball. They’re not summer sports, not here anyway. It starts to get warm around the first week of the NHL and NBA playoffs; as soon as it does the Capitals and Bullets get eliminated.

Then it hit me. What we desperately need in this area is more football. We don’t have any football between minicamp and training camp. That’s almost two full months without football! And obviously summer football has to be indoors, because there’s nothing better on a hot day than to drive 500 miles to Capital Centre to see football played by eight men on a field that’s 50 yards long. So let’s hear it for the Arena Football League and our own Washington Commandos.

(Forgive me for this commie-pinko-lefty comment, but Commandos? There are four teams in the league: the Bruisers, the Dynamite, the Gladiators and the Commandos. The fans that come up with these names, are they locked in a screening room and shown nothing but Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Milius and Chuck Norris movies? My own preference was for the Rugskins entry, but I guess it would have had a better chance were it submitted as the Screaming Killing Smack Your Mama In The Face Rugskins.)

We seem to have a trend here with these central-ownership, four-team, six-game-schedule, everybody-makes-the-playoffs leagues. You’ll remember the Eagle Box Lacrosse League last winter operated the same way. Our team was the Washington Wave, named presumably for the nearby (if you’re on a Harrier jet) Atlantic Ocean. The TV commercials for that league stressed the body contact aspect of box lacrosse, giving the impression that anyone with an IQ higher than a raspberry might rather sit this dance out. Perhaps the Commandos could scrimmage the Wave, with the winner challenging some Third World country to a steel cage wrestling match.

A question: Since the Arena Football League field is only 50 yards long, what’s the key statistic, your time for the 20?

I’m not sure what kind of future the Arena Football League will have. (What happens if the USFL comes back as the Donald Trump One Buck Buys You A Hot Town Summer In The City League?) I see at least one of the coaches, Ray Jauch, is hedging his bet. Jauch probably learned a lesson from the original USFL, where, you’ll remember, he was the guiding hand of our beloved Federals when owner Berl Bernhard accused them of playing “like untrained gerbils.” It wasn’t long after that memorable characterization that Jauch was fired.

His Washington experience might explain why he’s coaching the Chicago team in the Arena League, not the Commandos, even though he lives in Northern Virginia. Anyway, Jauch isn’t exactly bullish on the Arena League. He’s called it “kind of a summer job”--like parking cars at a beach club, I guess--and intends to return as head coach of Washington-Lee High School in the fall. Somehow I can’t picture Gene Shue going to the Los Angeles Clippers while trying to keep an option open at Crofton High School.

Some more questions: Will Bob Slater make his Washington area debut for the Commandos? Will the Commandos sign QB Kurt Beathard in the hopes his daddy will toss them some bones? Is this league made for Tory Nixon, or what? Did somebody say Brian Davis? How many of you think of California Coolers when you hear that the Arena League will play eight men at a time and encourage players to go both ways? Couldn’t the Commandos work a deal where Mark Moseley could kick for them and they’d get him stall space at Capital Centre for his 5,000 businesses?

One last thing, a plea to the one man the Commandos absolutely, positively ought to have: Babe, phone home.