From Gravel Pit to Gridiron--It Has Worked Before

Pounding the sports beat . . .

Converting a gravel pit into a magnificent stadium? How did a crazy idea like that come about?

This is how it came about, as explained by Los Angeles newspaperman Zack Farmer:

“I was sitting at the rail of the old harness racing track . . . and I was suddenly blessed with an idea. In the center (of the track) was a hole where the State Exposition Board had extracted sand and gravel. . . . I wondered if the hole could be enlarged and the seats placed on the embankment, what would result.”

What would result from Farmer’s fantasy was the grand and glorious Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Now Farmer and the Coliseum are both dead.

Maybe, to make ends meet, the Coliseum Commission will go back to gravel digging. Maybe that’s the ironic fate of the Coliseum. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, gravel to gravel.

A question with no answer: Why do they keep score at National Football League exhibition games?

If Pete Rozelle is wily enough to dupe fans into paying real money to see these scrimmages, he’s just the man we need to spearhead the move to have professional wrestling introduced as an Olympic sport.

Isn’t it crazy how childish pro football players can be?

The New York Giants are whining about their stadium, and how playing there might be exposing them to a high risk of cancer, just because Giants players are getting the Big C and dying at an alarming and unexplainable rate.

OK, so maybe the stadium is built on a landfill that still belches out huge amounts of methane gas and God knows what else, and maybe one player did say of the water in the locker room showers: “Sometimes it’s yellow, sometimes it’s green, and it stinks.”

But does it glow in the dark?

Hey, just because players get scraped and cut, and grovel in the stadium dirt like hogs, then stand under these fetid rainbow showers to scrub up, and then a lot of them get cancer, is no reason to bad-mouth a nice stadium. What do the Giants think this is? Love Canal?

The people in charge of Giants Stadium assure us that there’s no link at all between the stadium and cancer. Furthermore, all this silly talk is bad for business.

Just to calm any unreasonable fears, though, I understand the players will be ordered to wear raincoats while taking showers.

The Rams almost had to move their home opener from a Sunday to a Saturday, to allow time for the field to be restored to playing condition for a Monday Angel game. But after a phone call from Pete Rozelle, Angel owner Gene Autry agreed to waive the 36-hour rule, while demanding several concessions.

The NFL must pay for any necessary ground repairs, the NFL will agree not to let this scheduling oversight happen again and the Rams and Minnesota Vikings must play the game barefoot.

It seems as if the Angels were being a little nit-picky on this matter. If they’re really as worried as they say about their field getting gouged and torn up, why did they let the Dodgers play there in the Freeway Series?

The morning crew at radio station KLSX decided Raiders Stadium was too boring a name for the team’s proposed Irwindale ballpark, to be built in an abandoned gravel pit. Listeners phoned in with suggestions, including:

Raider Crater . . . Davis’ Dump . . . The Davis Dugout . . . Raiders of the Lost Park . . . Big Al’s Cash & Quarry . . . Traitor Stadium . . . Mile Deep Stadium . . .

Not bad. But how about . . . The Rock, although there could be a copyright problem here if the NFL expands to Alcatraz . . . Assuming the new stadium will be kept neat and clean, the Tidy Bowl . . . Bland Canyon Stadium . . .

Or why not name it in honor of the man who made it all possible? Alexander (Stonewall) Haagen Stadium.

Too many speeders on your turnpike? Who ya gonna call? Bearbusters!

Illinois state police set up a speed trap last Saturday and nabbed nine Chicago Bears, who had just broken camp and were driving back to Chicago from Platteville, Wis.

Emery Moorhead earned the Chicago 500 pole position with a clocking of 86 m.p.h. Jim McMahon was in fifth place at 78 m.p.h., which is faster than you want your star quarterback to be going, especially on a skateboard.

Do opposing managers actually expect to catch New York Mets slugger Howard Johnson using a funny bat now?

With all the heat that’s been on HoJo for his alleged tampering, if he’s still using a doctored bat he’s got cork for brains.

The L.A. County Supervisors and the Army Corps of Engineers may not let the Raiders have land in Irwindale to build a parking lot for the new stadium.

Makes sense. The bureaucrats probably have big plans for that picturesque land. A golf course with real deep traps? A luxury condo resort featuring sunken living rooms? Renting out the pit to the New York Giants so they can store their stadium until it’s decontaminated?

Early favorites to throw out the first ball at Raiders Stadium:

Digger Phelps, Zazu Pitts, Steve Stonebreaker, Jerry Quarry, Rocky Balboa, Roberto (Manos de Piedra) Duran.

Based on the embarrassing results of the Pan American Games, the United States should begin work immediately on putting together an Olympic team in a brand new sport: synchronized basketball.