Musical Stadiums: Are Rascally Rams Merely Playing Games?

Grotesque rumor of the week has the “Los Angeles” Rams, one of this vicinity’s two inappropriately named pro football teams, moving into the Coliseum as soon as the “Los Angeles” Raiders move out.

Of all the absurd developments of recent days, this one takes the cake. We have heard it all now, unless at some later date the Rams decide to move to Oakland.

Not only would the Raiders become the National Football League’s gravel-pit, garbage-pail kids, way out there in Irwindale where the air is silver and black, but the Rams would return to the cuckoo’s nest from which they previously flew, letting bygones be bygones and leaving Anaheim with nothing but Angel baseball, truck pulls and Billy Graham crusades.

Why in the world the Rams ever would want to get re-acquainted with the wacky Coliseum Commission--or, as most of us have come to think of it, the Coliseum Now You Don’t Commission--is beyond all comprehension.

One would think the Rams would rather play their home games in the La Brea tar pits or in the Cal Worthington Ford parking lot than set foot in the Coliseum again.

Evidently, though, those madcap Coliseum Commission rascals intend to put the moves on the Rams, as their way of getting even with the Raiders for turning into traitors.

And, evidently, the Rams are willing to listen. Broad hints are being dropped all over the place. The Rams have had their differences with the Angels, see, over the use of Anaheim Stadium, so even though their lease there has about 35 years to run, the Rams might not be afraid to look for loopholes.

Imagine the folly of the California Rams moving back into Los Angeles and leaving everybody without an NFL team in thriving, booming, prosperous, supportive Orange County.

Can’t happen.

Mustn’t happen.

What a crime it would be for the Rams to flee their followers like that. It is bad enough that the two (cough) “Los Angeles” teams already warrant a reputation as two of the greediest franchises in NFL history, doing anything and going anywhere for a buck. For the Rams to return to the Coliseum, though, that should be an invitation to Orange County season ticket-holders that the time finally come to check out the San Diego Chargers.

Trouble is, if the Rams do want to blow that pop stand known as the Big A, they do not have many alternatives, unless somebody has built a 70,000-seat stadium near John Wayne Airport that no one else knows about.

Reportedly, when the Rams moved to Anaheim in the first place, their intention was to use part of the parking lot and adjacent property for other purposes, such as an office complex. The Angels, meanwhile, had another use in mind for the parking lot. They wanted to park cars on it.

Since then, a sort of coolness supposedly has developed between the two clubs, although Gene Autry certainly was nice enough to step aside and permit Georgia Frontiere’s guys to play their home opener on the scheduled date, after a conflict developed. The Cowboy always did know how to treat a lady.

It wasn’t until this Irwindale business popped up, however, that the possibility of the Coliseum swapping home teams was broached. Come to think of it, the way they run the Coliseum, that’s probably what they should use it for from now on--swap meets.

Out in Irwindale, the steam shovels and bulldozers have been busy, busy, busy as they try to get Fred Flintstone Memorial Stadium ready in time for a 1989 or 1990 grand opening. Al Davis already has a check for $10 million in his pocket, and unless somebody ups it to 20 mil in the meantime on the condition that he move the franchise to Tijuana, we can count on the Raiders vacating the Coliseum.

Of course, the parking lot poses a problem for this team, too, since the people who own the land out there in Skull Canyon are threatening not to let the Raiders’ fans park their cars on it. They can’t block the construction of the stadium, but apparently they can make sure that the only way you can get to a Raider game is to hitch-hike.

Nice place we have here to watch pro football, Southern California. Not only do we have to worry about where to park when we get to the game, but we have to worry about getting shot on the freeway on the way there.

In case we haven’t gotten the message across, we do not want the Rams to move to the Coliseum. We do not want them even to drop hints about it or joke about it. We want them to stay where they are now, where they belong.

And, at least one of these teams ought to give some thought to changing its name. California Raiders or California Rams, take your pick.

By the same token, fair being fair, the Coliseum’s last remaining tenant will have to become the University of Southern California at Los Angeles: USCLA.