Sound Off! : Say It Ain’t So, Say Fans of Rams

Morris and Anna Bernstein had made their usual trek from Las Vegas for the Rams’ Wednesday night game. At Anaheim Stadium, the faithful fans reacted to word that the football franchise might return to Los Angeles.

“Oh God, no! That’s awful!” said Anna Bernstein, as the couple waited in line to buy tickets at the Big A box office Wednesday afternoon.

“Georgia (Frontiere, owner of the Rams) wouldn’t do that, would she?” asked Morris Bernstein. “Oh, that’s a bummer. Anaheim would come up with more bucks to keep them here, wouldn’t they? I’d have to go (to Coliseum games), but I just hope they don’t move. I don’t like the Coliseum, anyway.”

The Bernsteins weren’t the only Rams fans at the stadium who were alarmed at news reports that team officials have asked for talks with Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum officials about a possible return to the playing field they left in 1980.

Season-ticket holder Barry Bjorkman said a move from Anaheim Stadium would be a catastrophe. “My seats are in the front row, the south end zone,” he said, holding up his tickets as proof. “I just love ‘em. I’m 4 yards from the touchdowns.”

And Bjorkman was one of many who just didn’t believe it.

“I think it’s a big hoax. I hope it is. I think, if anything, it’s a ploy (by Coliseum managers) to get the (Los Angeles) Raiders to reduce their demands,” he said.

(The Los Angeles Raiders have threatened to move from the Coliseum to Irwindale.)

Jerry Greene of Huntington Beach felt betrayed: “I think it’s terrible. I followed them pretty closely for four years. Now I’m a pro football fan and they’re gonna move?

“I went to a Dodger game last night; that’s a heck of a drive into L.A. Well, I’ll still watch them on TV.”

Much of the reaction Wednesday centered on negative perceptions about the Coliseum and the neighborhood surrounding it.

“I don’t like going to the Coliseum,” said Ken Larson of Yorba Linda. “It’s not a safe neighborhood. It’s always an adventure going to a game there. I’d see the Raiders in Irwindale before I’d see the Rams in the Coliseum.”

Herb Wilkins of Whittier took time out from a tailgate gathering to say the Rams would be making a big mistake. “Strategically and marketwise, it would be stupid. Nobody’s going to do what we’re doing (at the Coliseum) unless they’re carrying guns. It’s going to take all the fun out of a football game.

“(Anaheim Stadium) is designed for the suburbs. The L.A. Coliseum isn’t designed for anything. Now the Rose Bowl, there’s a place you could go to a game with style.”

One season-ticket holder, who asked that his name not be used, said he would like to tell Rams Vice President John Shaw to “be happy with what he’s got. The grass on the other side of the fence could be rye.

“I think it’s the pits,” he added. “No way would I go back there (to the Coliseum). . . . You’re afraid to walk out of the Coliseum after dark.” And besides that, he said, it’s “a 50-year-old stadium.”

Steve Fleming, who was rushing back to work Wednesday after buying game tickets, said he found the reports incredible. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “They’re making too much money here (to consider moving).”

Mike Hampton of Tustin took a resigned attitude. “I’ve got 12 tickets for here, but I’d go there if I had to,” he said.

The men behind him in line were less concerned.

“I’m a 49ers fan,” said Mike Hampton of Fresno. “I just happen to be down here. I’m gonna be rooting for Denver.”

“You know why they got problems?” asked Hampton’s friend Joseph Arredondo of San Diego. “They been chokin’ the last four years. They’d have this place filled. It’s stupid to leave. It’s a beautiful stadium.”

“It’s money,” Hampton said. “It’s always about money.”

Cousins Robert and John Warren from Downey were more amused than alarmed.

“It’s just bizarre,” Robert Warren said.

“They’d really be the L.A. Rams again,” his cousin said.

“I’d like ‘em back in the Coliseum,” Robert Warren said. “It’s better set up for football.”

“Except they serve hard liquor here,” John Warren said.

“Who cares where they play, as long as they win,” Robert Warren said.

James Uranga of Diamond Bar was skeptical: “It’s just a fake way to get more here. I would venture to guess there would be another team here in a week.”

If the team were to move, Uranga predicted, “They would lose the L.A. Rams fans. I wouldn’t go there--not in my car, somebody else’s.”

Times staff writer Gene Wojciechowski contributed to this article.