Beggars Can’t Be Losers in Bay Area

There have been rumors for some time in the Bay Area that the Raiders, who haven’t yet won over the fans in Los Angeles, might return to Oakland if the Irwindale deal falls through.

Judging from the crowd reaction when the Raiders beat the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park this season, the fans would welcome them back with open arms.

Here’s a dissenting opinion from Glenn Dickey, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Like his football team, (Al) Davis has lost momentum. Approaching his 59th birthday, I doubt that he can regain it.

” . . . This is of interest to the Bay Area because of the constant rumors that the Raiders will return. Davis and his friends have done their best to keep these rumors coming. There is an East Bay newspaper devoted entirely to Raider news. Nowhere in the paper is there an indication of who is publishing it, or even an address. My suspicious mind tells me that it’s financed by Davis or somebody close to him.

“The question of whether the Raiders will return is less important than this one: Do we want Davis back?

“As a winner, Al Davis was barely palatable. As a loser . . . forget it.”

Trivia time: Who was the first full-time special teams coach in the National Football League? (Answer below).

Commissioner Michael Gilleran of the West Coast Athletic Conference will be married to Virginia Griswold Saturday afternoon in Seattle. In the morning, he’ll watch Loyola Marymount play DePaul on CBS.

“I vowed I wouldn’t get married until the WCAC got a game on network television,” Gilleran joked.

Friends said there is no truth to the rumor that the ceremony was moved back to 2:30 just in case the basketball game goes into overtime.

Flashback: It was 17 years ago today--Jan. 10, 1972--that the Milwaukee Bucks snapped the longest winning streak in major professional sports history by beating the Lakers, 120-104.

The Lakers had won 33 straight games and hadn’t lost since Oct. 31, 1971.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 39 points for Milwaukee.

No Wyche-acres: Coach Sam Wyche of the Cincinnati Bengals probably is hoping that all the pre-Super Bowl questions will be about San Francisco’s 26-21 victory over the Bengals in Super Bowl XVI, when Wyche was an assistant coach for the 49ers.

Wyche doesn’t want to hear about the worst nightmare of his coaching career, the 49ers’ 27-26 comeback victory over the Bengals in the second game of the 1987 season.

Trying to run out the clock with a 26-20 lead, Wyche called for a running play on fourth down deep in his own territory with 6 seconds left. James Brooks was thrown for a loss, stopping the clock with 2 seconds left and giving the 49ers one last play. Joe Montana hit Jerry Rice with a 25-yard touchdown pass with no time left, and Cincinnati never recovered on its way to a 4-11 season.

Trivia answer: Paul Lanham of the Washington Redskins, named by Coach George Allen before the 1973 season.

Quotebook

Earl Leggett, recently resigned Raider defensive line coach, on his son Brad, starting center at USC: “I thought he played great all year long. Then I watched him play in the Rose Bowl, and I wanted to choke him.”