Team Jumped but the Town Never Did

What to do about Oakland? Here is a city with a serious case of unrequited love. Seven years after the Raiders walked out and abandoned the city for L.A., Oakland refuses to forget. The sad evidence is everywhere:

- This spring, when the errant Raiders announced that they would come home to the Oakland Coliseum for one game only, every seat in the stadium was sold in 2 1/2 hours . Mind you, this rush to the stadium was produced by a meaningless exhibition match to be played in the heat of August.

- The hottest newspaper in town is a little rag known as the Sportspage News. Perhaps unique in all journalism, the News covers every game, every player trade, every nuance of one team only: the jilting Raiders. With virtually no promotion and no support from the team itself, the News now has a paid circulation of 23,000.

- Earlier this year, when the Oakland Coliseum board proved reluctant to make an offer for the Raiders’ return, a coalition of furious fans threatened to put the issue on the city ballot and collected 48,000 signatures just to show they meant it.

Maybe poor Oakland is telling us something. Other cities, after all, give up pretty quick when their sports teams take a walk. Their ardor cools and soon turns to scorn or, worse yet, mere indifference. Does New Orleans remember the Jazz? Does Baltimore root for the Colts? Does anyone even know where the NBA’s Kings played before Sacramento?

But Oakland is different, and most likely for good reason. Some teams simply belong to one city; they flourish there and the whole thing works like a good marriage. There are not many of these matches, just like there are not that many good marriages, so when you have one it is best to hang on. And that, I think, is the situation we have here.

Just consider Oakland. This is a city that has always lived in the shadow of San Francisco. Oakland never got the glamour jobs or the big money. While San Franciscans shuffled paper in their skyscrapers, Oakland was left with the heavy lifting, the railroad jobs and merchant shipping jobs. After World War II, its downtown fell into squalor and Oakland seemed headed for a future as bleak as Detroit’s.

But that didn’t happen. In 1963, the Raiders showed up and they were outsiders, too. The Raiders were a bunch of big bruisers with no finesse whatsoever, just like Oakland. Even the team colors seemed right; silver and black matched the Oakland grime.

And the Raiders won and won. By the end of the Oakland period, the Raiders had become the most successful team in NFL history on the field and one of the most successful financially. They sold out 156 consecutive games, about 11 years worth. And Oakland, slowly, began to recover as a city. It became an identifiable place, something other than the back door of San Francisco.

Now I’m not claiming that the two are necessarily linked. But let’s compare that history with the Raiders’ Los Angeles epoch. Last year on opening day, the Raiders played the Chargers and drew 39,000 fans. That means that the Los Angeles Coliseum was not quite half full. And over the last three seasons, the Raiders have become just another loser in the NFL. In those three years they have won nine games at home.

I use the term “home” here advisedly. Because Los Angeles isn’t, and never has been, a home to the Raiders. The match didn’t work here for the same reasons it did work in Oakland. Los Angeles simply doesn’t have the heart for a blue-collar, outlaw team like the Raiders.

Los Angeles, in fact, seems to pour out its affections for teams that are quite the opposite of the Raiders. Finesse teams, nice-guy teams. It’s easier to keep your cool with teams like this, easier to keep your distance, and Los Angeles likes to keep its distance. Is anyone more polite than Magic? And has there ever been a team as easy to like, and as hard to love, as the Dodgers?

As for the Raiders, most likely it’s naive to think that they might return to Oakland simply because they belong there. Al Davis, the Raiders’ owner, still may settle his differences with the L.A. Coliseum or, God help us, with Irwindale. And there’s always Sacramento, hungry to prove itself in the big leagues.

But the deal reportedly being offered by Oakland is not so bad. The Raiders would get an enlarged Coliseum, new training facilities and millions in cash or even some waterfront land. That’s far more than anyone produced for the Raiders in L.A.

And there would be dramatic justice. Oakland, which has scratched and clawed its way back to respectability, would be the first city ever to win its team back. The Black Sundays would return, and just maybe the Raiders would find the wherewithal to be Raiders once again.