Rams Sample Traffic Jams--Both Here and in Tokyo
Getting here from there was quite an accomplishment for the Rams, who managed in one continuous travel sequence to get held up by rush-hour traffic in two of the world’s most populous cities.
No one said spreading good will would be easy. And it wasn’t. The team boarded buses in Anaheim for Los Angeles International airport at 9:30 a.m. Monday and didn’t arrive at its Tokyo hotel until 6 p.m. Tuesday evening. Did you ever wonder where the day went? The trip took 16 1/2 hours, with another 16 hours lost in time difference.
The Rams are here, of course, to play the San Francisco 49ers in American Bowl ‘89, the first National Football League game on Japanese soil since St. Louis played San Diego in 1976. That game went over like spoiled sushi.
This one, however, promises to be different. In fact, the Korakuen Tokyo Dome, capacity 43,000, sold out less than 48 hours after tickets went on sale. The best seats in the dome were snatched up for 30,000 yen, or $225. The average ticket price is about $90.
But the Rams are really here because of owner Georgia Frontiere, who has made it her passion to spread word of the Rams to the four corners of the world.
This is the team’s second overseas trip in three years, the Rams having played Denver in London in 1987.
It is widely known that Frontiere was greatly disappointed in 1986 when her team was passed over for the first American Bowl in London, which featured Dallas and Chicago.
But it seems there’s no stopping her now. There’s already talk of the Rams playing an exhibition game next season in Milan, Italy, or possibly Germany. Frontiere, who hasn’t granted an interview with newspaper writers for years, agreed after Tuesday night’s news conference to speak briefly with the two Southland writers who had made the Tokyo trip.
“I think it’s wonderful to spread the good will, don’t you?” Frontiere said when asked why she has pushed so hard for international trips. “It is good will between nations. I think it brings us closer together, to be able to play a game that we enjoy and they’re learning.”
Frontiere, who maintains a winter home in England, said that her late husband, Carroll Rosenbloom, who owned the Rams until his death in 1979, had long tried to introduce American football to the English.
“One day, we were riding in the country and the sky was full of paratroopers,” she recalled. “And they said, ‘That’s from the American bases.’ Then we we went by and visited the base. They said, ‘Why don’t you bring American football over here?’ ”
Finally, Frontiere did. And now she envisions the Rams making annual trips to foreign lands.
Ram Notes
The team’s scheduled practice at Oda Field on Wednesday was moved inside to the Tokyo Dome because of heavy rains. . . . Because their contract problems have not been resolved, Ram players tailback Greg Bell, offensive linemen Robert Cox and Duval Love, tight end Damone Johnson and the team’s two first-round picks, Bill Hawkins and Cleveland Gary, did not make the trip. The 49ers are missing nine players: guard Guy McIntyre, defensive ends Larry Roberts and Kevin Fagan, quarterback John Paye, tackle Steve Wallace, cornerbacks Tim McKyer and Don Griffin, linebacker Charles Haley and safety Jeff Fuller.
