This Won’t Help Fan the Flames for Any Team

Who, what and where is the Los Angeles football fan?

Is the Los Angeles football fan someone who roots for the Anaheim team that used to play in Los Angeles?

Is the Los Angeles football fan someone who roots for the former Oakland team that currently plays in Los Angeles?

Did the Rams, who from 1937-45 played in Cleveland, take their L.A. football fans with them in 1980 when they moved to Orange County?

Did the football fans of Los Angeles abandon the Rams the exact minute they changed addresses, or was it two years later, when another National Football League team, the Raiders, hit town?

Or, did they stay true to the Rams, no matter where the team went?

Would a Raider football fan give or return his or her love to the Rams if the Raiders moved away, leaving the nation’s second-largest city without an NFL franchise?

(If such a prospect seems unfair, what is fair about Los Angeles having two pro basketball franchises and Orange County none?)

And hey, what about the Orange County football fan? Does he or she resent the fact that the Anaheim-based team continues to call itself the Los Angeles Rams? Or, is it best that the Rams stay true to the same name they have used proudly for 43 years?

We can tell you one thing, at least:

There is no such thing anymore as a “Los Angeles” football fan.

Los Angeles isn’t Los Angeles anymore. There are Dallas fans, Miami fans, New England fans, Chicago fans, but no L.A. fans. The species, long endangered, is extinct.

At least New Yorkers have had both of their teams, the Giants and Jets, pretty much from scratch, no matter which New York or Jersey stadium they called home. But imagine if the Washington Redskins moved to Baltimore, and later the New York Jets to Washington. Which team would the “Washington fan” then support?

That is what has happened to L.A.

A person must decide what matters most--geography, tradition, personnel, success, color of uniform, whatever--before choosing a favorite pro football team.

One factor that hasn’t helped the Rams much is that they have not won an NFL championship in 38 years, and only one since leaving Cleveland in 1946.

Perhaps they should be flattered that they have retained any followers at all.

The Rams are no longer Hollywood’s football team, even though their advisory board includes everyone from comedian Bob Hope and composer Henry Mancini to one of Ronald Reagan’s daughters and one of John Wayne’s sons. Owner and president Georgia Frontiere has a surprisingly low profile for someone with such a colorful resume, and gets little of the publicity or notoriety that Al Davis of the Raiders receives. Ram second-in-command John Shaw remains one of the most publicly invisible top executives in pro sports, more anonymous than an offensive lineman.

With the Raiders, the widely known Davis is referred to in the media guide as “president of the general partner,” whatever that means. There also are 10 limited partners, ranging from Eugene and Rita Boscacci to Wilfred Winkenbach, whoever they are. The average Raider football fan probably assumes that Davis is the team’s sole owner.

Since moving to Los Angeles, the Raiders have swung Hollywood’s spotlight from the Rams. While Howie Long has had soup commercials and Lyle Alzado and the late John Matuszak have had leading roles in action films, Ram players, former or current, have gone virtually unnoticed by advertisers and film makers. This was one of Eric Dickerson’s many gripes before being traded to Indianapolis.

Because of their successes and reputations on and off the field, a Raider player might be more appealing to a new NFL fan--say, a child--no matter where in Southern California this individual resides. There now are younger fans who still don’t know that the Rams ever played anywhere but Anaheim, just as there are Oakland children who like the San Francisco 49ers because there is nobody else nearby to like.

Then again, in a more conservative, clean-cut, Michael J. Fox-influenced generation, maybe the Rams are becoming more popular with young people. It hasn’t hurt the Rams any that they have had winning records in every season except one since 1982, while the Raiders have not had any winning seasons since 1985.

Attendance-wise, the Rams on three occasions topped the 100,000 mark at the Coliseum, including 102,368 for a 1957 game against the 49ers. They will never know how many they could draw in Orange County, because the 67,037 they pulled in for a 1984 game against the Giants had people standing in aisles and practically sitting on one another’s laps.

The Raiders have attracted three crowds of 90,000-plus at the Coliseum, and had 86,027 for last year’s visit by the Rams. Only three other Raider home games last season, however, drew crowds larger than 49,000, and 1989 exhibition-game attendance has dropped into the lower 30s. We can’t be sure how someone in the Southland decides which team to support, presuming he or she was born and reared here.

Perhaps there is even a rebel or two with an unusual cause--a Los Angeles football fan who remains loyal to the Chargers.

How many people have forgotten, or never knew, that the Los Angeles Chargers belonged to the American Football League in 1960? Their owner was Barron Hilton, the hotel king, and the league’s commissioner was Joe Foss, the former South Dakota governor.

On the day they defeated Denver for the AFL title, the L.A. Chargers drew 9,928 fans. Hilton took a $900,000 bath in his first year, and immediately moved the team to San Diego’s 34,000-seat Balboa Stadium.

Had Los Angeles people given these guys the time of day, maybe the Chargers would be Hollywood’s team today. Maybe Al Davis would have moved the Oakland Raiders someplace else--Salt Lake City, perhaps, or Las Vegas, or North Dakota.

Oakland actually was an 11th-hour replacement for Minneapolis as the eighth club in the AFL. Had there been no Oakland, there might have been no Raiders. The Rams today could have owned all of L.A.’s hearts and minds, as they did yesterday.

The Rams may be thought of as a conservative organization, but this was a team that 30 years ago acquired running back Ollie Matson from the Chicago Cardinals for nine players. The Rams were on everybody’s lips that day, much as they were two decades later, when they acquired Joe Namath, or three decades later, when the wild, three-team Dickerson trade came down.

Also, never forget the history-making move of 1972, when two owners, Carroll Rosenbloom of the Baltimore Colts and Robert Irsay of the Rams, traded their franchises to one another. In contrast, his acquisition of Dickerson 15 years later must have seemed to Irsay like small potatoes.

One cannot help but sense that football lovers, in Los Angeles and elsewhere, generally talk about the Raiders more than they do the Rams. Raider merchandise is seen far and wide, the world over, and during the last two decades they have had far more readily identifiable players.

The typical L.A. football fan need not support a losing team, as there is plenty else to do on Sundays in an area known for its weather and beaches and entertainment outlets.

Then again, the population of the greater Los Angeles and Orange County region is so huge, even a lousy team figures to attract something of a crowd. And, if the Raiders leave, a Ram ticket could become a lot more difficult to come by than it is today. Within a few years, circumstances permitting, the Rams could become one hot property.

And the L.A. Coliseum, in turn, could start bidding to bring the Rams back inside the city limits, which then would really turn the typical Los Angeles football fan into one confused individual.

There are a lot of scenarios to consider, including this one:

What if the Raiders elect to stay in Los Angeles, and Sacramento makes a bid for the Rams?

If you think it can’t happen, remember that there are still thousands of people in Ohio who thought they would never be abandoned by their beloved Cleveland Rams.

CHIEF EXECUTIVES

Carl Peterson, Marty Schottenheimer try to turn Kansas City around. Chris Baker’s story, Page 6.

RAIDERS SHIFT GEARS

A day after being cut, Otis Wilson and Mike Haynes return. Mark Heisler’s story, Page 7.