Ciao to the Chardonnay Raiders

I like watching football as well as the next guy, requiring as it does no special capacity to think, evaluate or otherwise rise to new heights of intellectual or spiritual achievement.

Those who repair washing machines can enjoy the sport on an equal basis with Ph.Ds in astrophysics, jumping and shouting with the airy enthusiasm of children at play.

There is an egalitarian quality to the sport, much as there is to a religious gathering, and all can gather to pray or cheer regardless of race, creed or an ability to read and write.

When the cheering or praying ends, we go our separate ways, of course, but at least our souls have touched for a moment like angels in flight, and there might be something to be said for that.

But I ask you: Is any group of young men whose only obvious talents lie in their ability to run, kick, block or catch worth about $200 million to keep in town?

I think not.

I refer, of course, to efforts under way to persuade the Raiders to remain in Los Angeles--including Wednesday’s offer to rebuild the Coliseum--or at least to replace them with another football team of equal virtuosity.

That shouldn’t be difficult, since they’ve been playing like zombies most of the seven years they’ve been in L.A. Even in moments of triumph they manage to seem incredibly dull. How expensive should zombies be?

It isn’t just the won-lost record I’m talking about.

The Raiders never belonged here in the first place. They were champions in Oakland, a town that still drinks boilermakers, but wilted like roses in the desert in a city that sips white wine.

Wasp-witted Jerry Belcher, who had a name for everything, began referring to them as the Chardonnay Raiders when they came to L.A., such was the languor of their style under the palm trees.

In their days up north, the team won a reputation for being quick and rough and giving no quarter. If football is a game of Christians and lions, it was best to be lions, and the Raiders were just that.

Theirs was a survival syndrome that reflected the city in which they were born and in which they rose to new heights of Sunday violence.

Ain’t that what sport is all about?

Oakland grew up using its back rather than its wit, and thrives today because it has never stopped struggling. It’s a town that eats steak, not quiche, and would still rather see Tempest Storm twirl her tassels than Jane Fonda flatten her behind.

When the Raiders left in 1982, it was like Oakland’s heart had been ripped out. Almost everybody seems to leave Oakland. Even Amelia Earhart took off one day and never came back.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, is big and rich and loaded with more of everything than St. Elvis has disciples, and the Raiders reflect that. We don’t struggle, we do lunches. We don’t take chances, we take meetings.

We shuffle around in Gucci loafers, boost our egos with silicone breast implants and would rather die than do without a tummy tuck.

L.A. is oat bran, Oakland is a baloney sandwich. L.A. is Sunset Boulevard, Oakland is East 14th Street. They founded the Hell’s Angels, we gave the world the Flying Nun.

The Raiders belong in a town that sweats and spits, not in one that watches its complex carbohydrates. I say send them sailing back to Oakland with a tippy-fingers high five and wish them raw meat for lunch off the Nimitz Freeway.

Now about that $200 million that seems so readily available to build a new stadium and to sweeten the tea of the team that occupies it. We don’t need another football team to enhance a city’s big-league style.

The Anaheim Rams are near enough to satisfy any residual urge for a bunch of guys who can crack heads and break legs with impunity. We’ve got bone-crushers enough.

What we don’t have is a full medical facility dedicated to the cure of AIDS and to the treatment of its victims.

What we don’t have is adequate housing facilities for those on the streets, or enough places to feed the hungry in an economically lopsided society.

Our list of needs would light the fires of hell for eternity, but the alleviation of those needs could brighten heaven beyond time.

Channeling money to alleviate despair won’t result in bankable profit. No one’s going to get rich. But it would enhance the city’s image as big league in a way that football never could. It would be an investment in human resources that not even a touchdown in the Super Bowl could surpass.

So ciao to the Chardonnay Raiders. Let them go back to Oakland or to wherever the caprice of cash takes them, while we ponder the value of the money we were willing to spend to keep them . . . and come out winners without them.