THE RAIDERS: BACK TO OAKLAND : Commission Dropped Ball

The search by Los Angeles for a professional football team to replace the Rams, who fled to Anaheim for big stakes, begins in 1979 with a telephone call from Max Winter, then owner of the Minnesota Vikings, to your beloved correspondent, then a columnist at the Herald Examiner.

“I am seriously interested in moving to L.A.,” says Winter. “Who is the guy I talk to?”

He is directed to labor leader Bill Robertson, at the time a Coliseum commissioner in charge of the football search committee. Winter flies to L.A., bringing with him Mike Lynn, his general manager. Their meeting with Robertson takes place at my house, rent-free, but I get concessions and parking.

“We are trying to get a dome in Minneapolis and the opposition is heavy,” Winter explains. “If we don’t get it, we definitely will move to Los Angeles.”

He and Robertson shake. But the Vikings get their dome.

Gene Klein, late owner of the San Diego Chargers, is then heard from. Gene at the time hates San Diego, and the contempt is mutual. Beefing with the stadium authority there, he holds up payment of his rent. A glaring headline in the local paper reads:

“PAY YOUR RENT, MR. KLEIN!”

“If I can get out of my lease, I’d love to move to L.A,” Klein tells us.

Now a recognized procurer, we introduce him to Robertson at a football game at the Coliseum.

“I have six lawyers going over the lease,” Klein tells Robertson. “We’ll see what happens.”

Apparently, all six inform him that the lease is airtight, because he stays in San Diego, where he later gets popular.

With Joe Robbie, late owner of the Miami Dolphins, and Bob Irsay, owner of the Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts, the L.A. search committee has a short dance, after which we do something for which Al Davis, and Los Angeles, may never forgive us.

We introduce Al to Robertson. The Raiders aren’t the first prospect to replace the Rams. They are the fifth. It is our last attempt at football matchmaking.

Davis never aimed to leave Oakland. But muscling the town for stadium improvements, Al is rebuffed.

And why does Oakland rebuff him? A former partner in the Raider ownership, Wayne Valley, has a large dislike for Davis, and Valley enjoys the same adulation from Al. The Raiders had three general partners--Valley, Davis and Ed McGah. Valley seeks to depose Davis and take command. But McGah votes with Davis.

Valley sues, loses and sells out. Now, as an influential Oaklander, he is whispering to authorities that Davis is bluffing on his proposed move. He advises, “Don’t give him a dime.”

Commissioner Pete Rozelle, also a Davis non-admirer, and vice versa, tells Oakland that Al is moving no place. He can’t get the league votes.

Therein begins one the most outrageous chapters in the history of sports, a period during which three of the principals--Wayne Valley, Ed McGah and Gene Klein--died. It’s a study in irony, waste, even tragedy, so extraordinary one winces merely reflecting on the events:

--An antitrust suit the Raiders and L.A. Coliseum file against the NFL lasts roughly eight years.

--An eminent domain suit filed by Oakland, aimed at recapturing the Raiders, lasts roughly three years. If it succeeds, the city acquires the Raiders and Davis is out of football, maybe for keeps, because the NFL owners aren’t likely to readmit him.

--During the trial, evidence is introduced connected with Super Bowl ticket scalping in the hierarchy of the Rams. The government investigates.

--The Raiders and the Coliseum win the antitrust suit.

--The Raiders win the eminent domain suit.

--Klein wins a suit against Davis, in which he charges Davis of causing Klein’s heart attack, but Klein loses on appeal.

--Dominic Frontiere goes to prison for failing to pay tax on the tickets he scalped.

--Pete Rozelle retires and damaged health is ascribed partly to the lingering trial.

--One of the victorious Raider lawyers sues Davis.

--The Raiders and the Coliseum, allies in the war, have a falling out and sue one another.

--Irwindale, population 1,040, plays out a fantasy. Seeing itself as the Big Apple, it hands the Raiders a $10-million deposit with the idea of bagging them. It’s money wasted.

--NFL owners return Davis to the mainstream, even appoint him to an important committee.

--The Raiders announce their move back to Oakland.

It is hard to cite a more classic case of man’s madness, massive energy, hundreds of millions of dollars down the gutter, all to restructure what was status quo.

“The Coliseum Commission in L.A. hardly showed brilliance,” Bill Robertson reflects. “In 1987, we arranged a firm deal with the Raiders, whereby we would spend $9 million on stadium refurbishing, and the Raiders, with their own money, would build 100 luxury boxes.

“The commission president at the time, Alexander Haagen, and his confederate, Pete Schabarum, decided to play it cool with Davis and delay the refurbishing. Al pulled out of the deal, and, ultimately, out of the Coliseum.”

Now Davis, attending the NFL meeting in Florida, is on the telephone, asked by his caller if the old cerebral turbine is functioning when he trades a city the size of Los Angeles for Oakland.

“L.A. is a growing monster,” he is reminded, “Oakland is Oakland.”

“I might have been willing to compromise on the money in L.A.,” he answers. “But I found the Coliseum Commission impossible. Spectacor, its management firm, has found it impossible, too. Spectacor negotiated very professionally and encouraged the commission to get something going.

“I delayed my decision last Friday with Oakland to see what the commission would do. When the commissioners wouldn’t even meet over the weekend, that was enough for me.”

If the foregoing, a simplification, tends to make Davis appear as a pussycat who was rousted, forget it. Al is no pussycat. He is tough, resolute and businesslike, and, in the tradition of today’s sports owner, he has an eye for a buck.

But the Coliseum Commission? It has played burlesque for more than 40 years, its faces changing, but its dedication to comedy never wavering. It now has lost the Rams, Bruins, Lakers, Kings and Raiders.

It also has blown the Super Bowl. Its reputation with the NFL is such that it hasn’t been awarded a game since 1973, and, when the Los Angeles Sports Council sought to advance the Coliseum for the 1993 game, it was told by Norman Braman, Philadelphia owner and member of the Super Bowl selection committee:

“If you present as your stadium the Rose Bowl, you have a better chance.”

In 1980 and ‘81, the Raiders played as lame ducks in Oakland, foiled by a court order from moving to Los Angeles when they wanted.

Oakland officials then responded to the defection with a leap of the net and a handshake. All they tried to do was seize the team and put Davis out of football, an effort for which the city paid the Raiders $8 million in damages and legal fees.

In addition, for a team it could have kept for nickels, the city now comes up with a maharajah’s treasure, proving, in the field of finance, that Oakland isn’t yet a threat to make the world forget the Rothschilds.