City’s Draft Choice Unpacks Raiders

Now that the Raiders, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, have decided to stay wed to Los Angeles, it might be time to reflect on how this remarkable turn of affairs took place.

You may remember in our last episode, the Raiders were all packed and ready to leave. They were halfway down the fire escape; the getaway car was double-parked and running. They were taking the same route the Rams, the Lakers, the Kings and UCLA had taken--out of town and on the road again.

The Coliseum Commission, that august body of roadblocks, was suing them; they were threatening to sue the Coliseum Commission, and all in all, a messy divorce seemed in the offing.

It was the kind of situation a best friend of both parties hesitates to get into, a no-winner.

Bill Robertson was, in a way, in the most difficult position of all. He had, in effect, introduced the odd couple--L.A. and Al Davis. He had been, so to speak, best man at their wedding.

Robertson is the executive secretary of the L.A. County Federation of Labor and, as such, an old hand at bringing bitter warring parties to the negotiating table. This didn’t look any worse than the culinary workers vs. the Statler hotel chain.

A longtime player in the corridors of power at City Hall, Robertson was president of the Coliseum Commission and a major force in bringing the Raiders to our fair city in the first place.

“When the Rams moved out, I tried to dissuade Carroll (Rosenbloom), but I could see he had too good a deal,” Robertson says. “I turned my attention to getting a replacement (expansion) franchise. The (NFL) dismissed us rather brusquely. I knew that was a lost cause.

“I knew our only hope was an existing franchise. There were only two floating around--Minnesota, where the owner, Max Winter, was disenchanted because he couldn’t get a new (domed) stadium, and the Raiders, who were negotiating with Oakland for playing field improvements.”

Winter dropped out of the game when Minneapolis suddenly agreed to build his domed stadium. Oakland also countermoved on the Raiders, but L.A. got a break when the league informed Oakland that there was no way Al Davis could move the team. Oakland took the offer off the table. Davis, they thought, was locked in.

You didn’t need to know law to know the Raiders could move, just history. The Boston Redskins had become the Washington Redskins; the Cleveland Rams had become the Los Angeles Rams; the Chicago Cardinals had become the St. Louis Cardinals. Shucks! The Decatur Staleys had become the Chicago Bears. One Dallas Texans team had become the Baltimore Colts, another the Kansas City Chiefs. The Los Angeles Chargers became the San Diego Chargers. Franchises were flying around like popping corn.

Outraged, Davis announced that he was going to move anyway. The league stepped in to stop him. The Coliseum Commission sued the league; Davis sued the league. The Raiders came to L.A. The Coliseum Commission collected millions of dollars--and the Raiders. The Raiders collected millions--and Los Angeles.

Everybody was happy, right? Wrong. The politicians, the bureaucrats moved in, and the next thing Robertson knew, Davis was looking for an escape hatch.

The community didn’t know whom to blame, but Robertson had no such ambivalence. He resigned from the Coliseum Commission in protest over what he perceived to be the city’s reneging on its pledges to Davis, pledges Robertson had a hand in guaranteeing.

He appeared to wash his hands of the whole thing.

Davis grabbed his hat and headed for the door--or Oakland or Sacramento, whichever came first. Any direction would do.

That’s when the kitchen had gotten crowded. Nine Coliseum commissioners and Al Davis was not a partnership, it was a world war. The infighting got noisy and dirty. The Coliseum Commission, once Davis’ partner in a lawsuit, was now his adversary in one. It sued him for $28 million.

Davis was halfway to the horizon when Mayor Tom Bradley turned to the only person in town Davis wouldn’t hang up on: Bill Robertson. The politicians, who had managed to lose the Rams, Bruins, Lakers and Kings, were busy stomping on Davis’ fingers as he clung to the last step. The job needed a negotiator, not an antagonist. The mayor picked Robertson.

“I had no desire to go back on that commission,” Robertson admits. “But I also had no desire to see the Raiders leave, either.”

If you accept the proposition the Raiders are good for Los Angeles--it’s well-known the opposite is true, a league without Los Angeles is like a poker game without chips--you understand Robertson’s motivation. He had no desire to see the Coliseum become the world’s biggest flowerpot.

“I knew that even if we got an expansion franchise,” Robertson says, “it would not be competitive in this century.”

Robertson had one advantage: Al Davis’ trust. “I didn’t ride in on a white horse,” Robertson says. “I just got the parties to talk.”

The operation of the Coliseum had, by now, been turned over to Spectacor, a Philadelphia-based sports management conglomerate whose charter was not only to save the Raiders but to save the Coliseum.

Bill Robertson knew something the rest of the community didn’t: Al Davis didn’t really want to go.

It wasn’t that difficult to get him to stay. First, the Coliseum Commission had to drop the suit--even that was on a 6-3 vote. Second, it had to pledge him $10 million, refundable if the 20-year deal collapses. And it had to refurbish the Coliseum, which it had agreed to do in the first place. Spectacor proposes to do this with $145 million raised from the private sector.

So, if it comes down to “Honk If You Love the Raiders,” and if you’re discussing who is the No. 1 draft choice, it’s been a long time since they’ve had anyone more valuable to them than the one Tom Bradley drafted.