This Rivalry Made of Glory, Grit and Guts : Pro football: The Chargers-Raiders series has been one stirring memory after another since 1960.

It’s tradition. It’s bloody gold and a grimy silver and black, “and if you’ve ever played in a Raiders-Chargers game,” Hank Bauer says, “you know it will be weeks before you are no longer sore.”

It’s a collision of emotion. Yours against Mine. A war with battle lines well defined.

“There’s a group of us in Oakland watching the Chargers play,” says Lotta Cross, a long-time Chargers’ fan, “and we’re cheering and this little old lady turns on us and pulls a knife. She says it’s their stadium and stop cheering.”

It’s Raider football and everything that means. “I’ve always disliked Al Davis and the Raiders,” says linebacker Gary Plummer, who grew up in the Bay area, “because growing up you’re idealistic and you have high morals. And I thought they were a bunch of cheapshot punks, and actually nothing has changed.”

It’s staggering theater. It’s one stirring memory after another, and, Sunday, it’s a sellout in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium for the 15th consecutive year.

“Why the Raiders?” rookie wide receiver Nate Lewis asks. “I hear people say stuff and I know the game is sold out. The Raiders? Why the Raiders?”

It’s passed down man to man. “I remember talking to (John) Hadl and (Lance) Alworth about what it was like to play against Willie Brown,” says former quarterback Dan Fouts.

It’s the rivalry. Frank Youell Field. Lamonica, Blanda, Hendricks, Millen, Branch. San Diego Stadium’s first sellout. Faison, Garrison, Kelcher, Winslow, Fouts. It’s the Holy Roller.

“The what?” guard David Richards says. “Man, I was born in ’66. I mean how far can I go back? 1978--OK, so I was sitting there playing with my army men,” he says. “My GI Joes, you know, with the kung-fu grip. Wasn’t that the year the kung-fu grip came out?”

It’s Kenny Stabler rolling right and Woody Lowe tugging at his jersey and Stabler fumbling the ball forward. Watch the bouncing ball, it’s batted forward by Pete Banaszak, and then nudged by Dave Casper before Casper falls on it in the end zone for the “immaculate deception.” The Holy Roller. Final play of the game, and final score: Raiders 21, Chargers 20.

“It was a sack, it was a fumble, it was terrible,” says Fouts. “Every time I see referee Jerry Markbreit, I remind him of it.”

“I remember seeing that play,” linebacker Henry Rolling says. “Was that against the Chargers?”

You had to be there. “The tears were coming down my face and nobody in the stands was moving,” says Stella Viets, the team’s receptionist.

“All I can remember is that damn chicken falling on his back at the open-end end zone,” says Bauer. “That’s how I remember the Holy Roller.”

It’s the rivalry. Winslow’s five touchdown catches. Allen’s overtime touchdown run. Little Train’s overtime touchdown. Al Davis versus Gene Klein.

“Making their little wagers?” Rod Bernstine says. “I’m not really familiar with Davis and Klein.”

Billy Joe Tolliver asks, “Were the two owners old adversaries? What’s the story on that? Let’s have it.”

Davis and Klein. “The rivalry was fueled by Al and Gene,” Coach Dan Henning says. “They were two highly successful, competitive, stubborn people, and it got fueled in the courts. It got fueled when the merger took place. And it was fueled again when they moved from Oakland to L.A.

“There was a lot of animosity, but I think some of that has drained and it has just turned into highly competitive franchises.”

It’s not always the rivalry.

“I just want to see Bo,” quarterback John Friesz says.

So much history. Sixty football games that stretch back to 1960. Some good, some bad--most memorable.

“I remember the day (in 1980) we lost the chance to go to the Super Bowl,” says Jim Laslovic, KNSD’s sports director. “It was raining. I woke up and thought, swell, we got the Raiders here and they got Raider weather.

“I don’t think it’s normal for a person my age to look back on an event from 10 years ago and think, darn it. But they’re wearing my Super Bowl ring.”

The Raiders slipped past the Chargers, 34-27, in the AFC Championship game in 1980. Just one more chapter in a never-ending story that agitates fans.

“I don’t know anything about the rivalry,” defensive lineman Burt Grossman says. “What do I look like, Jack Murphy?

“Rivalries don’t mean anything to me. Who the hell cares? Say we played 100 times, and we won 99 times. Then they beat us, and so who the hell cares about the last 99? That’s all in the past.”

It’s the past, overloaded with glory and grit, that provides foundation for such an exciting future. Game after game that has meant something. “And historically,” linebacker Billy Ray Smith says, “it’s like the Raiders have always gotten what we wanted.”

A game with the Raiders has been a measure of manhood. It did not matter if was a season opener or a playoff encounter, it was, “a gauge of progress,” says Bauer, who played running back for the Chargers from 1977-1982. “If you could compete with the Raiders, you could compete with anybody.”

It’s like no other Sunday. “I would like to see us play with the same intensity and level of concentration we have for the Raider game all year long,” says cornerback Gill Byrd. “I’d like to bottle that feeling for what this day is all about and use it again and again.”

It is a series that began in 1960, but who’s counting?

“In the past, I think the Raiders are something like 4-1 against us,” rookie cornerback Donald Frank says. “I’m not sure, but that’s what I heard from a couple of guys.”

It was going that way. . . . The first six games of this series were all won by the Chargers, but as the Raiders’ press release indicated this week, “the Raiders now hold a commanding 37-21-2 lead.”

Victory upon victory. Or, as center Ralph Perretta screamed in a silent locker room after the Holy Roller defeat, “Why does all this (stuff) always happen to us?”

“In the early days the Raiders weren’t very good,” Henning says. “But when Al went up there in ’63 (leaving the Chargers as an assistant coach), he kind of turned them around.”

The Raiders swept the yearly series eight times from 1963-1976, and in that span the Chargers won both games in the same year once. The Raiders also won seven games in a row in the early ‘80s, but by that time it was becoming a fair exchange of bruises.

“We just seemed to get up more for the Raiders,” says Charlie Joiner, receivers coach. “And it seemed to make for good football.”

Says Smith, “It’s like the J.R. syndrome. It’s so much more fun to beat a team (whose) big feature is intimidation. Those are the kinda guys you really get up to play against.”

For nine years, the fired-up Chargers played patsy to the Raiders in their back yard in the Oakland Coliseum. For nine years, they were unable to overcome the commitment to excellence. For nine years, they had pride and poise shoved down their throats.

“We’re down 20-7 at the half (in 1978) in Oakland and Coach (Don) Coryell comes into the locker room,” says Bauer, “and he tells us we can pass, or we can run it right up their butt.”

The Chargers came out running and knocked 11:03 off the clock in a 20-play, 80-yard drive to score. They had the ball four times in the second half and scored four times, and when it was over that fine day in Oakland, the rivalry had finally taken a jarring turn in San Diego’s direction.

“That’s the game I remember,” says Fouts. “Beating them in Oakland for the first time. I can see Greg McCrary cutting across the plane of the goal line with the winning touchdown.

“There were so many good ones. . . . beating them in overtime in 1980 and beating them up there in the last game we played in Oakland and putting 55 points on them. That was a fine way to say adios to those fans.

“Ted Hendricks to this day tells me how he went up to Jim Plunkett and shook him by the shoulders,” says Fouts, “and says, ‘Jim, we can’t stop them; you’re on your own, pal.’ They knew what it was like to play Air Coryell.”

The Raiders over the years have made themselves comfortable in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, compiling a 15-7-1 mark. And although they are big bad bullies, they are a draw. The Chargers have sold out only five games in the past four years, including Sunday’s sellout, and four of those contests have come against the Raiders.

“You can’t figure it out? Listen here,” Grossman says. “What did we draw when we played Houston? 45,000? You got a difference of 15,000, right? So somewhere up in L.A. you got 15,000 Raider fans jumping in their Winnebagos and coming down I-5. What’s the mystery?”

It has been a struggling few years for the Chargers and their fans, but if satisfaction is to come only a little at a time, let it be at the Raiders’ expense.

There was Lionel James’ 17-yard touchdown run in overtime in 1985 to secure a 40-34 victory over the Raiders. And in 1987 when they ran their record to 8-1, it was with a 16-14 victory at home--over the Raiders.

“I was in the press box when Ernie Zampese called the play down on Train’s touchdown run,” Bauer says. “Ernie calls for a ’90 Log,’ but they signal it wrong and make it ’80 Log.’ That’s running right instead of left, and Ernie’s screaming, ‘Call a timeout. Call a timeout.’ And before they can, Train scores to win the game.”

You beat the Raiders, and does anything else really matter?

“I just look at it as another football game,” safety Martin Bayless says.

Playing the Raiders, though, was life and death. It was the bad guys against the beach boys. It was down and dirty football.

“I played against some guys who I’m sure are in prison right now,” Kellen Winslow says. “And some who came out of prison to play that game, and maybe some who should be in prison right now.

“The first catch I made against the Raiders was in a game in 1979, I get hit by Jack Tatum. I caught the ball and he just lined me up, and wham, he hits me. But I was so fired up for that game because we had a lot of veterans on that team who knew what that game meant. I wouldn’t go down, Tatum hits me and knocks my helmet sideways, and then somebody else hits me, and I wouldn’t go down.”

Two years later, Winslow was still on his feet, catching touchdown passes of 15, 29, four, five and three yards. Five touchdown passes, just like a present-day Jerry Rice.

“Was that the playoff game against Miami?” asks Rolling.

It was a regular-season game against the Raiders.

“I was going to chapel service the morning of that game, and I was late as usual, and walked into the wrong room,” Winslow says. “I walked into Mass, and I had no idea what was going on, and I end up sitting at the front because there were no other chairs. I was too embarrassed to walk out of the room, so I stayed there, and the father is passing out communion. . . .

“It was wild when played those guys. We used to practice in the stadium during Raider week because of coaches and management’s fear of the Raiders spying. Just taking us off the practice field and putting us in the stadium put you in a different mind-set as to how serious this game was.”

It’s high-profile geography at work. L.A. and San Diego. “Neighborhood bragging rights,” as safety Vencie Glenn said.

“I think everyone would like to see Al Davis on the sidelines, biting his fingernails and walking around in his baggy pants,” cornerback Sam Seale says. “I think they like to see that, but I think they’d also like to see him lose a little bit more.”

But before everyone can be whipped into a frenzy, as Smith says, “They have to know who we’re playing. I mean there’s so many new faces here. . . . I think the older guys here are still into it, but there’s only about four of us old guys here anymore.”

It’s Raider week, however, and there will be no escaping it. “We have a lot of new guys, and shoot, some of them I don’t think are even old enough to read yet,” defensive coordinator Ron Lynn says. “But there’s this special feeling, like something big is going to happen.”

It’s a game to point for when the schedule is released. It’s the season for the Chargers, 2-4. It’s important for the first-place Raiders, 5-1. It’s the rivalry, whether they know it or not.

“I don’t know one thing about the rivalry,” says rookie wide receiver Walter Wilson. “But from what I gather around here is that if both teams were 0-20, this would be a war, and the stadium would be a sellout. From that, I can just imagine how the game will be played.”