Will Rich Guys Save Raiders?

WANTED: A home. Place to work and place to play. Previous arrangement with landlord no longer applicable. Current home is 17-acre, $116-million fixer-upper. Near good school. Excellent landscaping; not much of a view. Riot damage negligible. Need someone either to finance major remodeling or supply alternative housing. Already relocated once; not eager to do so again. You play ball with us and we’ll play ball with you. Open house Saturday, 1 p.m.; admission will be charged.

So, where do the Raiders go now? To another nearby state, like the two New York teams or the Washington Redskins? There is no nearby state. To a faraway state, then, as the Baltimore Colts and St. Louis Cardinals did? Somehow it is difficult to picture the Raiders moving their skulls and crossbones to Maryland or Missouri.

Perhaps they will they play in a baseball park--say, Dodger Stadium, where even now Peter O’Malley must be torn between the revenues to be generated and the image of Harley-Davidsons in his parking lot.

Yet the Rams do it. The Chargers do it. So do the 49ers. Maybe the Raiders can, too.

What are their alternatives, now that Spectacor--a company with friendly enough employees but a name only Count Dracula could love--has reneged on its deal to upgrade the Coliseum?

Luxury boxes, new seating and a lowered playing field were to be part of the $116-million privately financed home improvement, but I don’t know who intends to spruce up the old place now, unless maybe Al Davis intends to hire Bob Vila. He could always invite some Amish families from Pennsylvania to help put up a new football stadium, like one of those barn raisings.

Los Angeles again is in danger of losing professional football.

Every laugh gotten at the expense of the San Francisco Giants and their Florida permanent-vacation plans could be made hollow when the Bay Area takes back its football team. Or, if Oakland still can’t afford it, I’ll bet Sacramento can.

Personally, I would like to see financial heavyweights such as Bruce McNall, Donald Sterling, Jerry Buss and Magic Johnson pool their money and erect a stadium complex where several teams could play, not unlike the Meadowlands of New Jersey.

I don’t care where. Anywhere, as long as the neighborhood is a safe place to bring children. Even the Lakers aren’t safe in the Lakers’ neighborhood; ask Jerry West and Sedale Threatt.

How about a stadium to which we could take the train? I’m sure some of you have heard of this invention, the train. It runs on rails and doesn’t use gas. It is also sometimes known as public transportation. You’ll love the train, Los Angeles. It really works.

Private financing is the only way a new stadium can get built. Taxpayers coast to coast are at the ends of their ropes. They aren’t going to spring for some new playpen. San Jose could have had major league baseball for something like $4 per person per year. No way, said San Jose.

The only way the Raiders are going to get a stadium is for rich people to build one.

There are no more Irwindales with $10 million burning holes in their pockets. Now and then, a Jack Kent Cooke will hold a news conference to announce that yes, there is a Virginia, and yes, a football team called “Washington” would feel perfectly at home there. But, trust me on this, the Raiders are not moving to Nevada.

Are you, Al?

Al?

The Coliseum is an old, dying elephant. Ground-breaking ceremonies were held Dec. 21, 1921. Since then it has been the site for two Summer Olympics, the first Super Bowl, a World Series, many memorable USC football games and some really neat motocross. It seats 92,488, largest capacity in the NFL, but only once or twice each season do the Raiders fill it to the brim.

Spectacor has managed the Coliseum and adjacent Sports Arena for four years. Like Irwindale, Spectacor might have to pony up the $10 million in collateral it reportedly gave Davis and the Raiders to get the job done. A top Spectacor official now claims that public financing is the only way this Coliseum renovation is going to happen.

Nuts to that. You mean the public has to chip in to build a place, then pay to park at this place, then pay its way into the place?

Yeah, sure. And maybe we can come over Saturdays to mow the lawn.

I will be sorry if the Coliseum face lift never happens, sorrier still if the Raiders blow town. But don’t be asking people for contributions to a $116-million remodeling of a house in a city where so many other people have no home at all.