Charger-Raider Rivalry Survives Changes in Faces, Places

The sweat had not yet dried on Stan Humphries’ brow in the aftermath of a nice, though less than artistic, victory over Tampa Bay when someone asked him about the Raiders.

Humphries, a Charger only since the 1992 exhibition season, smiled.

“I’ve never experienced a Charger-Raider game,” he said. “That’s something I’m looking forward to.”

Enjoy it, Stan. Enjoy frenzy in the stands the likes of which you have never seen. Enjoy the bedlam.

But remember one thing.

This rivalry really belongs to the fans.

Players get their time on stage, be they a Fouts or a Stabler, a Winslow or a Casper, a Kelcher or an Alzado. Their appearances are mere cameos in the serial this series has become.

Fans are forever.

And does this game get them up in arms.

It has nothing to do with the geographical proximity of San Diego to Los Angeles, either. If anything, this rivalry has survived the Raiders’ flight from Oakland. That’s where the intensity of this rivalry was born.

The owners then, the late Eugene V. Klein of the Chargers and Al Davis of the Raiders, never liked each other. They had to sit in the same stadium twice each year, and it was hardly big enough for both of them. The same state was hardly big enough for both of them, and then Davis had the audacity to move his team into Klein’s neighborhood.

The fans are hardly more cordial than those owners were.

And it is not just that Raider fans make the trek south to follow their heroes. Some of them, perish the thought, live and work in San Diego.

One of them, Lumpy Barbaroosa, works for a Charger fan, Bo Randazzle. Lumpy is a mouthy sort who might at times be taken to be the boss, rather than vice versa. Bo also has a mouthy side, causing him to snap and snarl and occasionally bellow in response.

This is what it is like between Lumpy and Bo in the best of times, which is to say any time when a game between Lumpy’s beloved Raiders and Bo’s beloved Chargers is not imminent.

A Charger-Raider game is very imminent this week.

“I just don’t like Raider fans,” Bo grumbled. “They’re all like Lumpy. Intolerable. Arrogant. Stupid. They’re heathens. I wish they’d all go back to Oakland . . . and take Lumpy with them.”

This is something Charger fans have never quite understood, that the Raiders are no longer playing in Oakland. They have this mental block about that move Al Davis made. Besides, the Raiders could be playing their home games in El Cajon and Charger fans would still hate them.

Don Coryell, who coached some of the most supercharged games of this rivalry, never understood that move, either. Legend has it that when first the Chargers had to play the Raiders in Los Angeles, Coryell was miffed when the team bus went north on I-5.

“We’re not going to take this bus all the way to Oakland, are we?” he demanded.

To Coryell, they were always the Oakland Raiders.

They might even still be the Oakland Raiders to Lumpy Barbaroosa, who developed her affection for them when she lived in the Bay Area.

“She could have been a 49er fan,” Randazzle growled, “but she didn’t have enough class.”

Lumpy’s silver-and-black hair bristles at such talk. She has stuck with her heroes through the glory days of excellence and the gory days of ineptitude.

“Charger fans are not faithful fans,” she sniffed. “They have a bad year or two and their fans disappear. They’re all fair-weather fans. The only time they’ve gotten excited for years is when the Raiders come to town. It takes my team to get them worked up.”

Randazzle had no comeback for that one. The Chargers have sold out only seven games in the last five years, five of them when Lumpy’s Raiders have been in town.

“I’m faithful,” Randazzle insisted.

“He is faithful,” Lumpy chortled, “except that he’s been going to games with a fake beard, dark glasses and a low-brimmed hat so no one will recognize him. At least until this year. He’s probably going to take his Charger shirt and that stupid cap with the lightning bolts out of the closet.”

Lumpy is right. Charger fans are beginning to come out of the closet once again. Guys like Stan Humphries are making it happen.

A big game is on the horizon, a nationally televised game with playoff implications. The parking lot will be jammed by 3 p.m. Sunday and the stadium will be packed for the 5 p.m. kickoff.

And wouldn’t you just know that the Raiders would be the ones coming to town?

“I could have told you this would happen back in August,” said Lumpy Barbaroosa.

“Harumph,” said Bo Randazzle.