For Local Athletics, It’s Time for a Change

A Democrat is sworn into the White House today, a momentous occasion that, at this late date in our history, has assumed something of a timeless resonance--a where-were-you quality most often reserved for such cultural and socio-political milestones as the JFK assassination, the lunar landing and Letterman moving to CBS.

Where were you on Jan. 20, 1977, the day a Democrat last became President of the United States?

John Robinson was coaching at USC.

Chuck Knox was coaching the Rams.

Dallas was an NFL powerhouse.

Alabama was a college football powerhouse.

Bill Walsh was at Stanford.

Johnny Majors was at Pittsburgh.

Mike Ditka was not coaching the Bears.

The Angels were preparing for 88 losses and a fifth-place finish in the American League West.

Our sports world was so much different then.

A presidential inauguration sets the tone for a good deal more than the political agenda. National tastes in fashion, food and music take their cue from the First Family--in for 1993: beaded lavender gowns, Big Macs and the Grateful Dead--and so, too, do our leisure-time diversions.

Sports during Jimmy Carter’s administration tended to be . . . democratic. Four different cities reigned as NBA champions between 1977 and 1980, including such far-flung outposts as Portland, Seattle and Landover, Md. Four different colleges won NCAA basketball titles--two from the north (Marquette and Michigan State), two from the south (Kentucky and Louisville). Alabama and USC shared a national football championship. South Carolina had a Heisman Trophy winner. The Rams went to a Super Bowl.

The Carter presidency was marked, for the better, by the unprecedented passage of olive branches and peace accords--Israel-Egypt in 1979, NBA-ABA in 1977, NHL-WHA in 1979.

For worse, it was plagued, and ultimately toppled, by an economic crisis triggered by runaway inflation. Baseball, too, was stunned by soaring costs, forced upon the owners, the owners contended, by the dawning of the free-agent era. Andy Messersmith became the first player to test the waters, ever so gingerly in 1976, but by 1977, George Steinbrenner and Gene Autry were stuffing $1,000 bills into the pants pockets of every .280 hitter who happened to jog by.

Reggie Jackson ruled in the late 1970s--signing for New York millions in early 1977, delivering his signature three-home run performance in the World Series 10 months later and declaring himself the straw that stirred the Yankees’ drink in intervals of every other minute thereafter.

The thrill for Reggie and New York, however, would be gone by 1981--by 1982, Steinbrenner had banished him to Anaheim--but his Yankee years left too many minds indelibly etched.

This summer, during the opening months of another Democratic administration, Reggie cashes in, entering baseball’s Hall of Fame as the sole inductee of 1993.

The Carter era was bad for amateur sports--boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics was Carter’s idea of a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan--and the yellow ribbon tied around the Superdome during the 1981 Super Bowl celebrated the resolution of what had been Carter’s biggest failure, the Iranian hostage crisis. Five days before that football game, on the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into the office, the hostages were released after a 15-month captivity.

But the crawl of time has done wonders for those years. The cry in 1980: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The cry in 1993: We weren’t really so bad off in 1980.

In the stadiums and arenas of Los Angeles and Anaheim, where winning teams have gone the way of the eight-track tape, those years are now fondly remembered as the good old days.

Those were the days when:

--The Rams won three consecutive NFC West championships and played in their only Super Bowl. Then, jinxing everything, they moved to Anaheim.

--The Angels won their first American League West title, rallying around a chant of “Yes We Can” instead of “No We Can’t Afford Him.”

--The Dodgers went to back-to-back World Series, despite what was then considered to be a ball-and-chain at shortstop--Bill Russell. If only they knew.

--USC tied Alabama for a national football championship in 1978, earned a Heisman Trophy for Charles White in 1979 and never once lost to Fresno State.

--UCLA went to its final Final Four in 1980 and actually signed a couple of high school prospects from Los Angeles County.

--Larry Brown coached those Bruins, and seemed to be happy for 10 minutes.

--The Lakers drafted Magic Johnson and immediately won an NBA title with him.

--The Kings had Marcel Dionne, Rogie Vachon and fans who could tell the difference between a forecheck and a royalty check.

--Cal State Fullerton won its first College World Series and came within a Keith Anderson roll-around-the-rim of breaking into the Final Four.

Now, look at the place.

Since 1981, it has been an endless parade of Donnie Moore-to-Dave Henderson, Tom Niedenfuer-to-Jack Clark, “Fly ball to Chili Davis,” “Ground ball to Jose Offerman,” Dieter Brock, Marc Wilson, Jay Schroeder, Marcus Allen on the bench, Wayne Gretzky on the DL, Bo Jackson out of football, Magic Johnson out of basketball, Jim Abbott to the Yankees, Eric Dickerson to the Colts, Larry Smith, Cookie Rojas, Benoit Benjamin, too many Junior Noboas, not enough Junior Seaus and not a single local team within a space shot of a championship at the moment.

It’s a rotten state we find ourselves in today, and you know who’s to blame for it.

The Republicans.