Bad-Boy Bailey Adds Some Attitude to Ram Team Short on Personality

Two weeks into training camp with the Rams, and with the exception of some scrimmage fisticuffs, it’s been a snoozer.

The head coach does not exactly wax poetic, the vice president in charge of signing and trading personnel won’t tell you what day of the week it is, and so why open the notebook? Most of the players are beginning to sound like Jim Everett.

How many times can you write about the guy with the tattoo on his leg or another Shane Conlan injury?

Where are the personalities, the rabble rousers, the whackos, you know, the kind of athletes who spend their college days playing for the University of Miami?

Introducing Robert Martin Luther Kennedy Bailey. Cornerback. Cheap-shot artist. Named the kid most likely to get in trouble by his mother. Trash talker. Friend of “Lethal Weapon’s” Danny Glover. One of main characters in Saturday’s brawl with the San Diego Chargers. Appeared on “The Young and the Restless” this past off-season.

“I may not be young, but I’m restless,” Bailey said. “Very restless.”

He’s also all Miami, a feisty Hurricane who will look you in the eye and challenge you to utter a discouraging word.

“I think I’m good, but I think once I get that chance to start, I’ll be great,” Bailey said. “When you start, you’re on the spot, everybody’s counting on you. You come off the bench, and it’s like if you get beat, it’s expected.

“If you’re a starter, you’re the man.”

Bailey isn’t a starter yet, although he was the only Ram defender to score a touchdown last season, but he might be that emerging personality waiting to be discovered.

“A defense needs personality, an attitude, character,” Bailey said. “An offense needs a quarterback.”

Bailey has been in training most of his life for this part.

“There were three boys in our family and I was always the bad one,” he said. “My mom had to beat on me the most.

“One year, she had to send me to live with my father in Atlanta, but then I ran away. My dad was a doctor, but he was poor growing up and had to struggle, so he had us struggle. He had me up by seven every morning doing chores. I ran back to my mom and begged her to let me stay with her.

“My other brothers were good in the classroom and I was always the worst. If something went wrong and all three of us were in the room, my mom blamed me. One brother became a doctor, the other a dentist. The worst one became a football player.”

Robert Bailey went on to become a pretty good football player. Four-year starter at Miami. Fourth-round pick of the Rams in 1991. Three interceptions in 1992. And the guy is shorter than most of the Ram ball boys.

“I’ve always been bad and feisty and I’ve tried to fight the biggest guy around,” said the 5-foot-9 Bailey. “Being that way helped me to survive in football.”

Off the field, the man with pizazz is engaging. On the football field, however, the devil continues to have Bailey’s ear.

“I’m a small guy; I can’t hit people head-on,” Bailey said. “They pay me to cover and not get hurt. So sometimes I like to break the rules, and when somebody’s not looking, just pop them. Cheap shots count.”

In the background you can hear the University of Miami fight song playing.

In Saturday’s scrimmage with the Chargers, Bailey delivered a major league cheap shot to running back Eric Bieniemy, who was standing still with his back turned.

“That would be in my top five all-time cheap shots,” Bailey said. “But really I prefer getting a cheap shot when a guy is running toward you and he’s not looking. Those are the best kind.”

The Chargers won Saturday’s scrimmage, 12-6, but try to convince an exasperated Bailey.

“We won the fight, then we beat them up on the field, stopped them at the goal line, we scored, and after that the newspaper says we lost, 12-6,” he said. “I read that and I was very upset. We kicked their butt on the field and off.”

The Rams have been blessed by an abundance of talent at cornerback, so Bailey and Steve Israel wait behind starters Darryl Henley and Todd Lyght.

“You go with your investment,” Bailey said. “It’s very hard to beat someone out who is starting in front of you who’s making so much more money than you. They either have to get hurt or beat themselves out. I’ve just got to make sure I’m right there on their coattails.”

In the meantime, he already has become a celebrity of sorts. After making friends with the executive producer of “The Young and the Restless,” he won a small part on the show.

“I had three or four lines and I was in this restaurant and the owner acknowledges me,” he said. “How did I do? I always play myself well.”

But why would anyone acknowledge a backup cornerback on the show?

“I just told everyone I was a starter,” he said.