PRO FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : RAIDERS : Exclusion of Writer Brings Protests

Eric Noland of the Los Angeles Daily News was banned from the Raider practice field in Oxnard for the second consecutive day.

A groundswell of protest has begun to build for Noland, with the Pro Football Writers of America and the Associated Press Sports Editors joining the Daily News in demanding Noland be given equal access to the Raiders.

Daily News sports editor Rick Vacek said he spoke with Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations for the Raiders, by telephone Wednesday night and was told the Raiders don’t plan to change their position “at this time.”

Ortmayer told Vacek: “I’m not telling you who can cover the team. I’m telling you who can’t.”

Raider Coach Art Shell said: “Our stance is that Eric has not been fair to the organization in his writings. “I remember when I first got the job, I didn’t think that he was fair to me. He took some shots at me, like I didn’t have the experience as a head coach and other things.

“He has the right to write what he feels is right, but it’s not like I’d have to agree with him. It came down to where somebody said, ‘Hey, we have to make a stand.’ . . . Let’s be fair about it. You can write a negative article, but there are times that we do something right.”

Dale Bye of the Kansas City Star, president of the APSE, in a letter to NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, wrote that the “expulsion is absurd.”

Bye also wrote that the APSE doesn’t believe that the Raiders can “arbitrarily exclude a person from doing his job, anymore than a six-seat diner has the right to exclude a blind person. . . . I hope that the NFL sends a message that its access policies--like its policies on drug use and gambling, for example--are not to be trifled with.” . . . In other news, starting left offensive tackle Gerald Perry suffered a slight tear in his right triceps muscle and will be sidelined at least a week.