Ram Fans Get Jittery as They Wait for Knox to Change Quarterback

After each game, I ask myself if there are enough positive aspects in Jim Everett to outweigh the negatives. It seems fairly obvious to me and everyone else in Southern California that he simply can’t get the job done.

Is Georgia Frontiere the only Everett fan left?

DALLAS HICKLE

Newport Beach

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“Right now, we’re horrible,” Jim Everett says. Correction Jim, you’re horrible, not the team.

Just as pitching gets you to the World Series, the quarterback gets you to the Super Bowl, and Jim, you ain’t got what it takes. . . . So don’t blame the team.

PATRICIA MARTE

Los Angeles

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Dear Coach Knox,

I hope you watched the San Diego Chargers and Houston Oilers on Sunday. You might have learned something. Each coach pulled his regular quarterback for a replacement.

Please, for the sake of Ram fans, pull Jim Everett.

EDWARD LISK

Los Angeles

Raiders’ Offense Can’t Prevent Letters

Browns 19, Raiders 16.

The Raiders had a 45-minute game plan. It worked.

The makeshift 15-minute plan (stop pass rush to give quarterback all day to throw into prevent defense) didn’t.

Please, come out of your shell, Art.

McKENZIE K. BOLLONG

Los Angeles

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I am an Angeleno living in exile and I have a question about the Raiders.

When did conservative “kick field goals and try to kill the clock” become known as “ball-control” strategy, much less Raider football?

HAROLD PHELPS

Oakland

Dodger Fans Tiring of Strawberry Saga

What is going on here? It seems The Times feels the only way to cover the Dodgers is through the continuing serial, “Days of Our Darryl.” After a long absence from the front page, Dodger beat reporter Maryann Hudson reappears with her story on how Darryl Strawberry, off in Arizona, wants to star in the remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life”: Man contemplates suicide and wonders “what would it be like if I weren’t around anymore?”

Well, for starters, we might get more in-depth news about guys who are contributing to the team on the field and not distracting from it off the diamond. The Dodgers are playing exciting ball with great contributions from the kids who are at the center of their latest youth movement . . . but we get the story from wire-service reports buried deep in the section.

Bravo to Mike Downey, however, for calling on the Dodgers to get rid of their least productive, most expensive . . . um, player(?). Enough is enough. Dodgers: Dump him! Times: More on the team’s stars of today and tomorrow.

DAN BECK

Studio City

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Wednesday was a sad day. Once again we were witnesses to the fact that Darryl Strawberry has an inability to accept the responsibility for his actions. It’s interesting that where an equally severely injured Bo Jackson just works incredibly hard to come back, we are left with Darryl’s whining and crying.

Unfortunately, as if this wasn’t enough, we also had to endure an assault on our intelligence by Whitey Herzog, who comments that had it not been Vince Coleman who threw the explosive at Dodger Stadium, then “nothing would have happened.”

KEN MARCUS

Los Angeles

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To what team will the Angels trade Tim Salmon?

PAUL R. STEIN

Pasadena

Maybe Bruins Need to Go a New Way

UCLA played well against Nebraska and deserved credit. But consider the worst-case scenario: UCLA, in despair, drops football when the team goes 0-11. Due to lack of revenue, all UCLA sports (except men’s basketball) must now be competed at the club level. UCLA’s problems with athletic-department scandals and unequal men’s-women’s funding disappear. UCLA is able to concentrate on education. UCLA sports now provide physical challenges to the average student.

Hey, this sounds like the best-case scenario.

ROY M. CHIULLI

Los Angeles

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Suffering Terry Donahue as your head coach is much like suffering Jim Everett as your quarterback.

CHARLES CHICCOA

Reseda

Different Looks at Chinese Records

After reading Randy Harvey’s story on the Chinese women runners (Sept. 14), I came to one conclusion: There are many gullible people in the media business.

The East German and Soviet sports machines had the world fooled for years. The eerie parallels that exist between these programs of the past and the current Chinese programs are too much to ignore. Unfortunately, the track and field organizations, as well as the media, have chosen once again to take the position of playing the part of the ostrich with his head in the sand.

So be it. But I don’t want to hear any whining from the IAAF or USA Track and Field when this scandal breaks, like they did after the Ben Johnson episode. Oh, and when it happens, I will try to remember that I’m a lady, and refrain from saying that I told you so.

MARY SHELTON

Riverside

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Whenever a female Asian athlete breaks a world record in track, Americans cry anabolic steroids. Florence Griffith Joyner at the age of 28 broke the 100-meter record by many 10ths of a second.

Most U.S. female track stars are very muscular. Just take a good look at Wang Junxia of China. She is just the opposite. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.

JOHN KURAKAWA

Los Angeles

The Ryan Express? Thank Him for Name

Ryan’s Express has pitched his last inning in Southern California and I will miss him more than most, although I am not a baseball fan. Because when they called him Ryan’s Express, they were not talking only about Nolan Ryan, but also about my book, “Von Ryan’s Express,” and its hero, U.S. Army Air Forces pilot Col. Joseph Ryan.

At some point, the media began referring to Ryan as Von Ryan’s Express or sometimes the Ryan Express. When he pitched, whenever I could, I’d tune in, hoping to hear them mention my book and they often did.

My Von Ryan got me the chance to meet the great one himself. I was in Houston hustling “Von Ryan’s Return,” the sequel, and a sportswriter friend of mine arranged for me to present Ryan with a copy of the new book in the Astrodome infield with a photographer there.

I autographed the book for him and he autographed the picture for me. I got the better of that exchange, wouldn’t you think?

DAVID WESTHEIMER

Los Angeles

And Now a Few More Words From Our Sponsor

Now that we have the Natural Gas quarterback rankings, what’s next? The IBM first-and-10 play? Or the Quaker Oats field-goal attempt? (Not to be confused with the General Mills extra point.)

Let corporations buy commercials during the timeouts. Otherwise, these greedy conglomerates should have nothing to do with football. When will professional sports stop selling their product to such unworthy partners?

Probably never. So might I suggest the Hustler magazine MVP award?

STEVE RUDDELL

Anaheim