On Root, Root, Rooting for the Home Team

We have found California’s lost voice of reason, and it belongs to Irv Pickler. He is a self-described “sports nut.” He is also, however, a member of the Anaheim City Council, and here is how he reacted last week as the Rams football team made noise about relocating out of state--to a better “environment,” which, in this context, can be defined as a “sweeter deal.”

“The Rams hold up their nose and look down at us and say, ‘Tell us what you can give us,’ ” Pickler said. “And it shouldn’t be that way. They’ve been arrogant. I’ve lost my respect for the organization, and I think maybe it’s best for the city of Anaheim if the team moves.”

His attitude is rare for these times, this place. Up and down California, most elected officials seem to have swallowed whole the notion that they are to blame for a flat housing market, the end of the Cold War and other fiscal calamities. And when CEOs threaten to move their firms to places such as Utah, these politicians do more than listen. They reach deep into their pockets--make that, your pockets--and they pay the ransom.

Well, here is what Pickler said about that: “Utah! Let them move. More power to them. They will find out what Utah is all about.”

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It can be argued that professional sports franchises invented this form of shakedown. They learned long ago how to pit city against city, state against state, market against market. Before the Rams were in Anaheim, they were in Los Angeles, and before that Cleveland--and with every move came nice rewards from the raiding municipality. In a book titled “Playing the Field,” Charles C. Euchner, a political science professor, wrote that “by simply exploring options for playing in other cities . . . teams have gotten all manner of largess. New stadiums are only the beginning.”

Today, California firms responsible for products ranging from tacos to missiles play the what-will-you-pay-us-to-stay game, and, in hindsight, what amazes is that it took them so long to follow the lead of their sporting brethren. Of course, sports teams do enjoy extraordinary advantages in this game. Waivers of standard antitrust laws, for example, let professional leagues limit the number of franchises. This creates a scarcity of big-league franchises--and an oversupply of new money millionaires and up-and-coming municipalities desperate for a team.

Also, sports cast a certain magic spell. Ruthless bottom-line CEOs and conservative politicians alike lose all reason when brought in close contact with a sports franchise. There have been a number of studies challenging the notion that franchises contribute significantly to a municipal economy. There have been a number of otherwise savvy entrepreneurs who have gone belly-up buying mediocre left fielders. Still, when it comes time to deal, these realities are put in storage.

Teams offer owners a chance to shed the anonymity of business-page agate, and to generate some real attention. “These teams are like collectibles,” is how Leigh Steinberg, the sports agent, put it, “and they come in only a limited edition.” Cities see a franchise, any franchise, as a shortcut to becoming “big league,” a winner. For example, just this week in San Jose, the whole town has gone crazy because its Soviet bloc emigres beat Detroit’s Soviet bloc emigres in the first round of hockey playoffs. The victory, it’s being said, at last put San Jose “on the map.”

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Of course when owners grow weary of the game, when the will to invest in victory weakens, when the teams begin to stumble and the crowds cover their heads with paper bags, they can easily sell and recoup their losses and then some. The unnatural market ensures it. For cities, however, a lost team leaves behind nothing but an empty stadium and a cache of surplus Jim Everett jerseys.

This is why strapped city officials throughout California are hopping about like crazed kangaroos these days, searching for ways to mollify antsy franchises. The Oakland Athletics are up for sale. Al Davis is on the prowl for a new place to play. In San Diego, the Padres are discontent. And the Rams are entertaining offers.

Which leads us back to Irv Pickler, who insists he does not intend to “grovel” to keep the Rams. “With them it is always give, give, give,” he said Tuesday, “and this city is $8 million in the hole, and we need to put more police on the street, and fix some roads, and provide more park services to keep kids off the street, and keep the libraries open.”

A sensible man, this Mr. Pickler, but a real spoilsport.