PRO FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : RAMS : Attendance Belies Rescue Bid

The “Save the Rams” campaign does not appear to have caught on yet.

A club spokesman announced that 30,921 tickets have been sold for Sunday’s opening game against the Arizona Cardinals at Anaheim Stadium, leaving more than 38,000 tickets available and a television blackout in effect.

Last year’s attendance of 34,155 for a December game against the Cleveland Browns was the smallest crowd to watch the Rams in a non-strike game since their move to Anaheim, and the smallest since 1963, when the team drew 29,295 at the Coliseum.

A Ram spokesman said the NFL declined to assist in the search for negative attendance statistics, but a reporter’s review of figures in NFL media guides dating to 1970 disclosed that the smallest crowd for an NFL home opener was 32,607 at the New England Patriot-Miami Dolphin game in Harvard Stadium in 1970.

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The Cardinals pinned selected quotes on a bulletin board in the team’s locker room Thursday.

Ram running back Jerome Bettis was quoted as saying, “There is not a defense in football that can stop me, including the Cardinals. So far this season, they have talked a lot tougher than they’ve played.”

The quote was read back to Bettis in the Ram locker room.

“Who said that?” Bettis said. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

Everybody knows Bettis is far more bland than that.

“That’s right,” Bettis agreed. “You know that’s not me. I never said anything like that.”