Pull Rams Over at the State Line
Personally, I don’t think the Rams leaving town would be such a terrible way to end 1994.
For one thing, with one big-league football team instead of two (unless you count Mater Dei) we could finally get that TV blackout rule lifted and be able to view both ends of an NFL doubleheader, rather than professional wrestling or Gilligan still shipwrecked on that stupid island.
We therefore wouldn’t have to lay out $895 for one of those Frisbee-sized TV satellite dishes with which, on a clear day, you can pick up everything from Nova Scotia junior hockey to “Monday Night Soccer” live from Colombia.
The Rams were always glamorous to me and I can see where moving might be traumatic. Does anyone think Merlin Olsen or Fred Dryer would have gotten TV shows of their own had either of them been St. Louis Cardinals? No way. You don’t get to be Father Murphy by being a Cardinal.
Christmas Eve’s game at Anaheim Stadium could be our final first-hand look at the California branch of the Rams, who are threatening to move to Maryland or Missouri or Connecticut or Iran or Japan or wherever the money’s sweeter. I only hope they don’t rent vans from U-Haul and sneak out of town at midnight. Please don’t make us send one of those Channel 7 Eyewitness News helicopters after you.
Nevertheless:
Here are 20 reasons why the Rams should reconsider leaving:
1. St. Louis has money, unlike Orange County, so it would be an expensive place to live.
2. People in the Midwest have basements, and the Rams have been in the basement long enough.
3. Georgia Frontiere will tire of shopping at Wal-Mart.
4. Missouri folks might call him “Jerry” Bettis.
5. Al Davis would move his team to Anaheim and, next thing you know, Mickey Mouse is found beaten into a coma.
6. The legal age for drinking beer in St. Louis is, I believe, 6.
7. The only theme park there is the National Bowling Hall of Fame.
8. Football players in St. Louis must step behind all those Clydesdale horses and this presents a continuing problem.
9. Usual halftime entertainment: Ozzie Smith doing back flips.
10. St. Louis does have the Blues. Then again, so do most Ram season-ticket holders.
11. Anheuser-Busch will never allow a quarterback named Miller.
12. Sean Gilbert must rename his sack dance from “Earthquake” to “Flood” or “Tornado.”
13. Trust me, people there would rather have Tampa Bay.
14. This guy Peter Angelos is just waiting to buy the St. Louis Rams so he can move them to Baltimore. (This guy is waiting to buy anything to move it to Baltimore. This guy would buy the White House and move it to Baltimore.)
15. Nobody ever chants, “Beat Saint Looie!”
16. All movies with Warren Beatty playing a former L.A. Ram quarterback will have to be re-shot or edited.
17. When introduced to “Deacon Jones,” Midwest people will automatically pass a plate and take up a collection.
18. The Mississippi River is not what it used to be.
19. Nobody mentioned that the new stadium is actually in East St. Louis.
20. Those Missouri winters are going to be hard on Jackie Slater’s rheumatism, baby.
Naturally, I am only goofing and I would much prefer that the Rams stick around. We make fun of the Rams today because they have played such pitiful football throughout the ‘90s, but they have also given us some glorious moments, like . . . like . . . well, maybe I’m not old enough to remember.
What I do know is that it is preposterous to blame their leaving on lack of fan support, because, as an old St. Louis Cardinal football lover of my acquaintance once said, “Nobody ever told us that we had to keep supporting a bad product until it became a good product.” St. Louisans are smart. They know better now.
Ram fans committed the cardinal sin of not caring. It is your team and you have to be there for your team, good or bad, because it will leave you. Teams become free agents, just like athletes. They go looking for better offers. St. Louis and Baltimore found out the hard way, better to see somebody than nobody.
I wish the governor could step in Saturday and keep the Rams from leaving. But that’s what people have been doing in California since 1994 began--leaving.
