Peace of Mind Hard to Find Around Georgia

Georgia Frontiere has announced she’s on her way-- Ta ta! La de da! --and when she lands, St. Louis, you aren’t going to know what hit you.

You are about to get the Rams, a mixed proposition at best, and with the deal comes Georgia, a woman who is to National Football League owners what your old football team, the Cardinals, was to the NFC East. You remember their customary position in the standings. They could usually be found looking up, because there was nothing to be found below.

You remember, too, when the Cardinals left for Phoenix and you bid Bill Bidwill good riddance and you took solace in the belief that you’d experienced the worst and at least that was behind you now.

Guess what, St. Louis?

You just traded down.

Before being whisked away on her getaway plane to Missouri, Georgia took time out of her hectic, community-enhancing schedule to formally say farewell to Anaheim and attempt to explain herself, which is--and we should consider ourselves fortunate--more than Chuck Knox received.

“I have no other choice,” Georgia says.

“I don’t think if we had gone to the Super Bowl it would have made a difference. What could I do?”

“I mean, what did I do wrong here?”

“Where did I go wrong?”

Georgia has never been accused of having her finger on the pulse of the Rams’ football operation, but her parting comments are so ridiculously out of touch, so patently clueless, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry or curse or reach for the Pepto Bismol.

Where did I go wrong?

A proper response could fill the wing of a public library. Where did she go wrong? Where do you want to start?

How about inheriting the team from husband Carroll Rosenbloom in 1979 and promptly firing the man Rosenbloom had groomed to run the organization, his son Steve, who realized that football was a business, but in order to succeed, that business had to produce on Sunday? Ask any Ram fan on the street--yes, Georgia, such a species does exist--and he or she will tell you, “This would have never happened if Steve Rosenbloom were still around.”

How about replacing Rosenbloom with John Shaw, a brilliant back room screw-turner who knew the value of a dollar sign, but had little interest in Xs and Os?

How about letting one of the proudest franchises in professional football go to seed in an astonishingly short period time? Once, believe it or not, “Los Angeles Rams” was a name that could hold its own with the Green Bay Packers and Cleveland Browns in any barroom debate in the land. Now, a mere five seasons after reaching the NFC title game, “Los Angeles Rams” will get you laughed out of those same barrooms.

How about sitting idly in the background while your “football people” traded Eric Dickerson, the Rams’ best player during the Anaheim era, at the height of his career for a parcel of draft choices those same “football people” would turn into a mound of sawdust and a bag of jellybeans?

How about refusing to promote your team, as the losses began to pile up, in a discriminating market you already shared with the Angels and eventually relinquished to the Mighty Ducks?

How about hiring a 60-year-old coach to “revitalize” the franchise after a 3-13 finish in 1991, while other coaching vacancies were being filled by such bright newcomers as Bill Cowher, Bobby Ross, Mike Holmgren and Dennis Green?

How about keeping the Save The Rams coalition at arm’s length and never really allowing Orange County into the race against Baltimore and St. Louis because you are so completely attuned to the sentiments of the local sports consumer and you are certain they will never properly support an NFL franchise?

Even if the Rams had gone to the Super Bowl, right?

The point is now moot, because under Georgia’s ownership, the Rams only came close twice, in 1985 and 1989, and were blown out of both conference finals. But to think a Super Bowl wouldn’t have made a difference is the same logic that spawned the boarding pass to St. Louis.

Before Ross was hired by the Chargers, San Diego had the same reputation as Orange County--fair-weather fans, distracted by the too-fair weather--but now look at the place. The Chargers are in the AFC title game and San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium is Lambeau Field West, filled to the brim and jumping with excitement.

It could have happened here, too, no question, but only it would have taken the owner to do it. Georgia would have had to commit totally to fielding a winner or she would have had to sell the team. One or the other would have sufficed, but she chose neither and waited for Shaw to find her a sucker and a clean escape.

St. Louis won’t change anything about the Rams except the dateline. Sure, they will make more money, but it’s up to the owner to invest it in the product, instead of the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed.

“I feel a little numb,” Georgia said as she made her way to the jetway.

St. Louis, we know the feeling.

Soon, you will, too.