COMMENTARY : Georgia Can Win the Pot, but She Has to Ante Up

Pay the money, Georgia.

Pay the money and get out.

This is not blood money. This is corner-market money. This is laundromat-down-the-street money.

This is neighborhood money.

Of all the NFL’s demands on Ram owner Georgia Frontiere here during these long and confusing four days, it really comes down to this:

You want to go to St. Louis? Write us a check that would be used to help either build a new stadium or renovate Anaheim Stadium.

That’s right, Georgia.

All they want you to do is leave something behind besides a stench.

Have you not toyed with the jobs and lives and faith of thousands of Southern Californians long enough?

Have you not embarrassed people here enough with charges that they are not good fans or good citizens?

You are not wanted here. You are not respected here. You cannot stay here.

The league overwhelmingly voted down your proposed move Wednesday, but owners say that result can be changed with a conference call.

“There is a deal to be made; all they have to do is close it,” said Robert Kraft, owner of New England Patriots.

Georgia, you can do that by leaving a legacy for the next football inhabitant.

By leaving a legacy for our children.

And you say no?

Shut up, Georgia. Pay the money. And get out.

We’re guessing $25 million to $30 million would do it. That would be an acceptable start on a fund to renovate Anaheim Stadium and make it work for a new tenant who would occupy it within two years.

That would make us forget you as easily as possible.

The league says they also want you to pay off Fox television to compensate the network for losing a team in the nation’s second-ranked market.

That can be negotiated. If another team replaces you here within two years, Fox is not badly hurt and future contracts are not affected.

It comes down to the stadium fund. Once the place is fixed up, some believe that the league would move the Cincinnati Bengals out here.

They stink. But at least they are run by the son of Paul Brown. A football person.

You and John Shaw are not football people. You are poker players.

You pulled a great hand last year when St. Louis was denied an expansion franchise.

Problem was, you found the cards under your chair. And you have spent the last 17 months trying to use them to steal the pot.

Then Leigh Steinberg showed up. He is also a poker player. And he knows a game of three-card monte when he sees one.

His Orange County group spotted you and blew the whistle. And kept blowing, and blowing.

Finally, this week, somebody listened.

The Committee to Save the Rams still has not saved the Rams. But they have taught the sports world that even millionaire owners who care little about the little people who fill their pockets must play by the rules.

And perhaps that is just as important.

“The Rams were not losing money. The Rams could have stayed in Anaheim and that group out there (Committee to Save the Rams) could have renovated the stadium,” said Bud Adams, owner of the Houston Oilers and chairman of the finance committee. “But the Rams saw this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and they quickly jumped at it.”

Adams said that after studying the deal, it became obvious that the Rams were not oppressed, but opportunists.

“If you asked (owners) if they would take the same deal, seven or eight of them would raise their hands,” Adams said. “And then you would have a stampede.”

Contrary to what the NFL has been saying all week, this wasn’t about guidelines. It was about cheats.

Under league rules, the Rams’ offer of $25.16 million Wednesday morning should have been made weeks ago.

That was the league’s fair cut from money from the $74 million in personal seat licenses that had been sold in St. Louis.

Under rules of fair play, the Rams should have also discussed other compensation issues long before this week. Maybe the league was being unfair, but at least the Rams would know about it.

And if they weren’t willing to share in their new fortune as everyone else in the league has always shared--the one tenant that has made the NFL the most successful business in sports--then they never should have announced the move.

That way, the fates of two cities would not have rested on the surreal scene along a wide hallway at the Biltmore hotel here Wednesday afternoon.

Georgia Frontiere and John Shaw were ushered from the Kaibab Boardroom to the Mesa Room. Several owners left the Flagstaff Room and joined them.

Then, amid a flash of camera lights, Frontiere and Shaw left the Mesa Room for the Flagstaff Room. Several lawyers joined them from the NFL’s offices at the other end of the corridor.

Frontiere emerged again and, amid more lights and whirring, headed to . . . the bathroom.

At the end of the afternoon, Frontiere was still smiling, her flowered dress still billowing. She signed autographs. She moved her hands so her rings sparkled.

She was asked, whatever would she say to the fans if her team actually played in Anaheim again?

“I would say, ‘Hello,’ and ‘Root for us,’ ” she said.

Goodby. And nobody here will ever root for you.

* MAIN STORY: A1