Let Them Eat Ram Chops in St. Louis : Pro football: Many in city are euphoric, but others wonder if it’s money well spent.

Down at Sportsman’s Park, the restaurant recently sold by Jackie Smith, Hall of Fame member and former Cardinal tight end, they are preparing to add $6.95 Ram chops with Georgia peach sauce to the menu.

Not everyone will be buying.

“I don’t think the Rams are worth it,” Maureen Toberman said. “They’re losers. And we put up that much money? We got people starving in the city.”

But what about that screaming headline across the top of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Thursday morning?

“We Got ‘Em”

Still, Angel Kruse said: “I think the people of St. Louis are looking like a bunch of chumps right now.”

KFNS-radio, however, named Georgia Frontiere, the St. Louis Rams’ owner, McDonald’s player of the day for leaving Southern California.

“Even a crummy team is better than none,” Bob Ramsey told his listeners.

St. Louis, which lost the Cardinals to Phoenix after the 1987 season, began day one with the city’s new heroes by staging a news conference at a ritzy hotel in a nearby suburb.

“Let me introduce to you the first lady of St. Louis football,” former Sen. Thomas Eagleton said, prompting city leaders, influential businessmen and members of the local media to give Frontiere a standing ovation.

She read a letter intended earlier for publication in the Post-Dispatch, assuring St. Louis fans that the Rams were coming there no matter what it took.

“We had declared war,” Frontiere said. “This was a time where you couldn’t be emotional; this was a fight. I knew the fans were behind us and part of this army, such a gigantic army, there was no way we could be beaten.

“Like a lot of other people, I couldn’t believe it when it happened. I’ve had many more ups and downs than you people had because I would think it was going to happen, and then it didn’t. So when it finally happened. . . . I woke up this morning at 5 o’clock and I looked out: ‘We’re here, we’re really here.’ I’m so happy I really could cry.”

Frontiere said she will go house hunting today and then attend a “Welcome Rams Pep Rally” at Kiener Plaza near Busch Stadium on Saturday along with Ram coaches and selected players.

“I’m excited about the Rams; they’ve been to a Super Bowl,” Jerry Sommer said. “I already have a Rams tie.”

Fans lined up Wednesday night at Sports Print in nearby Ferguson to buy the first officially NFL-licensed “St. Louis Rams” T-shirts at $12.99 apiece. TV reporters, assigned to interview Frontiere, were wearing blue and yellow “St. Louis Rams” buttons.

Notices will go out shortly to 10,000 personal seat license applicants informing them they lost out in their purchase bid. The 69,000-seat domed stadium, being built for $260 million, is scheduled to open on Sunday, Oct. 22.

“I could care less about the Rams coming to St. Louis,” Mel Roberts said. “If a guy with a gun does the same thing, they call it a robbery. There was just too much damn money floating around.”

Stan Kroenke, the new 30% minority owner of the Rams, is considered by many here as the team’s great hope for on-the-field success and one day maybe even as its majority owner.

“Frontiere and (Ram President John) Shaw are going to be in L.A., and Stan’s just 100 miles down the road (in Columbia),” said Bob Rowe, a former player for the Cardinals from 1967 to ’76. “Stan makes no bones that he would eventually like to own the team. I think (with his) constant input, and if Frontiere and Shaw are to be believed, there will be a serious effort to put a winner on the field.”

Frontiere, who will continue to live at times in L.A., said: “To say I don’t care (about Southern California fans) would be not true. I do care, and I always have cared. I never wanted to leave Los Angeles for Anaheim, but I didn’t have any choice. I always thought if we had stayed we might have had a better fan base. But it’s a fresh start now, and I feel like I’ve fallen into a honey pot.”