Mayor’s Team Defeats This Council Motion

Here, Art Shell bruised spleens. Here too, Lyle Alzado cracked ribs.

And here, on the playing field at Memorial Coliseum on Sunday, Mayor Richard Riordan promised to inflict some damage of his own.

“It’s not just that we must win,” the white-jerseyed Riordan said with a half-sneer. “The other team must suffer.”

And suffer it did, as the City Council and its staff took a 14-0 gridiron grilling from the mayor and his team.

The vast and venerable 92,517-seat Coliseum did not resound to the Sunday afternoon grunts of players and the shouts of fans. This was a game in which the players outnumbered the crowd. Among the few fans, nine were organized enough to hold up homemade signs--letters spelling out G-O R-I-O-R-D-A-N.

Sure, the mayor’s first turn in his cameo role at quarterback produced a wobbly five-yard pass that was intercepted, and his second call was a fake reverse that confused only his own team.

But when he played wide receiver, Riordan took a late, hard hit but managed to hold on to a 15-yard pass lofted by one of his deputy mayors, thereby setting up the team’s first touchdown.

When the whistle blew--actually a staff member on a loudspeaker called out, “Um, it’s over”--Los Angeles’ top politician had kept his promise.

The idea for a mayor vs. council tag football game began stewing, according to Riordan, when he and Councilman Richard Alarcon were tossing a football around last year during a visit to the stadium to inspect damage from the Northridge earthquake.

“Alarcon made a one-handed catch and made some disparaging remark about how he could beat the hell out of the mayor’s office in a game,” Riordan recalled.

Nonsense, said Alarcon. He had simply offered a gentlemanly challenge.

Either way, the game was on--about a year after the gauntlet was thrown down. And it was something to see.

For the blue-jerseyed City Council team, Councilwoman Laura Chick, who probably weighs about as much as a good pair of cleats and some shoulder pads, provided a quick and dangerous rush from her slot as defensive end. Quarterback Alarcon diagramed a complex offense: He called it “I throw, they catch.”

On the white-shirted side, quarterback and deputy mayor Rockard Delgadillo pumped out a series of long passes that, unlike many flung by Alarcon, were actually caught by his own team.

And the mayor’s deputy press secretary, defensive linewoman Jane Galbraith, heroically defended her goal line by throwing her body in front of a very large and charging Councilman Mike Hernandez. Then she applied ice to her injuries.

Sitting on the bench after the loss, Hernandez groused good-naturedly that he suspected that politics had played a role in the outcome. The mayor had released his proposed budget Friday; several council members were home studying the document, Hernandez said, and staff members played in their stead.

Asked whether the game had governed the timing of his budget release, Riordan grinned and spoke solemnly: “I admit nothing.”