Wary Oakland Dares to Hope Raiders Will Really Return

In the cool dimness of an East Oakland barber shop, the men talked Thursday of hopes and dreams and the Oakland Raiders, of the glory their city once experienced and the fame that may await if the football team returns.

Patrons and barbers alike proclaimed themselves too wary of broken promises by Al Davis and local officials to allow themselves to hope. But then they hoped anyway, ticking off the good things the Raiders would do for Oakland if they came back--if, if, if. . . .

“I figure if they come back, they are going to start winning again,” beamed Steve White, 40, a cable television technician who had stepped out of the glare of the hot noon sun into Mo’ Betta’ Cuts for a trim and a chat. “They’ll be getting all this support they didn’t have down in L.A.”

From this working-class neighborhood of barred windows and iron-mesh front doors to the coffeehouses of Lake Merritt and the tony boutiques of upscale Montclair, Oaklanders on Thursday began allowing themselves to dream aloud of the jobs, the money and the fame that the defectors in silver and black could deliver if they return.

“Inches from the goal line,” proclaimed a banner headline in the Oakland Tribune. The Times reported Thursday that Davis, the Raiders’ managing general partner who ripped out Oakland’s sports heart when he took the team to Los Angeles in 1982, was close to signing an agreement to play again in the Oakland Coliseum.

When sketchy reports of the possibility surfaced many weeks ago, few Oakland fans got excited. The city has been trying to woo back the team for 13 years and fans have grown accustomed to hearing that the Raiders are returning, only to have their hopes dashed again and again.

Some fans Thursday had already begun fretting about the future, fearful that Davis might return only to desert Oakland again later for a better offer.

“We just hope that Al Davis doesn’t pull another number on us and leave in two years,” said Gary R. Lewis, a banker. “He would break our heart again if someone offered him a better deal. . . . We’d feel like we weren’t good enough to have a team.”

Some have yet to forgive Davis for yanking the team, a perennial Super Bowl contender at the time, in the first place.

“I wouldn’t take the Raiders back unless Al Davis signed a 100-year lease,” said Mel Ferreira, 68, who may have in mind Davis’ steady stream of threats over the years to leave Los Angeles, only to end up each season back at the Memorial Coliseum.

Other fans associate the Raiders with Oakland’s better days and believe that the team might help restore them by boosting the city economy and flagging spirit.

“When the Raiders left, it was like someone pulled the plug on Oakland,” said Dexter Jones, 28, who owns an Oakland mortgage business.

The city has gone through a slump, he said, “but Oakland doesn’t deserve its bad image. San Francisco has more drugs than Oakland. But San Francisco squashes it in the newspapers.”

Not blessed with San Francisco’s famed skyline or its charm, Oakland has long felt the sting of comparison with its heralded neighbor. Although its hills are scenic and heavily wooded, its center dominated by a glistening lake and many of its neighborhoods thriving, Oakland tends to be known more for a high murder rate and pockets of numbing poverty and drug addiction.

Oakland real estate agent Bill Brown, 42, could talk of little else but the Raiders as he relished news reports about their possible return.

“Bring them home, Al!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Bring them home, Al!”

Even after the Raiders moved to Los Angeles, Brown continued to buy season tickets, joining other Oaklanders on weekend flights to see the games.

“Al is so much better off being up here than he is in L.A.,” Brown said. “The fans in L.A. are the worst. If they go to the games, they get there late and leave early. Up here, he has the best football fans in the NFL.”

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