RAIDERS RETURN TO OAKLAND : The Power of One : Chargers Are Local Fans’ Lone Source for Pro Football

Touchdown, San Diego!

Who scored? Who knows? It’s something you will come to accept as a new Charger fan--listening to Lee (Hacksaw) Hamilton, the official shill of the Chargers, scream out the big news with nary a clue of what has transpired.

You will hear these giddy primeval pronouncements when you are placed on hold calling San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium for ticket information. You will hear “Touchdown, San Diego!” on radio promos, ESPN highlights and you really have no alternative.

The Rams are in St. Louis and the Raiders are bound for Oakland. You want to attend a professional football game in Southern California some Sunday, and you have the Chargers with their plucky (tubby) quarterback, surfer-dude general manager and obnoxious cannon. There is also the easy-to-learn fight song lyrics: “San Dee A Go . . . Soup-Er Charg-Ers.” There you go.

You combine “Touchdown, San Diego!” with “San Dee A Go . . . Soup-Er Charg-Ers” after being scared to death by that cannon, and if you don’t find yourself longing for those quiet afternoons in Anaheim Stadium or the good-old days at the Coliseum, you are a true Bolt.

You might live in Orange County, but you don’t have to tell anyone. You can still pass for a Charger fan. You need only a ticket, a Charger history briefing, inside Charger stuff, homer info and directions.

Ticket: Forget it, unless you act quickly. Ron Tuck, Charger ticket manager, said you have until Friday to purchase a season ticket (average cost $340). You buy a season ticket and then go into the Super Bowl lottery giving you the opportunity to pay for airfare, hotel accommodations, rental car, fancy dinners and $200 to see the game you could have watched on TV. Lucky you.

You want to go to one regular-season Charger game: Chargers vs. Cowboys, so best camp out Friday night at your local Ticketmaster, because when 5,000 to 6,000 individual tickets go on sale Saturday, Charger officials expect them to be gone in a matter of hours. Just like Ram games.

You want to see the Chargers, you pay $39, $36, $22 or $5. The $5 allows you to park at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and sit in your car and listen to Hacksaw describe the action. You can get a ticket to the 49ers-Chargers clash--50,000 of them if you want--if you don’t mind paying $39 for an Aug. 13 exhibition shootout between Elvis Grbac and Craig Whelihan.

You want a much-coveted Charger magnet schedule for the refrigerator and you will need a ticket to the Charger-Ram exhibition game on Aug. 25. That will be the St. Louis Rams’ fourth exhibition game--three weeks after quarterback Chris Miller’s first injury of the year.

Charger history: Like every other team in football, the Chargers got their start in Los Angeles and then moved away. In 1965, the San Diego City Council endorses construction of multipurpose stadium in Mission Valley; drops idea of floating stadium in Mission Bay. In 1980, the stadium is named in honor of Jack Murphy, sports editor of the San Diego Union. The Raiders don’t even let sportswriters watch their practices.

In 1988, Chargers average 43,425 a game, Rams average 54,467, Raiders average 57,480 and it’s the Rams and Raiders who will eventually look elsewhere for better fan support. Does that have anything to do with poor management?

In 1990, Chargers hire Bobby Beathard as general manager, and five years later 10,000 excited fans respond to a radio promotion and show up at dawn to form a bolt in the parking lot in honor of their team. And in 1995, 68,000 fans show up at stadium to greet team after it beat Steelers in Pittsburgh to advance to Super Bowl.

Background info: Ram President John Shaw grew up less than two miles from San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and then moved--of course. You will run into Coach Bobby Ross, and after laughing at the way the guy wears his hat, you will ask him to park your car before someone tells you who he is. It’s easy to get confused: Reuben Davis and Shawn Lee are known as “Two Tons of Fun.” Tony Martin and Shawn Jefferson are “Two Stiffs Who Can’t Catch.”

He has his own line of clothes, his own brand of water and when No. 55 introduces himself, he says, “My name is Junior Seau The Greatest Linebacker In The Game; people call me Junior Seau The Greatest Linebacker In The Game.”

Homer stuff: Ross and Beathard have never made a mistake. Stan Humphries is better than John Elway, Dan Marino and Steve Young combined. As big as all three combined too. Leslie O’Neal isn’t selfish because of all the attention Seau gets. Shoot, you ask O’Neal about Seau and O’Neal will tell you all about Leslie O’Neal. Loss of safety Stanley Richard won’t hurt team because Ross and Beathard never make a mistake. Natrone Means Business--get it? Training camp opens July 17 at UC San Diego, prepare to fight the crowds to watch practice because “we’ll be back” to the Super Bowl again this year. Alex Spanos is a generous, kind, compassionate, understanding owner just as his bio says and because Don Coryell was unavailable for comment.

Directions: Interstate 5. Take the I-805 south split to Highway 52-E to I-5 south to Friars Road, turn right, skip the first right, stay left, veer into parking lot and take off that Angel hat. Ninety-five miles from Orange Crush to Bolt Central. What happens first? Completion of I-5 construction or return of football to Orange County? Primo tailgating near Gate N-2. Hacksaw’s autograph? Gate H. Leigh Steinberg entrance: Gate F.

Suggested game for kids during the drive: How many Denny’s can you see from the road between Orange County and stadium? (Hint: How many husbands did Georgia Frontiere have?)

You are now officially a Charger fan . . . singing “San Dee A Go, Soup-Er Charg-Ers” to yourself as you make your way back to bankrupt land, tuning in XTRA radio every hour for every Charger update and convinced now that even on a bad day Mater Dei couldn’t beat your Chargers.