Sorry? Not for These Two

Unlike most people from greater Los Angeles, I have been following the Raiders and Rams this season with a passionate interest.

I cheer their every defeat. I hoot their every victory. I point at my TV screen and laugh, every time either team fumbles another football, fires another incomplete pass, replaces the banged-up starting quarterback with the washed-up backup quarterback or makes another feeble excuse why they lost.

(“The ball was too slippery” was my favorite so far.)

I laugh myself silly as Marcus Allen runs through the Raiders like putty. Run, Marcus, run.

I break out into a big grin when the Rams’ coach insults his team by calling them the “same old Rams.” I mean, the man is really cruel.

Mainly, I am glad that the Raiders and Rams are gone, hope that they stay gone, really enjoy them being gone, wish they could have been gone sooner, picture them being gone to another country and pray that nobody in L.A. ever tries to make them un-gone.

We need to build a stadium and get a football team here, but we don’t need either thing that badly. If we needed clowns, we’d put up a tent.

Have you been following the Raiders this season? As usual, they’re a laugh riot.

First of all--now here’s a shock--the stadium in Oakland has announced that it is cutting off beer sales during the third quarter. They made this incredible discovery that Oakland Raider fans like to drink .

How about that? This one’s right up there with Columbus discovering America. Raider fans drink too much, man, now there’s a revelation. Cutting off beer sales to a Raider fan is like cutting off water to a trout. Do you know when beer sales should be cut off before any Sunday game involving the Raiders? Saturday. No, a week ago Saturday.

Oakland fans also have had some hilarious misadventures in buying tickets, from the astonishing conclusion that they were being overcharged--duh--to that happy-go-lucky morning when they stood in line for hours for Raider-Cowboy game tickets that didn’t exist. Somebody should have warned Raider fans to call the team’s ticket hot-line number, 1-555-666-JOKE’s-ON-U.

On the field, the Raiders have never been funnier.

Oh, OK, maybe when Marc Wilson was at quarterback, but otherwise, never funnier.

They started off very quickly, but now have settled into a nice little 8-5 record that is two whole victories better than the Carolina Panthers. Commitment to expansion-level excellence! That’s that Raider motto.

Last week was a great treat for the anti-Raider crowd here in Los Angeles, when the Kansas City Chiefs, who could defeat the Raiders by using 11 Cub Scouts, beat the L.A. Traitors at their warm and fuzzy little home up there in Oakland, 29-23, despite the efforts of 2,000-year-old Raider quarterback Vince Evans.

I particularly enjoyed a San Francisco Examiner sports page that I saved and happen to have right here in front of me. In its account of how Billy Joe Hobert replaced Evans, who replaced Jeff Hostetler, the newspaper refers to the third-string quarterback as “Holbert” in a headline and in four separate references in the story, along with mentioning the absence of regular starter “Jeff Hoffstetler.”

Yep, those Raiders sure have become household words up there by the city by the Bay. Just like Steve Yungg and Jerry Ryce.

In that game, Marcus Allen rushed for more than 100 yards and scored his 103rd NFL rushing touchdown, after which he was penalized 15 yards for laughing his butt off.

Oakland’s players had no good excuses for their defeat, choosing not to use the old “that ball was really greasy” alibi that came in so handy after the Denver loss. I thought sure some Raider would accuse Kansas City of using a football that was corked.

As for the Rams, well, quarterback Chris Miller recently suffered his fifth concussion in 15 months, which means he now knows how most Ram fans feel.

Just like the Raiders, the Rams got off to a fast start, but now they are 7-6 and I think they’re moving to Cleveland. At the moment, the team is battling Atlanta, New Orleans and Carolina for that coveted “Worst Team in the NFL Playoffs” berth.

To inspire/insult his squad, first-year Coach Rich Brooks used a particularly nasty motivational tool, accusing his St. Louis Rams of looking like the “same old Rams.” I haven’t heard anything so confrontational since Jerry Springer told a guy that his girlfriend was really a hooker.

Well, sir, the Rams marched right out and scored a touchdown against the San Francisco 49ers, who, unfortunately, scored several.

On the plus side, some guy named Todd Kinchen who plays for the Rams did punch a goal post with vigor and gusto. He seemed to really enjoy himself during the Ram defeat. Hey, who didn’t?