Georgia in Georgia? Unbeatable Crass Act

The voice is gone. The fist is sore. The heart is heavy.

I tried, Los Angeles.

For more than three hours Sunday, I tried to cheer the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to victory over the St. Louis Rams.

Cheered illegally from the press box. Cheered for all of us who five years ago had no voice.

It didn’t work. The Rams won a five-fumble, five-interception NFC championship bout at the Trans World Dome by an 11-6 score that wouldn’t have looked good on a baseball game.

Then Georgia Frontiere stepped onto the field, and things really got ugly.

The woman who took football from us accepted a trophy and a Super Bowl question.

“The dome in Atlanta, Georgia is named the Georgia Dome--did you know that?” asked announcer Terry Bradshaw.

“No, no I didn’t,” replied Georgia.

An obvious ensuing question--Well, then, do you know who won today’s game?--never came up.

But Georgia was just getting started.

After taking a victory stroll around the stadium while corn-drunk fans actually shouted their thanks to her--as if their tax money isn’t thanks enough--she was asked another question.

Is there any part of you that feels bad for Southern California?

“Oh, yes,” she said. “But the fans there can still watch on TV. They were watching on TV and not coming to the games anyway.”

I tried, Los Angeles.

I whooped when USC’s Brian Kelly intercepted Kurt Warner early in the fourth quarter with the Buccaneers holding a 6-5 lead.

Growled when Shaun King was assessed a delay of game penalty on what would have been a first-down pass deep in Rams’ territory minutes later.

Kicked the table when Dre’ Bly picked off King’s wild pass with eight minutes left.

Screamed when Ricky Proehl made a one-handed catch in the corner of the end zone, just beyond Kelly’s outstretched arms, for the winning touchdown.

Howled in protest when officials wrongly disallowed a diving catch by Bert Emanuel that would have given the Buccaneers the ball on the Rams’ 23-yard line with 51 seconds left.

“That was the game right there,” said the Rams’ Todd Lyght, although his teammates fortunately waited until it became official before dancing around and rubbing it in.

Apologies are in order here to those admirably loyal Southern Californians who remain die-hard Ram fans.

But my resentment of an organization that turned their backs on you dies just as hard.

The Rams are good. As they showed Sunday, even when they are tentative and silly and playing right into the other team’s hand pads, they are good.

With a hyper-armed quarterback and Mark McGwire-sized offensive line and pockets bulging with speedy receivers, greatness is always just one play away.

With a defense that runs as fast as it hits, the offense can take their time finding that play.

The Rams are the best team in football at this moment, and certainly deserving of a spot in the Super Bowl.

Where I hope the Tennessee Titans beat them by 50.

“You really wish things could have worked out in Southern California,” said defensive tackle D’Marco Farr, one of five Rams with the team during their final 1994 season in Anaheim. “But you know, our bandwagon is big enough. All of them can join in. We’ll take everybody with us.”

Thanks, but no thanks.

For one thing, that bandwagon is as dignified as an ice cream truck.

After spending the past week here bragging like school children, the Rams then acted every bit of that on Sunday, pointing and strutting and dancing after anything that elicited a cheer.

The Buccaneers allowed themselves to be drawn into the posturing. Kelly even imitated the Rams’ “bob and weave” end zone dance after his fourth-quarter interception.

But it was the Rams who had the last crass.

When the victory was ensured, the video scoreboard showed a replay of Kelly’s dance while the crowd of 66,496 howled and jeered.

Then, at the final gun, several Rams left their celebrating teammates to run into the faces of the Buccaneers with pointed fingers and waves and insults.

Billy Jenkins, a Ram safety, even ran across the field to shout and wave at Buccaneer quarterback Trent Dilfer. This might have been more effective if Dilfer, who missed the end of the season because of a shoulder injury, wasn’t wearing a T-shirt and jeans at the time.

“Dick Vermeil is a good coach . . . but for some reason, his team has a bunch of punks with no class,” said Buccaneer guard Frank Middleton. “When you wave a hand at somebody after the game is over, point fingers, throw punches, that’s a bunch of trash.

“You do that, you’re not much of a man.”

This column may sound like the same thing, but it’s hard.

You watch a team leave town because they weren’t getting rich enough after five consecutive double-digit loss seasons.

Then five years later you watch them strut through a new town like they were never anywhere else.

On the field before Sunday’s game, introduced as an honorary captain and former St. Louis Ram hero, was Lawrence McCutcheon. Huh?

Then there is the wall at the Trans World Dome that contains the names of past football stars.

Norm Van Brocklin is there . . . next to Dan Dierdorf. Tom Mack is there . . . next to Larry Wilson.

Huh?

Long after her team had won a game to send them to a place that she’s never heard of, Georgia Frontiere was asked again about moving the team from Southern California.

“It was the toughest decision I’ve ever made,” she said.

For some of us, rooting against her this week will be the easiest.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.