Football Season Has Him All Chargered Up

One year from today Our Team will take the field for the first time at Cal State Dominguez Hills to conduct training camp, so you know me, I thought it would be nice to spend some quality time with Our Chargers on Monday.

I could be mistaken, but at first the boys didn’t seem too excited to see me.

I had worn my Dodger baseball cap, however, and “The Riviera Country Club” free shirt I received from the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission in exchange for wearing the Commission’s name on my left sleeve, and I think Our Guys warmed up to the L.A. billboard look, and began to understand I’m really a homer at heart.

At the same time I almost ran over Doug Flutie, and let that be a lesson to everyone to watch where you step. It’s a wonder Tom Thumb lasted as long as he did. Now just in case there were any hard feelings from previous meetings, I told the Mission Bay Shrimp, “It looks to me like you’ve grown a little since I saw you last.”

I know when I tell the wife she looks like she’s lost some weight since her last meal, she becomes unusually friendly. So I lied to Flutie, too, and after looking himself over, he told me he might very well be a little taller, which for him was an unusually friendly response.

With all the love in the air, I was beginning to feel like John Fricke on Fox’s nightly sports gush, but I didn’t go so far as to hug Flutie or offer to give him a piggy-back ride. There’s no reason to steal Fricke’s entire act.

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NOW AS you know, Our Team has been pretty crummy of late, going 6-26 the last two years. So I asked Coach Marty Schottenheimer if he could get Our Guys playing better by the time they come to Los Angeles.

“Where?” said Schottenheimer.

“That big city up north,” I said, and if he doesn’t know where L.A. is located, I worry the Chargers will never be able to find the end zones under this guy’s direction.

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CHARGER HISTORY begins in Los Angeles, of course, before they moved to San Diego, and long before the Spanos Goofs became owners. The folks in San Diego aren’t very fond of the Spanos Goofs, which tells me they’ve gotten to really know them.

But since the Chargers are about to become Our Team, I thought I’d talk to one of the Goofs--the one who was banned from playing in Bing Crosby’s old golf tournament because folks believed he was cheating when reporting his handicap.

I thought I might get into his good graces promising not to alert our private clubs that a potential cheater was about to move to town. But I got the impression from a Charger spokesman that if anyone got an interview with Dean Spanos or a chance to caddie for him, it would be Fricke.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Dean Spanos and Philip Anschutz’s point man, Tim LIE-weke, pardon, Leiweke, might be the twosome to do the deal to bring the Chargers to L.A. Sure hope someone is checking the fine print.

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THE CHARGERS have been practicing here in Shangri-La for the last 27 years on mornings so cool a sweater is required. It’s considered the best camp environment in the NFL. They spent $1.1 million to upgrade the training facilities at UCSD and now $1 a year to conduct camp here.

There’s a permanent grandstand available for San Diego area fans to watch both practice fields in comfort, and yet the team has decided to leave here for the heat and pollution of Carson. The last person I know who was hellbent on going to Carson was Michael Ovitz, and look what has happened to him.

Charger General Manager John Butler said the team is going to Carson to get away from San Diego and bond better as a team. No one in San Diego believes a word Butler has to say about anything, which will make conversations with LIE-weke, pardon, Leiweke, in the future very interesting.

The truth, of course, is the team is positioning itself to get a new stadium from San Diego or a new home in Los Angeles, and is willing to throw a scare into Charger fans by moving the camp north.

The Chargers will be Our Team each summer from now on, and might become Our Team permanently after 2003.

Schottenheimer, of course, has no idea where L.A. is right now, but if he thought “The Drive” was a bummer while coaching in Cleveland, wait until he makes the drive to Cal State Dominguez Hills regularly.

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I WENT to the Dodger-Padre game in Qualcomm Stadium, and you know how they have that 10-run mercy rule in Little League? Well, more and more that’s what Sept. 16th is beginning to look like for the Dodgers.

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MANAGER JIM Tracy said Kevin Brown threw about 60 pitches at Dodger Stadium on Monday. When I asked if Brown would be using the private plane the Dodgers are obligated to provide him when he wants--to fly to San Diego and join the team, Tracy said, “I don’t know if she’s running tonight.” I’m guessing that was a “no.”

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WHEN I saw Commissioner Bud Selig and astronaut John Glenn sitting next to each other during the Ted Williams ceremony at Fenway Park, I figured they just put the space cadets together.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Steve Gandolfo:

“The only reason I continue to read your column on page two is to find out if someone in the Dodger clubhouse has knocked you out yet. Hopefully I won’t have to read much longer.”

The way the Dodgers are going, if someone takes a swing--they’ll miss.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.