Men behaving badly

So. The St. Louis (né Cleveland) Rams are moving to Los Angeles. Again.

Evidently St. Louis didn’t pony up enough to keep the NFL team there, and the city’s been dumped like a busted-up wide receiver with irreparable ACL tears. Or possibly like your second-choice date for the prom when the first choice unaccountably accepts.

As I understand it, the Rams told St. Louis, “It’s not us, it’s you.”

This is their second marriage to LA—they were the pro-football team in residence for all the time I lived there. Well, “in-residence” meaning they played in the LA Coliseum and then moved to Anaheim, which offered them more than LA for the privilege of allowing grown men to pad up more than the Michelin Man to butt heads, scratch their crotches and act like WWF performers on national television. In total, they were the “Los Angeles Rams” from 1946 to 1994.

Now, after 22 years of pledging troth to the Midwest, they’re basically saying they’re just not that into St. Louis after all, and they're ready to return to their former love.

By making this move, they’ve pre-empted the Oakland Raiders, who also played in LA the last time they got into a snit with the City Across the Bay over the notion of what they were entitled to from their community and fan base. They practiced at El Segundo High School in the early part of that relationship, which lasted from 1982 to 1994.

(That was obviously an apocalyptic year if you were an Angeleno and you gave a toss about pro football.)

As I was leaving the Valley They Call Silicon last month, the local news was pretty well wound up over the Raiders kicking their toes against the baseboards and whining that they don’t have a proper multi-billion-dollar playing field like all the other NFL teams, so they’re going to see what LA has to offer. After all, they already know the route to get there.

And as if that’s not enough steroid-infused moaning, the San Diego Chargers have suddenly also decided that nothing but Los Angeles is good enough for them. As I understand it, the Chargers get first refusal of sharing space with the Rams and the Raiders have to wait their turn. And maybe lose out.

Now, I don’t know spit about professional sports except what I can pick up from the media about the latest felony charges filed against one or more of their star players. But I do know a lot about sociopaths and dysfunctional relationships, and NFL teams, their players and their owners exhibit all the signs of both of these.

What I also don’t know is how fans allow themselves to be snookered by these teams, especially after they repeatedly demonstrate their contempt for everyone around them, especially their greatest admirers.

 

If these guys were blondes, they’d be called gold-diggers. They’re the very definition of greedy, self-serving welfare queens with no sense of loyalty to their market base—the people who pay stupid money to watch them play a game, follow their antics as though they were paradigms of Wildean wit and wear ridiculously overpriced kit simply because it’s associated with the team.

They arrive at a city like they’re at the head of an Imperial Triumph and strut about as though the entire metropolis is theirs to use as they will. But when the glitter starts flaking off, out come the demands for more. And then the whining.

They clearly view their communities and their fans as both interchangeable and disposable. “I love LA!” We’re not there this season? Oops—my bad! “St. Louis is the place.” Or Oakland. Or San Diego.

Or not.