[Raiderhater]

I don't think this what you are looking for Joe, but I'll post it anyway...





2/4/03 - I have really gotten tired of "Raider Nation" and all the unwarranted homage that it is paid by seemingly responsible folks in the media. The team and the team ownership and the city fathers in Oakland and the fans in Oakland have become far more than merely tedious. This is probably not an expression of an East Coast bias because I suspect that lots of other people on the West Coast got tired of all of these entities a while ago but it took time for the stink to percolate over here to the DC area.

Where to start? The team is a mess. The reactions of several players to the Barret Robbins situation go way beyond "insensitive" and approach "monstrous". If this is how the words "teammate" and "camaraderie" and "commitment to excellence" manifest themselves in "Raider behavior", then I would not want to see Frank Middleton and/or Mo Collins act out "anti-social boorishness". Even after it has become privacy-invadingly-clear that Barret Robbins is a man in need of medical help (and not in any small measure!) these two comrades-in-arms have yet to say that their previous remarks were wrong-headed, hastily concocted, hurtful and in desperate need of retraction. Additionally, some words along the lines of "Sorry 'bout that…" would be something that socialized bipeds might consider. Since you haven't heard them yet, you make the call…

[To be fair, defensive tackle Sam Adams did say yesterday that he was sorry that Robbins was sick and that he wished Robbins well and that he would welcome Robbins back on the Raiders' team.]

After the Raiders' "roll-over-in-a-fetal-position performance" in the Super Bowl, you might think that some of the team would be glad to learn that the city wanted to stage a rally in honor of the team. They had a very good season but the most polite thing you could say about their performance in the Super Bowl was that they stunk out the joint and made it smell like a skunk's butt. Nonetheless, the city wanted to throw a rally to honor them. Granted, it was not going to be as huge a throng as it might have been had they won the game or actually made it a competitive struggle, but it was a rally in honor of the team. Who showed up? No players did; no coaches did; none of the front office did; none of the owners did. The Oakland Raiders as a team and as an organization and as human beings stiffed their fans.

Why would that surprise anyone? Remember that the Raiders got about 11,500 tickets to the Super Bowl and only made about 2,000 of them available to their season ticket holders. That not only stiffs the fans of Oakland; that stiffs the people who pay good money to come out and see the Raiders. The tickets in Oakland are far from the cheapest in the league and there is a long-term purchase commitment that goes along with the honor of getting season tickets. These people dig deeply into their pockets for this team, and the team turns around and stiffs the fans that are part of that great and wonderful institution revered as "Raider Nation".

For too long a time, "Raider Nation" has been the US version of English soccer hooliganism. Passion in supporting a team is one thing; "Raider Nation" is far closer to thuggery. And don't be conned by the media's suggestion that these fans are unswerving in their support for and dedication to the Raiders. The Super Bowl was supposed to be a "Raider Home Game". If you taped the game, go back and play the tape but instead of watching the plays, listen for "Raider Nation" once they were down by 14 points. Instead of exhorting the team, that pack of poseurs and front-runners shut their noiseholes just like every other set of fans. Like the Raiders' team, this group is living on reputation.

The reputation that the Raiders are living on is at least 20 years old. Since returning to Oakland from LA (was that in 1995?), they have not had stellar teams. In fact, some of them have been pretty bad teams. So maybe you feel sorry for the fans that are paying premium money to see a mediocre product while some poorly dressed superannuated guy with a mullet and sunglasses on a chain swears that "commitment to excellence" is driving the decisions and that the only thing on his mind is "Just win, baby." Add to the mixture here the fact that once a good team had been assembled under the tutelage of a coach who actually knew what he was doing, Al Davis ran the coach out of town and put another $8M in the bank. Of course I do feel sorry for the fans who have to put up with Al Davis. Remember I grew up in Philly and had to endure owners like Jerry Wolman, Leonard Tose and Norman Braman; I know what sorry-assed and incompetent ownership can do to a team and its fans from first hand experience. But the sorrow for the fans of Oakland can't stay with me for very long.

After the beloved Raiders were so inept in the Super Bowl that you would swear that they could not get jobs as firing squad targets, these fans went out and rioted in the city. This was to celebrate what? Certainly not the team's performance. Was this to honor the admission of "Raider Nation" to the UMN – the United Moronic Nations? Some of these civic-minded geniuses had to be subdued with rubber bullets because they looted buildings and set fire to things such as police cars and fire department vehicles. In one way, it is good to see the rioting and looting and burning after a Raider loss, it shows that the Oakland fans are equal opportunity boors.

The city fathers of Oakland and the ownership - as represented by Al Davis -are not without guilt here too. Davis conned these geniuses into a deal whereby they gave him one of those "guaranteed sellout" leases – such as the one the Chargers have in San Diego – and it is costing the city serious money. In addition, the city has other costs associated with its deal to get the Raiders back in town and the annual output from city coffers is estimated in various places to be in the range of $10-20M per year. I have not been to Oakland in about 16 years so this next observation is dated and could no longer be valid. But I doubt it. Oakland is not a city that looks like it has such huge budget surpluses every year that it takes the City Council months to figure how to bestow these riches on deserving people and projects. Oakland looked to me like a marginally upscale version of Newark NJ; got the picture?

So Al Davis fleeced the city fathers; and you might think that is the reason that Al did not show up at the rally. Even he might be embarrassed; can you actually gag a maggot? As Johnny Carson often said to Ed McMahon, "Wrong, buffalo breath!" In the midst of all this, Al Davis is suing the city of Oakland asking for $1.3 billion (not a typo) because the city fathers "deceived him" when they promised him sellouts or the revenue equivalent. Think about that; they deceived him out of $1.3 billion? Did he misunderstand and think he was getting the deed to the city and not merely the ceremonial keys to the city?

Who's to blame for all this nonsense? Everyone gets a richly deserved splash of the blame-goo because no sector here seems to be sufficiently oppressed that it comes close to justifying is horrid behavior. But add the national sports media to the list of folks who deserve some censure here. Instead of being a bunch of jock-sniffing sycophants, they might try to stand up on their hind legs and call these folks what their actions show them to be:

The team has lots of prima donnas who think their uninformed opinions matter to others and who think they never have to say they are sorry. And boy, are they ever sorry!

The ownership is sufficiently devious that you can't call it two-faced. It has more faces than a clock factory.

The city fathers can choose between being portrayed as "gullible buffoons" and/or fitting the description "as useful as a kick-stand on a horse". I'm indifferent as to their choice; they can choose both if they want!

The fans – the glorious "Raider Nation" – are merely front running, fair-weather fans whose "original costumes" for the games are no longer original - because all of them look the same.

Memo to FOX, ESPN, ABC, & CBS: Stop showing these ass clowns on TV. You are only encouraging them and the other boneheads involved in this less than comic opera.

I know. It's time for me to up the dosage on my medications. I'll get right on that.

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...