Well, I'll be goddamned to fuckin' hell...

The L.A. Times actually wrote a piece about the Rams... and it wasn't a hit piece either... Usually Plaschke and Simers can't mention the Rams without taking three shots at the organization.

I guess this is the surest sign that the Rams are, in fact, returning to Los Angeles. For those who don't know, the Rams were blacklisted by the L.A. Media the day they left town in 1994. All coverage of the Rams ceased after they left town in 1994. The L.A. Times is one of the foremost exponents of this news blackout. The Rams get no local TV time, no local writing, and the least number of broadcast games possible. Generally speaking, unless the Rams are playing the Chargers, Raiders or 49ers, we have a 0% chance of seeing them around here... At least on broadcast TV.

As you know, the game against Seattle was broadcast nation wide on NBC, so that doesn't exactly count.

The blackout has always annoyed me. You only punish the Ram fans by doing this, not the franchise. Further, the Raiders suffer no such blackout. This can only be true because L.A. never loved them anyway. We didn't really care that much when they moved back to Oakland, so we couldn't be hurt by it. No, the furry shown towards the Rams by the L.A. media is a sure sign of a woman scorned.

Lately, as I have worn my Chris Long, Sam Bradford, Torry Holt, Eric Dickerson and Jack Youngblood jerseys around town, more and more people have been stopping me to give me the thumbs up and extol the Rams' current turn around. This happened three times to me last Friday. The old Ram fans are coming out of the closet and getting bold again. There are employees at Whole Foods, Albertsons and Del Taco who always want to talk Ram football every time I drop by. I think L.A. is growing bolder about claiming and reclaiming the Rams.

Anyhow, you can read the piece here.

Thursday's Poll in the L.A. Times

As we all know, the Los Angeles Times is one of the premiere newspapers in the United States of America. That's may not be saying so much, but it is something. On Thursday, November 5th, 2009, the Times conducted an Internet Poll aimed at sports fans of all stripes. The Poll question was simple: If you could bring back any former Los Angeles team, which would it be?

A large assortment of choices were provided

• Avengers 3% 135 votes
• Aztecs 2% 89 votes
• Blades 1% 34 Votes
• Express 4% 153 votes
• Ice Dogs 2% 99 votes
• Lazers 1% 41 votes
• Raiders 19% 804 votes
• Rams 55% 2,389 votes
• Riptide 1% 21 votes
• Stars 1% 25 votes
• Strings 1% 25 votes
• Xtreme 2% 98 votes
• Hollywood Stars 5% 223 votes
• Other 5% 204 votes

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/11/thursdays-poll-if-you-could-bring-back-one-former-la-sports-franchise-which-one-would-you-choose.html

There you have it folks! The Rams crush all other contenders. Naturally, the Raiders were #2. We busted them by a nearly 3 to 1 vote. That fact closely mirrors the differences in attendence the two teams saw during that epoch when both were playing in SoCal.

Los Angeles was never Raider town. Some poor benighted gang bangers from the wrong side of the tracks and the shallow end of the gene pool latched on to the Raiders because they enjoyed the criminal image. That pathetic minority of our population never came close to the large entrenched faction of Ram fans, who had been here for some 40-50 years.

I personally could not believe Al Davis was stupid enough to move down here. He might as well have tried to move to Dallas, Green Bay or Washington. Can you fathom the Dallas Raiders? Can you imagine the Green Bay Raiders? Can you image the Washington Raiders? No. All of those sound as obviously preposterous to you as the L.A. Raiders sounds to me. Congrats to Al for figuring out that it was a monumental mistake. Thanks for moving back to where you belong.

Now it is time for the Rams to do the very same thing.