Budweiser and Mullets

The best make it seem effortless. Marshall Faulk rushed for an easy 178 yards versus the hometown Cardinals last Sunday. Faulk's speed is deceptive, from the stands anyway; his strides are long and graceful, his shoulders always pointed upfield. On sweeps and pitch plays, Faulk made the corner and headed upfield in two step, three steps max. Once on the corner, he'd accelerate past tacklers or change directions quickly. Each times he left Cardinal defenders grasping in his wake. It was no accident that the cornerbacks and safeties led the team in tackles. Marshall glided by the defensive line and linebackers all day long.

Sunday was a glorious day for football. Temps were in the low to mid 70s and not a drop of humidity for hundreds of miles. Brilliant sunshine refelcted the deep green of the gridiron, the Cardinal red, and the Rams blue and gold. Lori and I walked up to the Stadium just before kickoff, bought a couple of tickets, and found our corner of the endzone seats with only minutes to spare. We were in the walk-up section of seats meaning that we were surrounded by Cardinal and Ram fans who were in full throat frenzy when the Cardinals kicked off to the Rams.

I'd never seen the Rams play before. Growing up, the Rams helmets were the most exotic headgar in all football. In the 1950s, that deep blue helmet with the gold ram horn twisting toward the earhole was nonpareil. A kid in our neighborhood, Jimmy Pierce, had a real Riddell Rams helmet. It was many sizes too large for his melon, and it swivelled on his head as he ran down the field. Nonetheless, he was the envy of everyone in the neighborhood, and, generously, he gave everyone a chance to wear it. In the days before the network doubleheader, we'd see the Rams whenever they played the Lions. When they played in L.A. the game would come on TV late on a Sunday afternoon. The bright, sunny L.A. afternoon always stood in stark contrast to chilly, dark E.L., especially if the game was played in November or December.

Today's Rams helmets have been modernized. The horns are thicker and wider, and they're more gold now than yellow. These aren't the L.A. Rams any more. They're the St. Louis Rams. The Hollywood mystique is long gone. They're Midwest now. The Rams used to be about beauty and celebrity. Now they're about mullets and Budweiser.
Nonetheless, they have Marshall Faulk whose name should grace the "best of" list of players of his time.

The game became sluggish soon after kickoff. The Cardinals couldn't get anything figured out offensively. The Rams, led by Faulk's brilliant rushing, set off on a couple of long, unspectacular drives. At halftime, the score stood Rams 17 Cardinals 7. By the third quarter, things started to get interesting in the stands. The Rams fans in attendance, most of whom were either St. Louis transplants or front runners who adopted the Rams, were situated in clumps throughtout the east side of the stadium. One section over was composed of equal parts Ram and Cardinal fans. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw five or six large cups of beer in mid-flight. They landed on target in the middle of the Rams contingent. Everyone in our section rose simultaneously to see what was happening. I couldn't see much. I did see equal parts fists and beer flying as a couple of rows of Cardinals and Rams fans converged. Security rushed in. State Troopers rushed in. A few more fists flew accompanied by much pushing and shoving. Most football fights last a couple of punches. This fight lasted for a couple minutes. The State Troopers captured the main combatants and dragged them kicking and yelling from the stands. I couldn't tell if they miscreants were Cards or Rams fans. They'd gotten they're monies worth whoever they were.

We went to the Cardinals v. Cowboys game last year. It was a fightening affair. Yes, the football was awful, but the scene in the stand was worse. Long before the Cardinals moved to Arizona, the Cowboys spent considerable time and effort marketing their games in the Southwest and in Mexico. They're are a couple of generations of Spanish speaking Cowboy fans in AZ. (There are a couple of generations of cowboy Cowboy fans in AZ, too, but they're fewer in number to their Latino compadres.) Cowboy v. Cardinal games are edgy affairs. Latino Cowboy fans square off against Latino Cardinal fans. Last year, an entire section in the upper deck went at it. Walking out of the game, we saw a pair of lightweights and a pair of featherweights in full street fight mode.

I am not going anywhere near the Raider game this year.