Bernie, have you seen Majerus’s team play at Chaifetz this year? Yes, they struggled on the road early on against some mid-majors, but this team looks better and better each game, and Majerus has a great and exciting foundation of freshmen and new recruits coming in next year.
(He has already signed 4 recruits including the top ranked shooting guard from down under, and the top ranked big man from down under has been visiting the team all week.) Majerus is a straight-shooter and believes he is probably two more seasons away from having a NCAA-caliber team (he had a lot of work to recover from over five years of terrible recruiting by his predecessor), but once he gets there you can expect the success to be routine and steadily grow.

I am not a MU fan, but I follow MU and Anderson close enough to know that he will also probably have an NCAA team within the next two years if given a chance. The biggest problem Anderson faces is that he runs a system that is difficult to impose upon top-25 caliber opponents.

To answer your questions above, I believe both programs should see the NCAA the season after next, and I hope both coach is given the chance to last until then.

EXCELLENT comment about St. Louis as a football town. I tire of having to explain to friends from other cities how good St. Louis football fans can be, and how overrated those from some “football” towns can be as well. St. Louis supports bad teams, and VEHEMENTLY supports good or great ones.

I had season tickets for the grid birds from 1966 to 1987. The team averaged over 80% capacity and never hosted one playoff game. Mr Bidwell may have been a generous man but he was a terrible owner.
I have had season tickets for the billikens for 10 years starting with Lorezo Romar. Mr Majerus may be a genuius but I don’t see it. I realize he was starting literally from scratch but these freshmen are his kids. Conklin, Reed and Mitchell are keepers the rest will be gone. The non conference home schedule since BC has been a joke. Compare it to what Gray-Miller has brought to play the lady bills. May and Majerus have wasted the first year of a magnificent facility. Bernie unless I missed it neither you or Mr Burwell have written one story about the Bills. They are boring.

Anderson will never be able to get enough talent to Columbia to win his way. Majerus will build SLU into one of the top 25 teams in the nation.

St. Louis is a great sports town. Remember it was just a few years ago when we were the #1 sports town in the United States. I believe that the St. Louis fans will always support their teams if they believe the owners are trying. It will be interesting to see who will be able to win over the fan dollars in 09.

Losing Miles was no big deal. Not signing anyone after tell everyone that this off season would be different may come back to haunt Mr. Dewitt. How long does he think Pujols will be willing to put up with this? If Luhnow’s
young farm system does not start cranking out GREAT talent by 2010 things are going to get ugly in St. Louis. It will be like the early 90’s or late 70’s again at Busch. You will be able to sit where ever whenever.
I find it really hard to believe that year after year the Cardinals fail to sign any top FA’s. Mr. DeWitt quickly changed his ways after the 04 season.

what do you expect of dewitt? he’s a buddy of dubya,and we’re hosting an all star game with a soggy hole in the ground!

dennymojo - You are what is wrong with the modern sports fan. You fail to realize how stupid your comments are because you are in such a hurry to puke out the usual anti-rich guy rant.

The answer is that neither Mizzou nor SLU will compete with the Illini in years to come.

Ten (and likely many more) years straight is in your future…

Bernie, you haven’t been as right in the last year as you have been about point #1. We are a mid major market and we did right by ALL our teams until they (be it the franchise, Rams, or the sport, NHL) did wrong by us. I will quibble with #2 to the point that, one has to give the farm hands a chance to win a spot, sometimes they force themselves in, McClellen last year, and some times they earn the spot.

Regarding points 1 & 2, I agree with your comments regarding St Louis fans and Aaron Miles. We have supported some weak teams over the years in all sports here in St. Louis. No need to apologize for the support given to St. Louis teams. We’re no different than any other city in that regard. Miles is older and wasn’t going to help us all that much this year. He was a pop gun hitter with limited range in the field. I would hope we could do better using one of the young kids. It’s time to see if the scouting reports are accurate on some of these kids. If the Cubs are so smart regarding player acquisitions why haven’t they won a World Series in a hundred years? Regarding point 3 it now appears that Bill DeWitt outright lied to the fans of St. Louis. The claim was made that a new stadium was needed to help keep the Cardinals competitive. True they have been competitive until last year, but it certainly seems as though their run is going to end for some time. Let’s face it they really were not competitive last year. Leading the division in April-August doesn’t count. If you’re still competitive in September then you can make that claim. The Cards were done by Sept. 1 last year for all intents and purposes. If we started the season today our team looks pretty weak with regard to pitching. In fact right now the pitching appears to be in a shambles. I realize we have a ways to go before Spring training starts, but things certainly do not look promising for this year.

So, let me get this straight. By pointing other cities that don’t show full support for their football team, justifies St. Louis’s lack of support? Bernie, Bernie Bernie. Face it, St. Louis was, is, and always will be a Baseball town. Football is a side dish for most of the fans.

And if you want to use towns for example, I can do that too. What about a team that went 0-16? That’s right, Detroit still packed a stadium at 0-15. What about Cleveland? What about Cincinnati? What about the Bills? What about the Chiefs? I can go on and on.

Had the Rams moved to Baltimore instead of St. Louis, I would have bought season tickets and gladly make the three hour drive each way to see them play at least eight times a year, even if they had a losing record. This is what the people of St. Louis don’t understand. All they care about is how much money they spend for an inferior product. Please! It’s football! You fans of St. Louis should be just happy to have a football team in your town. I live 1500 miles away and still make it to the dome twice a year.

Personally, I believe this town was spoiled by the Rams winning a Superbowl so soon after moving to St. Louis. Then back in the Superbowl two years later. The fans didn’t have to go through the misery of having to follow a team the was so dismal for so many years. But I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. That is why is was so sweet to see the Rams win a championship.

Neither Majerus nor Anderson will make their teams a regular contender for the NCAA. I would expect, given his history, that Majerus will step down after this year or next.

Bernie: U r starting to sound more and more like Peter King. I am counting the minutes till I start hearing abouat “coffee nerdness”.

Bernie, I disagree with your assessment of Miles. Miles has given the Cardinals much more than you are willing to give credit for. I’m not sure Miles is a 162 game, day in day out player, but off the bench and a safe fill in at positions other than Second, he is a valuable chip to have.

Your comment on Jeff Luhnow’s “precious and overrated)Faberage Egg” prospects sounds petty and self serving. No doubt some of these guys will not make it big but several are recognize by some outside St. Louis as very good prospects. The farm system that contains these players is recognized as a top ten Minor League organization. Perhaps you might want to offer an explaination for such a snide remark on a guy that has done much to turn around this part of the Cardinal organization and why you consider Cardinal prospects to deserve such a depreciating remark.

I enjoy and appreciate most of what you write but sometimes you seem to go over the line somewhat and sound more like some of the more radical posters than a professional columnist. To me, this is one of those times.

Ram-Man,

Several problems in your argument - first, saying that St. Louis football fans didn’t have to go through misery of watching their team fail is about as ridiculous as you can get considering we watched the Cardinals battle to be the worst NFL team for years with little or no success. Perhaps no fans in the NFL have had to suffer through crappy football over a long period of time than STL fans have.

And citing attendance in cities like Detroit, Kansas City and Buffalo to point out the inadequacies of Rams fans is just inaccurate. The Rams were 25th in the league in attendance this season at 92% capacity for the year. Below them were the Bills at 89% (Buffalo is consistently at the bottom of the pack in attendance) and Detroit who was dead last at 83%. The Chiefs were two slots ahead of us with 93% and if you talk to anyone who has season tickets in KC, they’ll tell you that the last several games at Arrowhead were about 15-20k short of capacity.

This may be primarily a baseball town, but to suggest that we don’t support the football team - especially considering that with the exception of a three year span they’ve been horrible for the better part of the last 50 years - is just wrong.

Bernie, I have disagreed vigorously and often with you in the past but the new year brings some changes. On #’s 1, 2 & 3 you are dead on in your assessment. On #4 I will yield to your obvious expertise and try the place. On #5, I am afraid it is neither and Anderson will be out the door first - one way or the other.

I think Bernie’s analysis of the football markets is dead on. St. Louis HAS supported the Rams and will continue to do so as long as the team is trying to do the right thing. Bill Bidwill can crow all he wants but it was when he stopped caring about things here that the fan support vanished and he had his reason for moving the team to Arizona. Things haven’t been so great there since he left have they?

Living in Denver now, I see just the opposite as this is a football town. Broncos football rules the roost and the Colorado Rockies……..are just a summer amusement. Of course the ROX payroll is about half of the Cardinals’ so you can imagine what’s said out here about the Momfort brothers!

Please, folks, consider using a spell checker. Reading some of this stuff is aggravating.

Bernie,
I am surprised that you made such a big mistake in regards to the football Cardinals playoff record. They have, in fact, been to the playoffs since 1947. They made the playoffs in 1998 with Jake Plumber as quaterback. They drew the Cowboys in the first round and surprisingly beat them. They then faced the Vikings in the second round and lost.

The Dolphins are having a heck of a time selling out their game on Sunday as well. I get so tired of people saying our fans won’t support the Rams and using Detroit, Kansas City, Cincy, etc… as examples to support that argument. Ram-Man, you say the Lions “packed a stadium” for an 0-15 team? They blacked out several games and the ones they didn’t were half full. And I love Isaac Bruce as much as the next guy but he couldn’t be further off with his assessment of the situation in Kansas City. I have relatives there and that stadium was barely half-full for 6 of their 8 games. The Chiefs bought tickets and gave them away. Read the KC Star to confirm that. Isaac (and most people in St. Louis) say that the Chiefs fans support their team regardless but actually, the Rams had better attendance than the Chiefs. “Attendance” and “Tickets sold” are two entirely different things. I hear my family express their apathy for the Chiefs on a daily basis. I’m impressed with the support the Rams have and wish the rest of the people here were educated about what’s really going on across the state, and across the NFL for that matter. 2009 will be exciting for the Rams or at the very least, interesting.

I cleaned up the result of my bad and hasty typing and inserted “home” game relative to Arizona’s playoff history. Thanks.

B

KenW,

No offense, sir, but it seems that you may be falling for the hype about the Cardinals’ prospects. No question the farm system is better. But if you talk to baseball scouts, as I do, they look at what the Cardinals have and don’t see a lot of future front-line major-league players. When Mozeliak was trying to make something happen during the winter meetings, teams asked about Colby Rasmus and Brett Wallace and that was about it. Other teams don’t believe the heralded Bryan Anderson can catch in the big leagues, and suggest that he be moved to second base. But the Cardinals resisted that, apparently unwilling to admit they’ve been wrong about his defensive upside. And now his trade profile has dropped as a result. Thanks for your comments.

-B

Miles made the most of his talent, and deserves credit for that. But his loss does not hurt the team — you can find a good backup infielder without trying very hard.
If we are consistently losing out on good players by not biding enough, that does not sound like Mozeliak’s fault — DeWitt has the money. Was he just hiding in the tall grass while Walt was GM ? does he itch to run the show all by himself ? I had thought better of him.

Regarding Minnesota not selling out the playoff game with the Eagles, I’m in Philadelphia right now, and today’s paper here indicates that the Vikings are trying to discourage Eagles fans from coming to the game in order to retain a home-field advantage. It appears they would rather have empty seats than Eagles green in the seats. I have sometimes felt that the Rams ought to take that approach! But it is sad that they can’t sell out a playoff game to their own fans!!!

Bernie, I like your logic that STL football fans aren’t too rabid and aren’t too lathargic, but rather they are just right. Using that standard I think its safe to say Georgia should have left the team in California where we too had a fan base that was at times lukewarm and fair-weather in nature. Unfortunately for STL the stars are aligned for a Rams return to SoCal; the TV market is much larger in SoCal, the NFL wants a team in SoCal, The NFL needs an existing team to relocate so as not to unbalance the divisions through expansion, the Rams remain in the NFC WEST, a state of the art open air stadium is in the works (www.losangelesfootballstadium.com), the environment for professional sports has blossomed considerably since 1995 with most local teams consistantly packing the stands at ALL home events, and finally the Rams still have a underground fan base drooling in anticipation for the teams return. So Bernie, remain content with the STL football fan if you wish, but remember this post when your watching the moving vans depart STL with “California or Bust” signs fading into the sunset!

Bernie, happy new year.
I totally agree with the Aaron Miles thing. The only way this deal would upset me, is if the Cards don’t use that extra money to upgrade. Put that 2.5m a year in pitching or a deep bench.
I love Aaron Miles and wish him well, but the guy’s OBP isn’t good.
Thanks!
—And Rams Fans DO show up.

How about those Iowa Hawkeyes!! the rams could have used the Hawks O-Line this year!!
Anderson’s team will always be fun to watch but they don’t have a half-court offensive…team is based upon aggressive defense and transition offense…when it works, it looks unstoppable and when you don’t have the animals, it’s horrible to watch!! now a talented 7 footer would help a great deal…Majerus, on-the-otherhand, is overrated…i don’t see premier highschool players itching to sign a scholarship to play at SLU…SLU’s a “scoccer” school!!
In 82 games Miles had something like 32 RBI’s…many of those were “clutch” RBI’s…he’s a “switch hitter” for god’s sake and he played 3 different infield positions; 2 outfield positions and even “pitched”. he’s barely 30 years old!! who cares about his obp? what was the OBP of the “regular” lead-off batter? Miles loves the game and from what i know, was a terrific dug-out and “team” guy…”utility” players like him are few and far between…can he be replaced? sure, but he wasn’t that expensive to begin if he can fill in that many positions every other game and not “hurt” the team…or maybe batting .317 isn’t good enough for you folks!!
“Potential” never played or won a game…Cards emphasis on minor league organization is a cop-out for spending bucks to “win today”!! i agree with Bernie on “Loopy Luhnow”…i also think “MO” is lost and “DeWallet” does call the shots…and “why” do we think we “owe” something to Chris Duncan and Rick Ankiel?? if you are counting on them to bring home the bacon, expect more finishes in the lower part of the division!!

Bernie: You may be right about the DeWitt/Jones comparison. Regarding Phoenix and Minneapolis trying to sell out playoff games: It’s logical to assume that people may not be able to afford tickets to these playoff games. I don’t care for bleu cheese.

I was one of his biggest fans, but I’ll get over Miles leaving, after all I’ve finally forgiven the Cards for letting Bernie Carbo and Mark Hill go. But I’ve got to say, we always give credit to Mr. Dave Duncan, which is well deserved. How about a kudo or three for Mr. Oquendo? If some of these infielders get a bigger paycheck from other clubs AFTER they pass through St. Louis, someone must be helping out.

Well……my man-crush on Bernie continues in to 2009. calls ‘em like he sees ‘em and sees ‘em just as they are. cannot beat his combo of experience and objectivity. so sick of other sports guys who temper their views or color their sports coverage to remain in the good graces or to curry favor with the St. Louis sports teams.

Good point that STL gets ripped as a football town. One of the Rams said in an interview that “no way Arrowhead Stadium won’t be full”. WRONG. It’s been like a tomb.

Thanks for the insight about the Cards management. Mid-west fans can handle being frugal, but management MUST help the cause. The cubbies love rubbin’ it in our face.

Bernie,
I find the scenario involving Bryan Anderson a bit odd. Why would teams want the Cards to switch him to 2nd base if they were going to trade for him? Couldn’t they just move him to that position in their own system after the trade? Also, why in the world would every single major league team resist trading for a left handed hitting catcher who averages over .300 each season? Those kinds of players are extremely rare in major league baseball.

Anybody claiming that STL should have sold-out the Jones Dome for a 2 win Rams team would have bought an AMC Pacer to save the American Motor Corporation from its pitiful self. They would have been a loyalist supporting King George and England during the American Revolution.

It’s un-American to throw your money at a lousy product.

Americans spend when they see a good product and a good effort - not when they see chicken s-it and are told its chicken salad.

Bernie, It may be that both the Vicking and Cardinal fans have had enough of price gouging. I my self had season tickets to the football Cardinals and Rams for a total of 16 years. I gave it up after the 2007 season when prices forced me to decide to pay for a $9 beer, $25 parking and 2 seats that constantly went up when the team kept losing. These 2 franchises I would bet are trying to get all that they can from loyal fans. As a sportswriter you get a free pass. Next time pay for everything when you attend a game and maybe understand why people at any market are hesitant to pay.

If you want to see real fan support of a team, even when the team is losing, go to a Seahawks game. The stadium is sold out for virtually every home game, an the fan noise is always deafening. Fans at the Ed are whispering compared to the Seattle fans. Ram fans living in St Louis apparently don’t know how good they have it. Some of us long-time Ram supporters live far away and have never been to a Rams home game. Oh yeah, Haslett is a stinker coach.

I agree w/ Bernie’s opinions on 1, 2 & 3. Though, I do wonder what the OPS for Cardinals 2nd basemen would be if we had Lopez for a whole season. Losing Miles didn’t bother me much because we knew what he could offer. Lopez on the other hand, he offers a much higher upside than Miles, and Mo said that the Cards wouldn’t give Lopez a three year deal. Somehow Lopez slipped through the cracks on a one year deal w/ Arizona.

Ram fans get a bad rap from of all people, St. Louisians! Sports fans in St. Louis are nuts. And whether people like it or not, the Rams moving is a longshot. So deal with it.

Sounds pretty hypocritical to me. The same people who constantly diss L.A. by saying it’s not a football town are now whining about lack of respect. Give me a break. Doesn’t feel so good when the shoe is on the other foot. Now quit your whining and eat your New Years crow.

rams fan in seattle:

Seattle was 10-6 last year, has been a playoff contender for going on several years, and was looking forward to another playoff berth this season.

Let’s see how full those seats are next year if they have 2 wins after 14 games.

LOL about Los Angeles. The market didn’t even sell out home games late in the season when Dickerson was going over 2,000 yards rushing.

-B

As a previous season ticket holder in Anaheim, I can tell you Bernie, that you are only seeing part of the story. Your generalizations about the L.A football scene then and now are as simplistic and short-sighted as those you claim are being unfairly lobbed at the St. Louis sports scene. You’re too bright for that. Oh, and by the way, watching Dickerson run was a peak sports experience.

L.A. blew it on the latest round of NFL expansion; the team tailored for the L.A. market thus plays in Houston as the Texans. The NFL may return to L.A.; however, other teams are more likely to head there than the Rams, who are locked in here at least until 2015. Why don’t you L.A. fans who are so very hungry for NFL football trek to Glendale, Arizona this Saturday? Rumor has it that a game will take place there, and tickets are abundantly available.

RamsHeadedBackToSoCal:

Just move here to watch the Rammies. The Rams are such a natural fit for STL because of the times in the 70s and 80s, we rooted for them in the playoffs against the enemies of the gridbirds.

They were our favorite team in-season and post season.

STL is the Rams’ home now. They will forever be the STL Rams going forward. STL is loyal to a fault to its sports’ franchises. Just look at the Cardinals’ management now and see the blistering discussions if ownership is really committed to fielding a World Series contender.

No one can tell me that Chip Rosenbloom and the Rams have been lazy this season about finding a way to win in the future. It’s not winning that counts in STL; it’s about seeing a true commitment to winning.

The Rams have already demonstrated that since week 4. And now, after week 15.

The Rams are STL’s team, and no other city’s now. And, we’re jealous of them, even though we watched or listened to each and every game this season like I did.

…and could not wait to hear the post-game shows, and daily shows and interviews, and blogs about the Rammies.

STL cannot get enough of Rams football because you see it here in these blogs and hear it on the Sports shows.

STL is passionate about its sports. We won’t give them free passes when they suck; but when they show us they try, we will go down on the ship with them.

STL is a great sports city. The Rams stay here. And the NFL front office knows that.

And so does Chip and Lucia. Making the Rams a winner in STL will make them the money they need to take care of business. ‘Cuz it ain’t gonna happen any other way.

LA Jaguars is what you should be counting on, if anything.

LA Texans just doesn’t seem quite right.

Bernie, I remember strong support for the poor mid-’90s Rams teams during one of my visits to StL, and crazy support for them once they got hot and made their two super bowl runs. There was no questioning StL as a football town then; ANY market (except maybe Green Bay with it’s tiny stadium and exceptional tradition) that experiences the kind of down-turn Rams fans have endured in the last few consecutive seasons will experience declining attendance - even the Cowboys did a few years back. Add on top of that the nasty front office politics, inexplicable release of fan favorite Isaac Bruce, a terrible economy, lack-luster presentation at the Dome (so I hear and read), and some extreme give-up games by the Rams this year - what else could you expect?
One more thing - Your comment about Bill DeWitt becoming Jerry Jones is a HUGE stretch (and I’m not talking about Jerry’s face-lift). Ok I’ll buy that he’s very involved in baseball decisions, and even entertain your opinion that he’s becoming “de facto GM”. But saying DeWitt is like Jerry Jones is equivalent to saying Torry Holt is becoming Terrell Owens just because he’s occasionally vocal about how bad things are getting in this franchise. Jones is a successful businessman, and he’s been very successful in marketing the Cowboys franchise and increasing its value. He caught lightning in a bottle with Jimmy Johnson and the Triplets in the early 90s (much like the Rams did later), but what has he done since? He has made the Cowboys both the envy and the laughingstock of league at times. I shudder at the thought of anything close to Jerry Jones destroying the proud Cardinals franchise. If he owned the Cardinals, we’d have Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, John Rocker (I know he’s gone, but I’m rolling here) with embarrassing scandals, no Tony La Russa, and no success.

Great comments by paperlion - interesting to hear the SoCal perspective on the Rams. It’s hard to believe LA still doesn’t have an NFL franchise, but I agree the Rams aren’t going back there. Somebody will eventually, the Jag’s are probably as good a guess as any.
Regarding StL’s long-lost Gridbirds, I would love to see them go deep in the playoffs and have success, especially with Warner at the helm. I don’t think it’s gonna happen, but despite my dislike for Bidwell, I still have a spot in my heart for the football Cardinals. As long as they Rams have more success (not necessarily in the same year), I hope the Gridbirds get theirs too.

Listen STL, like it or not, there wouldn’t even be a blog entry about the passion of your football fans if it weren’t an issue to begin with! I doubt Green Bay sports writers use blog space to defend fan passion week in and week out. I have never seen a city so worried about patting itself on the back for its enlightened way of showing support for the local football “product”…because you know rabid die-hard fans always refer to their beloved team as a product, LOL! Rabid, die-hard, fans that bleed blue & gold shouldn’t use business theories of supply and demand and terminololy associated with business (such as product) to defend their lack of support. I will not argue with the logic of the argument, but to use it and then claim unwaivering support through thick and thin really rings hollow. “Win and we will come, lose and we stay at home” is the motto of a fair-weather fan base! Its the question of conditional vs. unconditional love and the problem is STL wants to believe they are the unconditional Green Bay type of football fan, yet they behave and even defend the conditional love that LA Rams fans once exhibited. I have no problem with that, but don’t pretend you are better than west coast Rams fans. Remember we had them for about 40 years, yet are judged only on the final years before the move! How many of you in STL would support the Rams if they do come home as we in CA have supported them while they are in STL? If you say you would not, then how could you compare your loyalty to ours? We love you STL, and we love the memories, but we want our team back!

As a card fan for almost fifty years, it pains me to see such passivity from the front office. Mo led off this hot stove season by saying the team would be aggressive. Right. It seems his greatest talent this year is describing how the cards barely lost out on this one or that. But most disappointing is that I don’t see this management making the effort to build a winner before Albert’s free agency. The clock is ticking. They need to realize that because they see the market one way does not make it reality. You have to pay premium dollars for premium players. With the attitude they are displaying I bet it’s been years since they bought a car. I know you have to build the farm system, but not at the expense of the big club. By the way, is Al Baker’s still in Clayton? In the seventies that was a fantastic restaurant. Served a filet mignon that would melt in your mouth. Now I’m hungry.

Point #1 is right on. Put a team in L.A. and let’s see just how many people show up when your team wins 5 games in 2 years, your draft picks are horrible and don’t even start for the team and your coaches don’t seem to get along with each other. Let’s see how many people in beautiful L.A. in the winter time find something better to do than attend a football game where the outcome is pretty much decided before the first snap.
Point #2 is also accurate. Yes, probably paying Miles 2.5 is extreme, however, what happens if Kennedy starts out slow or for that matter gets hurt. No more Miles (.317 avg.) or Lopez to pickup the slack. Guess who? Brendan Ryan. God, did I really just say that!! That kid is awful. Mediocre bat, no power and plays poor defense and still has mental lapses on the field.
Point #3. I realized this many years ago.

#2 The Miles move allowed the Cubs to trade DeRosa for three prospects {Miles will still make less than DeRosa the next two years} who the cubs plan to send to San Diego for Jake Peavey. Sounds like good sense to me.

I’d say neither on the college basketball question and I’d guess Anderson would get fired first. He should, he’s at a Big 12 school and Majerus is in that Atlantic whatever crap. Neither really inherited players that fit their system.
Mizzou isn’t a disaster so I think Anderson deserves his fourth and maybe fifth year, but time is a tickin’.

I agree on Dewitt. I felt that from the second he hired Mozeliak over more qualified candidates.
Not a good sign.
I’m really getting tired of the nickel and dime approach w/ no inclination to fill holes. You know, Albert isn’t going to be around forever.

As a transplanted St. Louisan now living in LA, I find some of your comments interesting, if nothing else. Too bad you don’t have many of your facts straight.

First of all, you posted a link http://www.losangelesfootballstadium and mentioned a new stadium is in the works. If “in the works” means drawing some architectural pictures on a piece of paper, then it’s in the works. But the developer of this stadium still needs to find a partner to fund it since no public money would be earmarked for the project. Last I heard, he’s still looking and not one shovel has gone in the ground. For those who want to see the LA Coliseum renovated, they would have to do it to the tune of $800 million dollars and no group has thrown their hat into the ring to get that one done. And with the state being $13 Billion in debt, I don’t foresee any public funds helping this movement. So where’s the progress you speak of?

And your comments about St. Louis having a fair weather fan base are pretty laughable. Aside from maybe the Lakers, LA is the most fair-weathered, front running sports city I’ve ever seen. What are the LA sporting events that you say are consistently packed? Until the Dodgers got Manny, I saw a lot of empty seats at Dodger Stadium. Been to a Kings game lately? How about the Clippers? LA is no different than any other city. If your team stinks, people won’t go. And that’s especially true of the LA market because there are so many OTHER entertainment choices. And there is nothing wrong with that. And before I forget… where is this large “underground” Ram fan base out here that is “drooling” for the Rams to come back? I don’t see anyone rooting for the Rams out here. There is no media coverage of the Rams. There is no Rams “buzz”. They aren’t even a blip. I do, however, see the Chargers covered fairly extensively in this market. I think you’re overstating the interest and progress that is actually being made to bring pro football back to LA. And until LA gets their act in gear, the only pro football you’re going to be able to see for the next few years is USC football. And if you’re a UCLA fan, I can’t help you.

Left Coast Birdo, if you read carefully I have never said some SoCal fans aren’t fair-weather band wagon fans. I said that STL fans aren’t any better despite their firm belief to the contrary. In your listing of teams that aren’t selling out locally you conveniently left out some of the teams that do; Angels, Chargers, Ducks, and as you mentioned USC, Lakers, and Dodgers. Given the amount of local entertainment options, I would have to say that anyway you cut it the SoCal sports market is better than people give it credit for. Also, like yourself many in this area are transplants from other areas with other sport loyalties too!

As for the http://www.losangelesfootballstadium.com reference, the developer owns the land, and is going through the steps towards developement (a lot of red tape to cut through in SoCal) but as I understand it is going along well. You are correct that there isn’t any shovel work, but first thing is first. I know I wouldn’t build a stadium until I was pretty sure I had a team lined up and awaiting a move in date! FYI, the LA Coliseum is already out of contention.

As for your not hearing about the underground following in the media, I think thats why I referred to it as underground. Remember however that money speaks louder than words and since 1995 all the Rams pre-season games were televised in the LA market. Now why is that? This year the NFL would not allow the Rams to negotiate a TV deal with the LA market for pre-season, but every year before that they did. Now why would TV stations pay to televise all STL. Rams pre-season games for over a decade in an LA market where fan support for the Rams is supposedly non-existant?

Also,there are SoCal groups that gather to view regular season Rams games at bars too (a rather large one in Pomona if I remember right). And in case you didn’t notice there are fans from CA that come to this web site for their Rams fix. So I don’t know what you need to see as proof of an underground following, but how about this, I drove to Phoenix for a Rams/ Cardinals game a few years back and over half the stadium was Rams fans! Oh, and guess what plates were on the vast majority of Ram fan cars in the parking lot…California!