Thanks Mayor! L.A. Averts Another Disaster

“I haven’t met anybody yet who feels depressed because of this.”

--L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan

So, is everybody happy?

I guess you must be. You didn’t get what you didn’t want, Los Angeles. Congratulations. Happy days are here again. You don’t have pro football to kick around any more.

The mayor is 100% right. I haven’t met anybody, either, who feels depressed because of this. In fact, people all over Southern California are turning cartwheels. They’re hugging strangers in the streets. No NFL team! No, that’s worth three exclamation points. No NFL team!!! What a glorious week we are having. It’s like an early Christmas.

Imagine, we nearly got stuck with our own team. Whew. What a close call. Somebody actually tried to make us sit through pro football here. In person! They seriously wanted us to buy tickets and sit there in a stadium, watching our own NFL team play some other city’s NFL team. The nerve.

Isn’t it shameful how they tried to trick us? They honestly thought we’d fall for that foolishness where we take our friends or children on Sunday afternoon to see our team, cook burgers and dogs on a grill in the parking lot, buy a souvenir jersey with the quarterback’s number on it, sit in the sun and cheer from the stands the way we did with our own friends and parents and grandparents. Like anybody seriously enjoys that.

Don’t they know we don’t need it? Don’t they know we have better things to do?

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“We have so much going on in our city. Sure, it would have been nice to have a team, but I’m not going to miss a moment’s sleep over this.”

--Riordan

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Me, neither, mayor.

I am going to sleep like Rip Van Winkle. It doesn’t bother me in the least that while our fearless leader Dick Riordan was getting his 40 winks, the gullible mayors of Cleveland and Houston were getting NFL teams for their towns. Those poor saps. Now they’re stuck with their own football players, while the rest of us get to watch them for free on TV.

The jock’s on them!

Riordan is right again. We have so much going on in our city. We have USC and UCLA football. Don’t forget, every single one of us here in Southern California went to USC or UCLA. Our entire lives revolve around USC and UCLA football. We wouldn’t want some dumb pro team here when we already have college football. Why would we need to go see the San Francisco 49ers or Green Bay Packers play here? We get to see Oregon and Washington State!

And don’t forget, we have soccer.

To heck with that other football. We have real football. Everybody here can see soccer instead. We can see Sunday afternoon soccer and Monday night soccer and soccer, soccer, soccer. Green Bay calls itself Football USA? Big deal. Los Angeles can be Soccer USA. We don’t need to see Emmitt Smith run with the ball or Brett Favre pass the ball or Jerry Rice catch the ball. We can go see somebody kick the ball.

Besides, just as sleepy ol’ Dick Riordan says, we have “so much going on in our city,” we need football like a hole in our car’s tailpipe.

We have the beach. Of course, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa and San Diego also have the beach, and THEY have pro football, but so what?

We also golf and play tennis and go jogging, all year ‘round. Of course, New Orleans, Houston, Arizona, Oakland and San Francisco can say the same, and THEY have pro football, but so what?

We have museums and concerts. Of course, New York, New England, Washington, Chicago, Nashville and those other backward NFL markets do too, and THEY have pro football, but so what?

Why, we have so much to do, it’s incredible that TV ratings for pro football are always so HIGH in the Los Angeles area, since we’re all out doing other things.

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“We scored a touchdown for our fans, for our community and for our economy.”

--Houston Mayor Lee P. Brown

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Yeah, but we have beaches.

You poor Houston mayor, you. Actually believing a community could rally around a team, could root for your team to go to a Super Bowl, could make a lot of money when a Super Bowl comes to your city.

If only Houston had better things to do, like we do here. We have so much to do in Los Angeles, we don’t even get depressed.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: [email protected]