“You’ve Got Mail-Chargers Fans”

-0-

They want a makeover-do-over on how it all ended, this Chargers organization does.

They want to make things right for the fans they left behind. All this in the aftermath of all the mis-steps made by the Spanos football family.

You know, leaving at night, never holding a press conference with the San Diego media. Issuing a 4-sentence press release to one and all, including the Mayor, who came up with money to finance a stadium.

And then as a parting message to their longtime season ticket holders, this. The Chargers sent out a letter, postmarked January 12th, the night they were informing the NFL they were moving.

They told season ticket holders why they leaving, saying their wanted loyal fans to be the “first to know”. And then they ‘mailed it”.

Mailed it, via the postal service. Fans got the letters in the mail, delivered by a faithful carrier, on Saturday the 14th, or Monday the 16th, the US postal service being what it is.

So much for first to know.

Of course, this was followed by mis-steps in LA.

The bogus pep rally press conference, the coaches press conference at the Carson Stub Hub soccer stadium with noise on the field behind them. The hiring of people to act as fans at the Forum. The limited Emails to season ticket holders to attend. On and on and on.

And now the Chargers have reached out to the fans again, even those who were season ticket holders at Qualcomm Stadium. Mailing out season ticket prices at the Stub Hub center.

Get ready for sticker shock.

The Chargers will charge more for their tickets than the Rams with all that heritage in the LA market.

You can buy a 50-yard line seat, for the close up experience, as AG Spanos calls it, for 375-dollars a ticket. That’s some 100-plus more than what you paid in San Diego. You can sit in the end zone to see the LA Chargers for 70-dollars, a shade higher than the 40-price here last year to see Philips Rivers throw TD passes.

So the Bolts last place team will cost you 375 in the best seats in the house. The Rams price last year in LA for their best seat, was 225-dollars.

You could see Jared Goff and the no TD offense last year, sitting in the LA Coliseum end zone for just 40-dollars. In Carson, you might see a TD or an interception, in end zone seats for 70.

At least the 1st family of football, as the Spanos’ call themselves, are consistent. It always has been about a money grab, here, and now up there.

When you go to the mailbox, you might get a bill…you might get an ad…you might get a Time Magazine….or you might get junk mail.

Just be prepared, if you were a Chargers fan, you’ll get some sticker shock, with the team’s new season ticket prices.

And that by the way, does not even include the price of gas, nor the aggravation of navigating the 5–405 on gameday, nor the 5-hours on your hiways-biways of Southern California.

They will throw in the Sunday experience of smog in Carson. No charge for that.

You’ve got mail. What will Chargers fans in San Diego, do with it, with the return postmark reading Los Angeles Chargers?

-0-

“What Can They Say-After All They Have Said”

-0-

You get tired of listening to all the noise. All these people who do the wrong thing, after trying to tell us they’ve done the right things.

Chargers owner Dean Spanos now admits it is becoming a challenge to introduce his NFL product to the people in LA. Says not having his “assets” in that market has made it hard to get traction up there. Conducting business still in San Diego. His team to hold off season workouts in Mission Valley. This looks like distraction after distraction. Of course Spanos told us he was looking forward, not back, after what he did to Chargers fans.

Mark Fabiani, the mouthpiece of the owner, saying the organization would “own it”, if they made mistakes moving to Los Angeles. Own the phony press conference. Own the stupidity of the ever changing logo. Own hiring actors to show up dressed as Chargers fans. How about owning up to the fact you recommended the owner screw his loyal fans in San Diego.

Then there is AG Spanos, the son in charge of business operations for the Chargers. Under his reign, he talked his father out of pursuing Pete Carroll at USC, instead wanting Norv Turner. He did away with the original Chargers jerseys, for what they wear now. He cut ticket prices. In his era,Chargers revenues went from 15th to 29th in the NFL. Skyboxes were dark much of last year. Instead of saying the team would “fight for fans”, the son should really stand up and say “my credibility is taking the ten count in this fight”….or better yet “I don’t know what I’m doing with the job my dad gave me.”

And you have players saying they are worried about “fake enthusiasm” over this move to LA, what few veterans are left on a roster in the midst of a rebuild..

So the Chargers start their second month in Los Angeles, while the team is still based in San Diego. It’s week five of their new era, and they have yet to roll out ticket prices, yet to hold any press conferences for their new coaching staff, in LA or San Diego. Yet to make a real impact in that market.

Off the field, the team is a mess. On the field, once Philip Rivers takes over control, the team should be good, if healthy and fun to watch.

But there’s alot more pain and suffering coming in the coming months before they actually play a game that counts, in their new home, a soccer stadium, near oil refineries, in a town jam packed with other franchises that have heritage and success as part of their nameplate.

Awful lot of noise these days from those people. Empty rhetoric.

What can they say? It’s always comes out wrong.

What should they say? We screwed up with this move to another city.

“SPEAKING OUT LOUD WITH A HIDDEN MESSAGE.”
by Lee ‘Hacksaw’ Hamilton
CW-6 Sports
www.leehacksawhamilton.com

-0-

It carried a strong message, from our town to that team that moved out of town.

It was a show of force with a message loud and clear.

The “Celebrate San Diego” party at Petco Park on Saturday was impressive.

The Padres joined hands with the Gulls and Sockers. They invited the 5-universities in our city, to join the festival. And then the fans came out in droves. From San Diego State to tiny Point Loma Nazarene, USD, UCSD and Cal State-San Marcos.

Anywhere from 15-to-18,000 were at the Park in the Park. They cheered, they high fived, they wore their gear, showed their colors, and joined hands.

It was eerie the celebration downtown occurred 1-month to the day that greedy Chargers owner Dean Spanos took his ball and went home, taking his NFL team and moving it to LA.

A month of anger, sadness, emptiness, was set aside all day Saturday just outside Petco Park.

Fans showing support for the rebuilding effort of the Padres. Hockey fans wearing their Gulls jerseys. Aztecs fans wearing Red & Black, with Torero fans in blue, to Triton and Sea Lions fans too.

1-thing missing. Absolutely no one wearing San Diego Chargers hoodies, sweatshirts, hats, jerseys. No Lightning Bolts to be seen anywhere.

And as the fans spoke to CW-6, one thing was common. Their dislike, their disgust, their disapproval of the dishonesty of Spanos, his family, his franchise, gone on a money-grab to Los Angeles.

Across the board, the sentiment was the same, from Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who continues to maintain Spanos made a decision he will forever regret.

The feelings of future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman, speaking about an ‘open wound with salt’ that Spanos left behind, exiting after 56-years of loyal fan support.

Ditto from longtime Chargers linebacker Billy Ray Smith, who preached it was not the fans fault this happened.

And of course all those fans, who bought all those tickets, dating from Balboa Park-AFL days, to the final days of last season, were angered. 1-even used an obscene gesture at our camera crew, to express how he felt about the team that left town.

A salute to the Padres for the civic gesture to put something like this together for the entire community. The ownership group sure does know how to throw a party.

Ron Fowler, who has become the face and voice of sports ownership in this town, now has the town all to himself. It will be important that this blueprint of draft picks and international players, get to the majors soon.

It will take patience for sure over the next two summers, for the kids to arrive, that a bucket full of good health, with the hope injuries of the past, are just that, in the past. You hope, but realize 100-loss seasons could be coming.

It seemed like Saturday was the day of closure for a community done a terrible dis-service by a despicable man with his search for dollars, Spanos.

The Chargers were not invited, and wouldn’t have come. They were cowards when they announced they were moving, and would have been cowards if they arrived, as if they cared.

Sure Philip Rivers would have been cheered and beloved on his way out of town.

It was interesting that Dean Spanos said his franchise was prepared to fight to win over the fans in LA. So far, they seem to be losing.

From the first LA Times column that read “you’re not wanted’, to what we reported last night.

In a 14-day count of sports stories in the LA Times, there was only 1-about the Chargers in the paper. There were a combined (8) involving either the Rams or Raiders. There were (28) about the Lakers-Clippers, in the midst of their seasons. UCLA and USC had a combined (14) covering football recruiting and basketball.
And the Kings-Ducks accounted for (12) stories Even the LA Galaxy had 6-soccer stories over that span.

One Chargers story. That’s just a shade above the “Animal House-John Blutarski” figure of (0.00). The Chargers of Carson are off the radar right now, in their supposed new home.

Good luck playing home games in a soccer stadium, where the skyline of Carson is dotted with oil refineries. Good luck with the 5-405 traffic jams. Maybe they’ll change their colors to blue-gold and smog brown, to fit the air quality where they will play.

Maybe the bitterness will subside here in America’s Finest City, even with how badly that family ownership treated the town.

But for 6-hours outside Petco Park, the community stopped mourning, ceased raging, and embraced what we have here. Teams that care. A skyline view of the Coronado Bridge. Good weather.

As the mayor said the day after the decision was made, San Diego didn’t lose the Chargers. The Chargers lost San Diego.

Truer words never spoken if you were part of the jammed packed crowd at the Park in the Park.

1-month to the day that the Spanos family turned its back on San Diego, the sports fans turned out in force to support the teams in town, that cared about our community.

-0-0-0-

“The Ache-The Pain-Will Not Go Away”

-0-

Everytime something new happens, with the dateline State College, Pennsylvania, you get a creepy feeling inside.

Years after the death of Joe Paterno.

Years after the imprisonment of his longtime assistant Jerry Sandusky

Years after the heavy handed discipline handed down by the NCAA.

Years after the firing of the President, Vice President, the AD and so many others.

Years after the jury decision sentencing Sandusky to 30-to-60 years in prison after the conviction of 46-counts of sexual abuse of minors.

Years after the lawsuits and the civil awards.

And now it is back in the news.

Penn State is appealing a jury decision in the damages portion of the trial of former assistant coach Mike McQueary, who won a defamation and whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the school.

The jury awarded him 9M over his firing and the so-called smear campaign of his name, after he turned in Sandusky to superiors, who did nothing against the former coach.

Then the judge, reviewing the case, upped the damages to 12.6M, saying McQueary’s life can never be the same.

Maybe it could if he got another coaching job, but that has not happened.

Was he treated unfairly, maybe? The jury thought so, so did the judge.

But here’s the most appalling part of the verdicts in his case. He got all that money for being the victim of a Penn State smear, or retaliation. He got 12.6M.

The 36-victims, who reached out of court settlements, for being forced to submit to oral sex, fondling and the indignities of child rape, got awards too.

The Penn State victims, each received 2.9M in damages. Yes, 2.9M each.

The fired coach got 12.6M.

Please tell me whose life will never be the same again?

And how do you place a value on the damage done to the ex-coach, compared to the damage done, mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically, to the victims, ages 9-thru-16?

Again, who was damaged more by the Jerry Sandusky case?

Feel creepy about all this? Feel like going to the wash room to rinse your hands? Fell awful inside?

People in that court room and at that university, should feel filthy too, for the decisions made for payments to the victims.

Again, who got damaged more in all this?

-0-

“In-Out-Why”

-0-

They keep asking, looking for a reason, seeking an explanation.

Did they do good during their time of employment in the NFL?

Sure did.

Did they do things that left a residue of distaste in the mouths of lots of people?

Definitly so.

So next August, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will open up its doors to 7-more enshrinees, from the greatness of LaDainian Tomlinson, the Chargers running back, to the dynamics of Jerry Jones, legendary owner and deal maker of the Cowboys.

There won’t be any speeches from Terrell Owens nor Paul Tagliabue, and there are alot of reactions as to why they did not get in.

Tagliabue, served the owners faithfully for 17-years. He drove agreements thru with the Union, that brought us labor peace. He negotiated record-setting TV contracts, that brought massive profits to all sides, owners, players, union.

He also was the ‘concussion commissioner’. It was that era, his handling of the injury issue, that is the blight on his forever record.

What he knew, what he believed, how he acted is as much part of his legacy as is the record 223M per year that each NFL team receives from its share of the television contract.

Tagliabue said last weekend how much he regretted what he said in 1994, that concussions were not a major issue. That it was the ‘pack journalism’ mentality of the media, that drove the story.

A decade later came the 4,800 player lawsuit, that led to the 965M concussion settlement, that will lead to payments to badly injured players, and the families of players who committed suicide over the head trauma they were suffering from.

Regretting what you said 23-years ago brings little solace to the families who lost fathers, husbands, boyfriends, who killed themselves. Little in meaning to the retired players now suffering all the after effects of concussions, diagnosed or ignored by Tagliabue’s self annointed concussions committee.

Owens was cut from a different cloth. If Hall of Fame credentials are wrapped around productivity on the field, then he deserves to have a a spot in Canton.

The numbers are indeed staggering, (1,189) receptions..(15,934) yards, (158) touchdowns.

But the greatness of the player on Sunday cannot eradicate the actions of the player the rest of the week. The malcontent attitude, the contract disputes, the personality clashes with teammates and coaches.

He went from San Francisco to Philadelphia, to Dallas, to other teams. It was always the same. Tremendous production, tremendous problems in the locker room. Here today, moving on tomorrow.

In the aftermath of the votes, Tagliabue remains stoic and silent. He didn’t stand up for the badly injured players during his tenure. He ignored them, mocked them, downplayed what happened to them.

Owens volume of noise, then, and even now, just will not go away, though there are many other troubled personalities who already have busts in Canton. He couldn’t stop talking when he played, cannot stop talking now.

The Tomlinson group is in. Tags and Terrell are out. And now you know why.

-0-0-