Farewell Rams: 5 Reasons To Feel Bad For St. Louis

Adieu! Adieu! please don’t make us, root for Mizzou

– No, I’m not about to write a poem, but I am about to sympathize pretty damn hard for the city of St. Louis that can’t seem to catch a break.

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With a national shrug, the St. Louis Rams became the L.A. Rams. The hype lasted all of about a week. People in California rejoiced in the streets at the news, until the sun came out and they rode their skateboards down to check the surf. The citizens of St. Louis may have just unknowingly entered a championship drought that might not end in our lifetime.

Stan Kroenke, owner of the ex-St.Louis football team paid a whopping $434 million for the Edward Jones Stadium (not including interest) over 20 years ago… except he didn’t. The stadium that the Rams used to call home was paid for by the city of St. Louis. And when I say the city, I mean the taxpayers — and when I say paid, I mean their still paying for it. In fact there’s about $100 million that they are scheduled to be on record for until 2051. If you don’t have the slightest bit of empathy for the St. Louis fans, then just know that a man worth $6.3 billion didn’t even buy out his team’s stadium contract before leaving. In fact, the only reason they were allowed to leave was because the stadium was ranked low in the NFL (voiding a 20 year old contract), god forbid Kroenke make some renovations. Now the people are left to pay for some billionaires toy house, without a team to provide the revenue to pay it. Local legislatures said, “Don’t sweat it we got this.” Their plan?  It’s a convention center now and should bring in tons of money… yeah good plan!

My issue with the move to L.A. is that the fans there really don’t give a crap. Sure the news will show a couple drunk old guys screaming and yelling, but that’s all they got. The reason the team moved from L.A. in the first place is because nobody went to the games. What would you rather do go see a 3-8 football team playing on a dry hot southern California Sunday, or spend 6 hours laying out on the Pacific coast line with beautiful people in bathing suits everywhere? Yeah you’re not alone. There will always be a long list of terrible sports franchises in America. The only bad teams that are successful are the ones in smaller markets. What does anyone in Cleveland have to do besides root for the god-awful Browns? When a bad team (such as the Rams) moves to a big luxurious city they won’t do well. Not sure if you noticed: The Dolphins and Chargers don’t exactly sell out every game. Even if the fans were passionate in L.A. it still wouldn’t work.  Think of the Sixers in Philly or the Lions in Detroit.  These are large markets with big fan bases… nobody cares about these teams.  Another big problem you’re going to see in L.A. is the “home field advantage” turn into “away field advantage” for other teams (see: San Diego).  Sure the people of L.A. might be at the beach, but somebodies gotta fill the seats right?  Well I’m an Eagles fan, you think I would enjoy a vacation to L.A. to see the birds play there?  Hell yeah I would.  So would everyone else. And I live 2700 miles away.  Do you think the in-division Cardinals, 9ers, and Seahawks fans would make the trip to this sparkling new stadium?  I have a feeling that these games are gonna have 40-45% opposing fans at every single game.

Besides the financials and logic, we all need a moment of silence for what used to be a great sports city.  Everybody feels bad for the Cubs fans because they haven’t seen a championship in so long. The thing is, they’ve been deprived for so long that it’s barely torture at this point.  St. Louis knows how good that feeling is and must know that they probably won’t get that feeling again for a long time, if ever.

The St. Louis Rams are most notably know for “The Greatest Show on Turf.”  To those of you unfamiliar here’s some history: In 1999 Trent Green and Marshall Faulk were both brought to the city through trades.  Legendary Trent Green blows out his ACL in preseason (sooo St. Louis) and some arena football quarterback Kurt Warner takes his place.  Although Dick Vermeil, coach at the time, promised good football ESPN ranked them preseason number last.  The rest was history.  Warner gets MVP, Faulk gets offensive player of the year.  They go to the Super Bowl and beat the Titans on the final play of the game (“The Tackle”) and the game goes down as maybe the best super bowl ever.  This was the height of St. Louis sports.  I mean this team literally caused the “excessive celebration” rule in the NFL for their choreographed “bob and weave” touchdown celebrations.  Hard not to love the Rams at the turn of the century.

And then they sucked.  In ’01 they return to the Super Bowl for what I consider the start of the drought.  They play the surging Patriots with upcoming star QB.. you guessed it Twinkle Toes Tom Brady.  The Rams go into the game as 14 point favorites.  After going down 17-3 they score two straight and tie the game with 90 seconds left.  Well you know the rest, Tom drives down the field completing every pass except one (an intentional spike) and Vinatieri kicks a 48-harder for the win.  Here’s when St. Louis realizes that it has become.. St. Louis : Later in the year it comes out that the Pats had been filming opposing teams practices (including the Rams’) and “Spygate” emerges.

Warner gets replaced by Marc Bulger he begins a 13 year playoff drought capped off by an ’09 1-15 win season.  In that time the number of terrible losses is exponential.  This period slowly killed off all of the bandwagon frontrunner fans an organization needs to stay in business.  The thing is, one good season will do the job to get all of those fans back on board.  The Rams were one good season away from reinventing themselves.  With a strong defense and a young offensive core, they seemed to be on the brink.  But then again… this is St. louis.

So after being teased with terrible teams time and time again at the turn of the century, why should we feel so bad for St. Louis?  I mean every city has their own problems. Here’s 5 other reasons to feel bad:

1. They were home to an ABA team (as if that’s not bad enough).  They had to watch bad basketball, and their team also sucked. ON TOP OF THAT, when the NBA merged with the ABA they took 4 teams, not St. Louis.
2. In 2011 the Cardinals won the World Series (probably why none of you feel bad for them).  Then their hall of famer, 3-time MVP, 1st baseman Prince Albert “The Machine” Pujols signed a 10-year deal with another team because the owner wouldn’t pay him enough.
3. The Cardinals had the best record in baseball last year, the second and third best record were both in their division.  They played their rivals, The Cubs, in the first round, 5-game series of the playoffs and lost 3-1.  Oh their 1 win in the series?  Pitcher John Lackey threw that one… he then signed with the Cubs in the offseason.
4. Not done with the Cardinals.  Young, upcoming, superstar Jason Heyward left the team after their 100 win season this offseason as well.  He took less money than the Cardinals offered to go to.. you guess it: The Cubs
5. On top of all of that, the St. Louis fan base had to result to rooting for a hockey team.  Any city that considers itself a hockey town is simply saying it’s other teams are too bad to root for.  It’s only a matter of time before they start preaching about a soccer team.
6. **EXTRAS: Home of Budweiser, which now calls Belgium home. The Missouri River is even flooding at record rates this year! I mean c’mon.

I’m not trying to piss off any long time tortured fan bases, I’m simply telling you to welcome a new member to your group.  I am marking the beginning of an era for the city of St. Louis.  A new era of losing, like never before seen.  After loosing a football team to SoCal, because them having 75 degrees and no clouds year round isn’t enough, and watching their entire baseball team jump ship, and having to root for hockey, what’s left in St. Louis?