Loserdom
Ever since I moved back to St. Louis in 2004 I have had split-season Rams tickets. At the time I was a casual fan at best and since the Rams didn’t move to St. Louis until 1995 I had always felt like a baseball fan in disguise when I watched them play. But season tickets sounded like fun and a good excuse to spend time with my Dad and drink massive quantities of alcohol at 8am. As perfect a Sunday as I could imagine.
In 2004 the two Super Bowl appearances were still fresh in my mind and with Mike Martz at the helm I thought another appearance was imminent. It was not to be. Martz was shown the door soon after and the Rams have become the laughingstock (ok second to the Lions) of the League.
My Dad no longer attends games with me and I can’t drink nearly as much as I could 4 short years ago. In the 4 regular season games I attended the Rams went 0-4 and weren’t even competitive for the majority of the season. For this “privilege” I shelled out nearly $750 for my 2 seats.
My season recap:
New York Giants L 41-13
This was the Home Opener so I was pretty pumped even considering we had been destroyed by the Eagles the week before. My brother (who is still partially in college mode) came with me so I was trying mightily to keep up with him on the $9 beers which is probably why I remember mostly nothing about this game. What stands out for me is going to Hooters after the game and closing that place down at 11pm. That’s right 12 solid hours of drinking. God knows how much we tipped but all we got out of it was our waitress telling us she “was kinda into girls”. Perfect. For any of you in St. Louis you know taking the Metrolink home at this hour is out of the question. We had to hustle through the vacant (and dark) streets of downtown to find a cab and get our butts home safely. Luckily our cab driver made a few wrong turns and was quite possibly tweaking on meth. He also said Ryan Ludwick was potentially the NL MVP. Clearly he was doing some kind of drugs. It’s not a coincidence that many of my memories from this season do not center on the games themselves.
Buffalo Bills L 31-14
In Scott Linehan’s final game before they (finally) kicked him to the curb the Rams were embarrassed once again. Linehan departed with a stellar 11-25 record as Head Coach. My only memory from this game was the crowd. Let me say that my seats are relatively decent so I’m not sure how some of these hoosiers get down there but there they were. About 2 rows in front of me were two guys in Buffalo t-shirts. Clearly a father-son team with working class roots — maybe union pipe fitters or something. These guys were hammered beyond belief and kept screaming the same thing: “BUFFA-LO! BUFFA-LO!” for 3 hours. It was truly painful. I think we left after 3 quarters.
Chicago Bears L 27-3
Games against the Bears are always annoying. During these games a sea of Bears fans descends upon St. Louis. Sometimes it seems like there are more Bears fans than Rams fans. They’re certainly louder than Rams fans. This generally leads to an away game atmosphere at The Dome especially when Chicago is dominating. After the half Bears fans began filtering in from the rafters to replace the early departing fans. A group of 4 hooligans sat right behind us and began harassing everyone who was leaving early. I hate leaving early but this team has been painful to watch! So we bit the bullet and left in the early 4th quarter. And yes we got hassled by 4 drunken turds from Chicago whose team is going nowhere. Oh well.
Seattle Seahawks L 23-20
This game was a playoff for which 2-11 team would reside in the NFC West cellar. I believe my friend Jon specifically picked this game to attend because hey “we might actually win this one”. We didn’t. Besides a sweet Bulger to Holt touchdown the Rams played pretty poorly. This was hidden by fact that the Seahawks are truly godawful. Seneca Wallace has no business being an NFL quarterback. We thought this one was in the bag until Seattle tied it up with 5 minutes remaining. We knew the Rams would blow it so we left early (again this was painful). By the time we got to Hooters for a postgame pitcher it was over. A last second field goal sealed it. And the Rams go 0-4 in games I attend this season.
In case you think I just stare at cheerleaders all game (which I do) here’s how I break down the season: OJ Atogwe, Donnie Jones, and Josh Brown are the only players who are worth a damn. Jason Craft had a couple moments and I’d like to see Kenneth Darby (from Alabama!) get a shot at the second HB position next year. Chris Long had a decent rookie year. The rest of the team should be burned to the ground. The Rams should try to hire Mike Singletary, Bill Cowher, or Steve Spagnuolo as Head Coach, draft Andre Smith (Alabama again!) or Matthew Stafford, and fire the entire front office. I mean everyone!
Yes I’ll be shelling out the cash for season tickets again next year. I love Sunday afternoons at The Dome too much! C’mon on Rams do something this offseason!
2 comments December 17th, 2008
