What a sad day in the 619 today. No more San Diego Chargers. No more Jack Murphy
Stadium, no more pretty Chargers girls, and no more corny 1970's disco
"San Diego Super Chargers" played over the loudspeakers. 56 years of gridiron tradition in beautiful Mission Valley is headed up to smoggy Los Angeles once again, sadly going full circle. This is a
travesty for all long time Chargers fans.
This
is not unlike what happened 21 years ago, when my brother Tommy Vardell was
with the Cleveland Browns in his last season, the Browns organization
eviscerated the belly of city of Cleveland and ripped apart the souls of all
the loyal Browns fans by moving their team to Baltimore. They announced it
during the week of the last home game, and so after that last home game ever at
Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Tommy and the entire Browns team went to the end
zone after the game and hugged all their die hard fans in the Dog Pound with
tears and appreciation to all of those loyal fans that supported them, game
after game, win or lose, rain, snow or shine. Tears later turned to anger and
it became an ugly war zone at the stadium and the Browns facility with the
outrage of the fans who felt that their culture, loyalty, and tradition was
stripped away for the greed of $$$$$$$$$.
I have
always had Charger Blue and Gold flowing in my veins, as I saw my very first
pro football game at Jack Murphy stadium when the Chargers played Joe Namath
and the New York Jets on Monday night football back in 1975 with my dad. I have
been a Chargers fan since that evening, all the way through the Air Coryell
days to the present. I also grew
up not only watching the Chargers, but knowing and being friends with some of
my heroes and players from the 1960s like Bob Petrich, the late
George Gross, Pete Mikolajewski, and my being friends with Scott Gruneisen, son of the
late great Sam Gruneisen. My uncle Don coached Billy Ray Smith at Plano High School in Texas where Billy Ray helped win a state championship. I also watched the late great Junior Seau (who played
with Tommy as a team mate on the San Diego high school all-star team when
Junior was defensive captain and Tommy was offensive captain.) I got to watch
number 55 play in high school, at USC, and as a San Diego Chargers legend. This
pains me immensely for all of you loyal Chargers fans who are no doubt feeling
like the loyal Browns fans did 21 years ago.
I am not a card carrying Mensa financial or political genius, and so I
don't know all the complexities of how this travesty happened, but from a fan's
perspective, if they can build the damn Padres Stadium somehow, they sure as
hell should've made and done whatever possible to build a new Chargers stadium
or whatever it took to keep the Chargers in San Diego. This day crumbled a 56
year tower of Charger power, tradition, generations of gridiron culture, and let the
rubble come crashing down on the heads and crush the hearts of all their loyal
Chargers fans, many who are dear friends of mine. This breaks my heart for all
generations of die hard Charger fans, past and present.
It is becoming commonplace that fans are getting shafted exponentially
year by year in ALL areas, not just sports. Ironically I see the Chargers are
being moved to StubHub field in Carson.. This is absolutely poetic, as these
unethical legalized scalping companies like Stubhub gobble up all the good
seats with their autodial computers, and then leave us regular fans with lousy
or nose bleed seats unless you want to be financially gouged for a good seat.
For example, I had to buy my AC/DC ticket
last year through Stubhub where I bought $140 ticket for the obscene
price of $540. (They call it Stubhub for reason because they certainly stuck their
greedy stub in my hub with that near criminal mark-up on the face value, and I
felt financially violated and victimized.)
The
bottom line is that there is NO loyalty anymore to us fans. It is all about
greed in sports, music, and entertainment and zero appreciation for all of us fans,
who paid our ticket price and filled those stadium seats year after year after
year...It is a lot like Gordon Gekko who once said "Greed Is Good"
and then tore apart Blue Star Airlines at the expense of the working man all
for the mighty buck. It sadly makes me think of a scene in "A Bronx
Tale" when a head mobster is bemused at a little kid being upset about how
Mickey Mantle was treated by the New York Yankees coach. Paraphrasing here, the
mobster said, "Is dat what you are upset about kid? Mickey Mantle?? Mickey
Mantle makes $100,000 a year. If your father loses his job go ask Mickey Mantle if he will pay the rent. Mickey Mantle don't care about you so why should you
care about Mickey Mantle?" There is no loyalty to us fans anymore folks.
Sad But True as Mr. James Hetfield says.
As a fan, I want to thank and give a HUGE fan shout out to all of these
many Chargers players and heroes of mine for their excellence and great
memories at The Murph: #19 Bambi, #79 Gross, #85 Petrich, #15 Mikolajewski, #65 Gruneisen, #14
Fouts, #89 Chandler, #18 Joiner, #37 Bauer, #74 Kelcher, #79 Johnson, #71 Dean,
#83 Jefferson, #80 Winslow, #46 Muncie, #54 Smith, #55 Seau, #21 LT, #17 Rivers, and many many
more I KNOW I have failed to mention.....Thank you for 56 years of
Chargers excellence: and most of
all, a HUGE thank you to all of my loyal Chargers fans and friends for sharing
those great memories with me at the Murph in Mission Valley. What a damn shame
and what a sad ending to an era.
