If you aren't into sports, stop here. Go find another post with the political mumbo jumbo you so love to get wound up about. This is about a different kind of fantasy world, but just as full of Armchair Quarterbacks!

I really wasn't into football at all. I didn't even know who was who really. I didn't know who was going to the Superbowl in 1976 until my best friends Dad started talking about the Minnesota Vikings and how they were going to clean up on the Oakland Raiders. I had no idea about any of it, but since LeRoy was so adamant about the Vikings I just HAD to bet him that they would lose. We bet twenty dollars. I didn't even watch the game, but the day after the Bowl he called me and told me to come get my money. I became a Raiders fan at that point.

It was casual for a few years as I was still so into racing bikes I really didn't have time for another sport, but after High School I began watching all the time and the Raiders were still a hot team and it was cool to watch them beat up on opponents, even if they lost. I liked the outlaw attitude of the team and I liked the fact that so many people hated them. It made watching them win all the better.

I liked their colors too, They just looked cool and sinister at the same time. I liked the logo and I liked the fans who were absolutely die hard and commited to supporting their team. They knew the history of the team and were ready to jump into a heated debate about any aspect of their beloved silver and black. They had some of teh greatest players in the NFL and had the highest winning percentage of any team in the history of sports. It was fun to be a Raiders fan. Other fans would stop and talk to you in stores and there no bandwagon fans for teh Raiders. You were hardcore and die hard. I loved it.

They went into the 1980 playoffs as a wildcard team and went all the way, shattering the Eagles with relative ease with their newly aquired "Old Man" quarterback, Jim Plunkett, a reject from the 49ers and a man most people figured was washed up after an unspectacular career in the Bay. Then in 1984 they went into the Superbowl as big underdogs to the high flying Washington Redskins and made the big, trash talking John Riggins look like an inept High School Half back and sent Joe Thiesman into a crybaby routine that still irks me to think of it, even though I like Joe as a commentator. Marcus Allen was obvioulsy the Runningback of the year and showed his prowess throughout the decade.

Al Davis moved the team to LA 1981 and I was kind happy and kinda sad. Sad because Oakland seemed to be a greatr place for the team. Maybe just because that's what I was used to. Happy because I could now attend games without having to make it an overnight trip. I went to two games there, one in 1985 and the other in 1987. I couldn't believe the air of hostility and violence. The feeling you get in a bar when a brawl is about to break out. I never went to another game.

These were the "Dark Times". The Marc Wilson era followed by a host of hacks at the helm. Forgettable names like Jeff Hostettler, Jay Schrader, Rusty Hilger and Todd Marinovich. Everytime Wilson would drop back I would close my eyes! He was horrible and, at the time, was the highest paid quarterback in the league! Hoss and Schrader really tried, but the rest of the team was subpar. Hilger and "Marijuanavich were simply losers. Al Davis had begun his slide down the slippery slope of obvious senility by making terrible decisions involving the direction of my beloved team. I think he became overzealous about picking up older players and hoping they would provide the magic Plunkett did. It didn't work out that way.

During the teams tenure in LA I began to realize that the Raiders fanbase has shifted dramatically. From the hardcores to the hard asses. The idiots who just wanted to be a part of the "Bad Boy" imiage the Raiders had fostered which was never meant to leave the field. Fans became openly violent and Silver and Black became gang affliated colors. You were as likely to be attacked for wearing a jacket to the game as if you didnt if you weren't a gang member. I began to have reservations about wearing my jackets outside of Kern County.

When the team moved back to Oakland(Idont even remember what year it was now)I was happy. I thought maybe that Mexican gang persona the team had unwittingly aquired in LA would fade into the fog of the Bay area. I was wrong. The Gang element had moved north as well and had taken it's gang connotations with them.

In 2002, Rich Gannon, the last of the "has beens" led my team to the Superbowl. They had a stellar season but were soundly beaten by my "closet team", Tampa Bay, of whom I had been a fan also since the 70s because I like an underdog too. I wasn't unhappy about the game. The Buc's won, but the Raiders had a great season and I was cool with it all.

Then came the news of rioting in Oakland. Violence and cars and building being burned and sacked over teh loss. It was despicable. It was the only time in the history of football that fans had ruined at town because THEIR team had lost. As I watched news reports of what was going on in my room(I was in Vegas for that game)later that night, I saw that the vast majority of those involved in the melee were mexicans. I didn't get it. What were these people so pissed about? Then it started to makes sense. I remembered trying to start a conversation a couple years earler with a mexican guy in a Raiders jacket and beanie. He had no clue as to what was going on in the NFL. He was just a thug in Silver and Black.

It was after this game that I first started to question why I was still a Raiders fan. I had no desire to be lumped into the same pile with gangsters and punks. I just loved my team and couldn't understand what would possess a group to take the luster out of such an enjoyable pasttime as being a Raiders fan just so they could seem to be cool. I don't care what color a fan is as long as they are a fan and not using the colors to incite violence as posers, which they are. But, I stuck with them because I had been a fan for so very long. I had stuck out the LA years, the Dark Times and I would stay the course now.

That was five years ago and not much has changed. Then, a few weeks ago I was driving down the freeway and saw a Raiders decal on a pickup window, except the it wasn't really a raiders logo. It was in Gothic lettering and the helmet had been replaced by a SOMBRERO! Someone had decided it was OK to deface my beloved Raider by turning him into the Frito Bandito! I was aghast! It was unthinkable! There are Mexican fans of many teams, but none of their logos have been defaced! Could you imagine a Broncos logo woth a burro? Then my grandson, Dante,(another devout Raiders fan),went to a game in Oakland two weeks ago. His car was broken into and destroyed for his stereo.

That was it. The straw that broke the Camels back. I am no longer a Raiders fan. I don't care what happens to this shithouse franchise and I have no desire to be a part of a fanbase that is more interested in personna and image than in whp is starting at QB or what the teams record is. They can have each other. They can recreate the logo, they can redecorate the Stadium in dingleberries if they want. I will have no more to do with them and that is sad. I'd have stuck by them if they never won another game, but I have had enough of what it means to be a modern Raiders fan.

I will go with Tampa Bay for now and when and if my grandson, Ryan Mathews, makes it to the big leagues, I will become a fan of whatever team he plays for(unless it's the Cowboys or the Raiders!). Here's to many years as a dedicated Raiders fan. I wish the team itself no ill will, but it's fans can take a flying leap at a rolling donut.