Dear St. Louisans:
I like you guys. I haven't told anyone this, partly because I would be embarrassed if I admitted this too often (and for that I need to apologize for treating you guys like my dirty little secret), but I have vacationed in your underrated city at least, oh, a dozen times now, and more like 15. It all began as soon as Southwest heralded the beginning of non-stop service between MSP and STL by offering tickets for $39 bucks each way. They continue to offer tickets to St. Louis for just around $100 round-trip at least once a year. In fact, I reserved a ticket to go to your fine town for that price this week, and I cancelled because, in my infinite wisdom I didn't check that 1) this is the weekend of the Super Bowl and I would rather spend it at my cousin's party and 2) the day after is Chinese New Year, and I should stay home for that, just in case.
I'll tell you another thing about me, which actually is related to the paragraph above. As much as I bitch about having a bad day, I have only had a handful of truly bad days in my life: The deaths of my grandmothers and my uncle; getting rejected from Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Stanford (the last three I found out on the same night, and if I'm really old I'll tell y'all about that); all the times my parents hit me; and, what the heck, the day where I got rejected for a driver's license the second time. A day that just reaches that cut-off: The day in 199 ... Christ, I think it was 1993, when that motherfucker Norm Green announced that he was stealing the North Stars from Minnesota to Dallas. I remember laying in my bed, in the dark, wondering how in the hell is that legal. Maybe this was an indictment of my innocence, but I truly thought that sports teams couldn't move. It just wasn't done, at least not to us good Minnesotans. But Norm Green is not a good Minnesotan. I don't care if this sounds childish because it's true: A piece of me died when I learned my North Stars were taken from us. I haven't truly been the same since.
So I sympathize with you, especially you St. Louis Rams fans, when it was announced that the Rams were being taken away from you and taken to Los Angeles before the start of next year. Franchise relocation remains the most underrated blight in sports because it effects the relations a team has with a city and its fanbase. Every year the team makes an emotion connection in order to make money, but as soon as that money isn't enough and the team demands a stadium or else, it's a business. Funny how that works.
What the league has left you guys is crushing debt on the Edward Jones (formerly Transworld Airlines, or TWA) Dome, which will stand empty whenever there isn't a monster truck rally, Bruce Springsteen concert or megachurch revival in town. (While reading the online St. Louis Post-Dispatch I saw a photo of the lobby of the E.J. Dome dark except for a TV. Haunting, especially knowing that the dome will be dark most of the time.) Goes to show that oftentimes municipalities whore themselves into insolvency just to prove to other cities that they are big-time. Shit, that's what the Twin Cities just did giving Zygi Wilf a sweetheart deal for the new Vikings stadium.
However, there is one big thing about the death of the St. Louis Rams that is obvious but hasn't been mentioned all that much. You guys stole the Rams from Los Angeles. I have seen a lot of inveighing about how the NFL has ripped the hearts out of Mound City, and I have seen many articles about the disaffected and disillusioned fan base that now has no shitty team to call their own. It must piss you guys off to see so many Los Angelenos in Rams gear hyped about how they're getting their (shitty) team back. But in 1994, the tables were totally turned. I'm sorry, but what goes around comes around. In fact, because the Rams are actually returning to a city they were stolen from 21 seasons ago, this is, in my humble opinion, that rarest of things in professional sports: Righting a wrong. So say what you will about how one of your sons, Stan Kroenke, betrayed the city, and it doesn't matter that he's doing it so he could build for The Shield a billion-plus funhouse that'll supposedly take them into the 22nd century or whatever. He's turning back time and putting things back to where they were.
You may say that L.A. doesn't deserve the Rams either. And you guys are totally right. If anything, the Rams belong to its original city -- Cleveland. And if there is a Cleveland Rams fan that traveled down to Houston where the league met to ultimately decide on this franchise theft, I would also raise holy hell and insist that the Rams go all the way back to where they really belong, alongside the Erie River. The only problem with that is that I think all Cleveland Rams fans are now dead. That doesn't make it any less true, just formidably more difficult to justify.
Now, this letter may come across as harsh. I am sorry to be that way, especially since this is in fact the second NFL franchise that has been taken from you, after the Cardinals. But the nine-figure debt should wake you up to the reality that you are a shrinking metropolis that probably wouldn't be able to support the Rams even if you wanted to. There have been studies measuring the total metropolitan income, and there simply isn't enough from the St. Louis metropolitan area to give their hard-earned money to three pro sports franchises.
But that's OK. You still are, far and away, America's Best Baseball City, and you still have your baseball Cardinals. And you also have the Blues, so STL has a pro team to rally around in the warm and the cold months. (Bonus: You didn't take either franchise from another city; both the Cardinals and Blues were born in St. Louis, and by God that's where they will stay.) Add St. Louis University and your fine, beautiful city has more than enough. And if you guys can find an owner who gives a shit, you'll be able to land a Major League Soccer franchise, and maybe you guys can absorb its lower consumption demands.
Look, you have two franchises that belong to you. Love them. They'll never leave you. I mean, why would you want a second-hand franchise anyway? You guys have Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk and Torry Holt and The Greatest Show On Turf and that Super Bowl win. Los Angeles can't have that, and if they say that's part of their history, you people tell them to go fuck themselves. Those memories are yours. And that should also be more than enough.
Hey, hope to see you guys, your casinos, and especially your nasty strip clubs in East St. Louis soon.
It Gets Better,
Unforgivable Wetness
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