The Great Shark Hunt Part 3

Even now -- almost 2000 miles and two months removed from the Raider headquarters in Oakland -- I still want to reach for an icepick every time I see a football. . . and my only consolation, looking back on that nightmare, is that I might have decided to "cover" the Dallas Cowboys. Just before talking to Burgin, in fact, I read a savage novel called North Dallas Forty North Dallas Forty, by ex-Cowboy flanker Pete Gent, and it had cranked up my interest in both Dallas and the Cowboys enough so that I was right on the brink of dumping Oakland and heading for Texas. . .

Fortunately, I was shrewd enough to choose Oakland -- a decision that resulted, less than three weeks after I made it, in a series of personal and professional disasters ranging from ma.s.sive slander and a beating by stadium-cops outside the Raider dressing room, to total banishment from the field, locker room, press box, and for all practical purposes -- because of the dark a.s.sumptions that would inevitably be made about any player seen with me in public -- from any bar, restaurant, zoo or shotgun store in the Bay Area frequented by any Raider players.

The reasons for all this are still not entirely clear -- or maybe they are, and I still can't grasp the real meaning of what happened. Perhaps it was merely a case of the chickens coming home to roost, accompanied by three giant condors.

II.

The Raiders kicked you out? For what? Drug rumors? [Laughter] Well, it's nice to know they're starting to give writers the same kind of underhanded chickens.h.i.+t they've been laying on players for ten years. . . Yeah, it varies from team to team: Like, for me, getting traded to Pittsburgh after all that time in Oakland was like finally coming up for air. As a matter of general philosophy, though, the National Football League is the last bastion of fascism in America.

-- Tom Keating, Defensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers

To reach the Oakland Raiders' practice field you drive from San Francisco across the Bay Bridge and then south on U.S. 17 to Exit 98 at Hegenberger Road at the south end of Alameda Bay. . . turn right at the off-ramp that leads to the Oakland International Airport; glance back at the Edgewater Inn and the squat-white concrete-block building right next to the Edgewater that says "Oakland Raiders" and then swing north again.

About six miles past the Airport entrance, the Oakland Hilton and a speedboat raceway -- the road gets narrow and seems to be heading downhill, through a wet desert of stunted jack-pines (or scrub-oaks, or whatever they call those useless little trees that grow on the edge of swamplands all over the country, near places like Pensacola and Portland). . . but this is Oakland, or at least San Leandro, and when you drive 20 miles out of San Francisco to a lonesome place like this, you want a pretty good reason.

. . . Or at least a decent excuse.

The only people who make this run regularly, in the autumn months between late August and December, are Bay Area sportswriters and people on the payroll of the Oakland Raiders -- players, trainers, coaches, owners, etc. -- and the only reason they make this grim trip day after day is the nervous fact that the Raiders' practice field and daily headquarters is located, for good or ill, out here on this stinking estuary across the bay from San Francisco.

It is a hard place to find unless you know exactly where to look. The only sure giveaway sign, from the highway, is a sudden rise of thin steel scaffolding looming out of the jack-pines about 200 yards west of the road -- and two men in cheap plastic ski jackets on a platform at the top of the tower, aiming big grey movie cameras down at whatever's happening on the other side of that tree-fence.

Turn left just beyond the film-tower, park in a muddy lot full of new Cadillacs and flashy sports cars, and walk up a gra.s.sy bank to a one-story concrete-block building that looks like a dog-kennel or a Pepsi-Cola warehouse in St. Louis. . . push through a big metal fire-door & along a naked corridor decorated on both sides with black and grey helmets, sharp-edged footb.a.l.l.s, red-white-and-blue NFL stickers. . . and finally around a corner into the weight-room, a maze of fantastically-complicated machinery with signs all around warning "unauthorized persons" to keep their G.o.dd.a.m.n hands off of everything. everything. One of the weight-machines costs $6500 and is designed to do nothing but stretch knots out of trapezius muscles; another, costing $8800, is a maze of steel cables, weights and ankle-hooks that will -- if used properly -- cure kinks, rips and contusions out of every muscle from the hip to the achilles tendon. There are other machines for problems of the feet, neck and elbows. One of the weight-machines costs $6500 and is designed to do nothing but stretch knots out of trapezius muscles; another, costing $8800, is a maze of steel cables, weights and ankle-hooks that will -- if used properly -- cure kinks, rips and contusions out of every muscle from the hip to the achilles tendon. There are other machines for problems of the feet, neck and elbows.

I was tempted to get physically involved with every machine in the building -- just to know how it felt to get jerked around by all that fantastic machinery. I was also tempted to speak with the trainers and sample whatever medications they had to offer -- but pro football locker rooms are no longer the wholesale drug dispensaries that they were in the past. National Football League Commissioner "Pete" Rozelle -- along with "President" Nixon and the network TV moguls -- have determined that drugs and pro football won't mix; at least not in public.

On my first visit to the locker room -- and on all other visits, for that matter -- I avoided both the weight machines and the trainers. There was no point, I felt, in compromising the story early on; although if I'd known what kind of s.h.i.+train I was heading into I would have sprung every machine in the building and gobbled every pill I could get my hands on.

But I felt a certain obligation, back then, to act in a "professional" manner. . . and, besides, for my first look at the Raider practice field I was accompanied by a friendly little fellow named Al LoCasale, who had told me when I called on the phone that he was "executive a.s.sistant" to the Raiders' general manager and would-be owner, Al Davis.

LoCasale led me through the locker room, past the weights and the trainers, and out through another small door that opened onto a long green pasture enclosing two football fields, four goal posts, many blocking sleds and tackling dummies, and about 60 men moving around very actively, gathered in four separate groups on both fields.

I recognized John Madden, the head coach, running the offensive unit through short-pa.s.s drills on the field to my right. . . and on the other field, about 50 yards to my left, another coach was running the defensive unit through some kind of drill I couldn't recognize.

Far down at the other end of the field where the defensive unit was working, I could see George Blanda, the Raiders' 46-year-old reserve quarterback and premier place-kicker, working with his own set of handlers and banging one kick after another "through the uprights" -- from the 30 or 35 yard line. Blanda and his small crew were paying no attention to what was happening on the offensive and defensive fields. Their job was to keep George sharp on field goals, and during the two hours I was there, that afternoon, he kicked at least 40 or 50, and I never saw him miss one.

There were two other solitary figures moving around on the field(s) beyond the small enclosure near the locker-room door where LoCasale and several a.s.sistants made sure the half-dozen local sportswriters stayed. One was Ray Guy, the rookie punter and number one draft choice from Mississippi, who spent all afternoon kicking one ball after another in tall spiraling arcs above the offensive unit to a brace of ballboys just in front of the sportswriters' huddle. . . and the other was a small wiry man in a tan golf jacket with a greasy duck-tail haircut who paced along the sidelines of both fields with a speedy kind of intensity that I never really noticed until he suddenly appeared very close to me and I heard him ask a sportswriter from the San Francisco Chronicle who I was and what I was doing there. . .

The conversation took place within 10 yards of me, and I heard most of it.

"Who's the big guy over there with the ball in his hand?" asked the man with the DA.

"His name's Thompson," replied Chronical sportswriter Jack Smith. "He's a writer for R ROLLING S STONE."

"The Rolling Stones? Jesus Christ! What's he doing doing here? Did here? Did you you bring him?" bring him?"

"No, he's writing a big article. R ROLLING S STONE is a magazine, Al. It's different from the Rolling Stones; they're a rock music group. . . Thompson's a buddy of George Plimpton's, I think. . . and he's also a friend of Dave Burgin's -- you remember Burgin?" is a magazine, Al. It's different from the Rolling Stones; they're a rock music group. . . Thompson's a buddy of George Plimpton's, I think. . . and he's also a friend of Dave Burgin's -- you remember Burgin?"

"Holy s.h.i.+t! Burgin! We ran him out of here with a cattle prod!"

I saw Smith laugh at that point, then he was talking again: "Don't worry, Al. Thompson's okay. He wrote a good book about Las Vegas."

Good G.o.d! I thought. That's it. . . If they read that book I'm finished. By this time I'd realized that this strange-looking b.u.g.g.e.r named "Al," who looked like a pimp or a track-tout, was in fact the infamous Al Davis-- general manager and de facto owner (pending settlement of a nasty lawsuit scheduled for court-action early this year) of the whole Oakland Raider operation.

Davis glanced over his shoulder at me, then spoke back to Smith: "Get the b.a.s.t.a.r.d out of here. I don't trust him."

I heard that very clearly -- and if I'd had any sense I'd have abandoned the whole story right then, for reasons of extreme and unnatural prejudice; call the office and say I couldn't handle the bad vibes, then jump the next plane to Colorado. . . I was watching Davis very closely now, and it occurred to me that the fiendish intensity of his speech and mannerisms reminded me very strongly of another Oakland bada.s.s I'd spent some time with, several years earlier -- ex-h.e.l.l's Angels president Ralph "Sonny" Barger, who had just beaten a multiple-murder rap and then copped out, they said, to some kind of minor charge like "Aggravated a.s.sault with Intent to Commit Murder," or "Possession of Automatic Weapons" (submachine-guns), "Possession of Heroin (four pounds) with Intent to Sell, and s.e.xual a.s.sault on Two Minors with Intent to Commit Forcible Sodomy". . .

I had read these things in the Chronicle. . . but. . . What the h.e.l.l? Why compound these libels? Any society that will put Barger in jail and make Al Davis a respectable millionaire at the same time is not a society to be trifled with.

In any case, the story of my strange and officially ugly relations.h.i.+p with Al Davis is too complicated for any long explanations at this point. I spent several days pacing the sidelines of the Raider practice field with him -- prior to the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Kansas City games -- and the only thing I remember him talking about is "Environmental Determinism." He spoke at considerable length on that subject, as I recall, but there is nothing in my notes to indicate precisely what he said about it.

Shortly after I heard him tell Smith to get rid of me on that first afternoon, I walked over to him and somehow got wound up in a conversation about how he was having trouble buying property in Aspen because "some people out there," thought his money was "dirty" because of his known connections in Las Vegas. "h.e.l.l, that's no problem," I told him. "I once ran for sheriff in Aspen; I know the place pretty well, and I can tell you for sure that at least half the money out there is dirtier than any you're likely to come up with."

He stopped and eyed me curiously. "You ran for sheriff?" he said. "In Aspen, Colorado?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but I'd rather not talk about it. We didn't lose by much, but losing in politics is like losing in football, right? One vote, one point --"

He smiled crookedly, then began pacing again. "I don't give a d.a.m.n about politics," he said as I hurried along the white-lime sideline to keep up with him. "The only things that interest me are economics and foreign affairs."

Jesus christ! I thought. Economics, foreign affairs, environmental determinism -- this b.a.s.t.a.r.d is sand-bagging me.

We paced back and forth a while longer, then he suddenly turned on me: "What are you after?" he snapped. "Why are you out here?"

"Well. . ." I said. "It would take me a while to explain it. Why don't we have a beer after practice tomorrow and I'll --"

"Not tomorrow," he said quickly. "I only come out here on Wednesdays and Thursdays. They get nervous when I'm around, so I try to stay away most of the time."

I nodded -- but I didn't really understand what he meant until an hour or so later, when Coach Madden signaled the end of that day's practice and Davis suddenly rushed onto the field and grabbed the quarterback, Ken Stabler, along with a receiver and a defensive back I didn't recognize, and made them run the same pa.s.s pattern -- a quick shot from about 15 yards out with the receiver getting the ball precisely precisely at the corner of the goal line and the out-of-bounds line-- at least twelve consecutive times until they had it down exactly the way he wanted it. at the corner of the goal line and the out-of-bounds line-- at least twelve consecutive times until they had it down exactly the way he wanted it.

That is my last real memory of Al Davis: It was getting dark in Oakland, the rest of the team had already gone into the showers, the coach was inside speaking sagely with a gaggle of local sportswriters, somewhere beyond the field-fence a big jet was cranking up its afterburners on the airport runway. . . and here was the owner owner of the flakiest team in pro football, running around on a half-dark practice field like a king-h.e.l.l speed freak with his quarterback and two other key players, insisting that they run the same G.o.dd.a.m.n play over and over again until they had it of the flakiest team in pro football, running around on a half-dark practice field like a king-h.e.l.l speed freak with his quarterback and two other key players, insisting that they run the same G.o.dd.a.m.n play over and over again until they had it right. right.

That was the only time I ever felt that I really understood Davis. . . We talked on other days, sort of loosely and usually about football, whenever I would show up at the practice field and pace around the sidelines with him. . . and it was somewhere around the third week of my random appearances, as I recall, that he began to act very nervous whenever he saw me.

I never asked why, but it was clear that something had changed, if only back to normal. . . After one of the midweek practices I was sitting with one of the Raider players in the tavern down the road from the fieldhouse and he said: "Jesus, you know I was walking back to the huddle and I looked over and, G.o.d d.a.m.n, I almost flipped when I saw you and Davis standing together on the sideline. I thought, man, the world really is is changing when you see a thing like that -- Hunter Thompson and Al Davis -- Christ, you know that's the first time I ever saw changing when you see a thing like that -- Hunter Thompson and Al Davis -- Christ, you know that's the first time I ever saw anybody anybody with Davis during practice; the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's always with Davis during practice; the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's always alone alone out there, just pacing back and forth like a G.o.dd.a.m.n beast. . ." out there, just pacing back and forth like a G.o.dd.a.m.n beast. . ."

In the meantime, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen, I was trying to learn as much as possible about the real underbelly of pro football by watching a film of the Denver-Dallas game with several Raider players who provided a running commentary on the action -- trying to explain, in language as close as they could cut it for the layman's slow eye, what was happening on the screen and how it might or might not relate to the Denver-Oakland game coming up next Sunday.

The purpose of the film-session was to show me some of the things -- in slow motion and repeated instant replay -- that n.o.body in the stands or the press box will ever understand. It was done as a personal favor, at a time when neither I nor any of the Oakland players realized that I was about to be banished. If I'd been writing a story on Evel Knievel at the time, I would have asked him to do the same thing -- sit down for an evening with some films of his jumps, and explain each one step-by-step, along with whatever was going through his head at any given moment.

What follows, then, is a random commentary by some pro football players just a few games away from the Super Bowl, watching a film of a game between two teams -- one of which they will have to beat on Sunday, to make the playoffs, and another they might have to beat in the Super Bowl itself. The film we were watching was the Denver-Dallas game on December 2nd. Dallas won, 22-10 -- which hardly matters, because pro football players don't watch game-films to see who won or lost. They watch for patterns, tendencies and individual strengths or weaknesses. . . and in this case they were trying to translate their reactions into language I could get a personal grip on, which accounts for some of the awkward moments.

Under normal circ.u.mstances I'd identify all of the voices in this heavily-edited tape transcript -- but for reasons that will soon become obvious if they aren't already, I decided that it would probably be more comfortable for all of us if I lumped all the player voices under one name: "Raider." This takes a bit of an edge off the talk, but it also makes it harder for the NFL security watchdogs to ha.s.sle some good people and red-line their names for hanging around with a Dope Fiend.

III.

Do NOT M MISTAKE M ME F FOR A ANY O OTHER R READER I have come here to help to save the suffering. You know G.o.d works in a mysterious way. If you have faith in G.o.d, don't fail to see: MOTHER ROBERTS.

PSYCHIC R READER AND A ADVISOR.

THE O ONE & O & ONLY G GIFTED H HEALER.

was born with the G.o.d-given powers to help humanity and has devoted her life to this work. Tells your friends' and enemies' names without asking a single word. She will tell you what you wish to know regarding health, marriage, love, divorce, courts.h.i.+p, speculations and business transactions of all kinds.

She will tell you of any changes you should or shouldn't make, good or bad. She removes evil influences and bad luck of all kinds. She never fails to reunite the separated, cause speedy and happy marriages. She lifts you out of sorrow and darkness and starts you on the way to success, and happiness. She will give sound and important advice on all affairs of life, whatever they may be. You will find her superior to any other reader you have consulted in the past. A place to bring your friends and feel no embarra.s.sment.

1/2 PRICE WITH THIS SLIP PRICE WITH THIS SLIP.

OPEN DAILY & SUNDAYS -- 8 AM TO 10 PM.

1609 W. ALABAMA PHONE JA 3-2297.

NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY -- LOOK.

FOR ADDRESS.

Ah yes, Mother Roberts. . . I found her card on the bus and jammed it into one of my pockets, thinking that maybe I would give her a call on Monday and make an appointment. I had a lot of heavy questions to lay on her like "Why am I here, Mother Roberts? What does it all mean? Have I finally turned pro? Can this really be the end? Down and out in Houston with -- "No, I was just kidding. Mother Roberts, just putting you on -- just working a bit of the test on you, right? Yes, because what I was really leading up to is this extremely central question. . . No, I'm not shy; it's just that I come from way up north where people's lips are frozen about ten months every year, so we don't get used to talking until very late in life. . . what? Old? Well, I think you just put your finger or your wand or whatever, right smack on the head of the nail, Mother Roberts, because the G.o.dawful truth of the whole matter is that I've been feeling extremely old extremely old this past week, and. . . What? Wait a minute now, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, I'm still getting up to the main question, which is. . . What? No, I this past week, and. . . What? Wait a minute now, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, I'm still getting up to the main question, which is. . . What? No, I never never curse, Mother Roberts; that was a cry of anguish, a silent scream from the soul, because I feel in serious trouble down here in this G.o.dd.a.m.n town, and. . . Yes, I curse, Mother Roberts; that was a cry of anguish, a silent scream from the soul, because I feel in serious trouble down here in this G.o.dd.a.m.n town, and. . . Yes, I am am a white person, Mother Roberts, and we both know there's not a d.a.m.n thing I can do about it. Are you prejudiced?. . . No, let's not get into that. Just let me ask you this question, and if you can give me a straight and reasonable answer I promise I won't come out to your place. . . because what I want you to tell me, Mother Roberts -- and I mean this very seriously -- is why have I been in Houston for eight days without anybody offering me some cocaine?. . . Yes, cocaine, that's what I said, and just between you and me I'm d.a.m.n serious about wanting some. . . What? Drugs? a white person, Mother Roberts, and we both know there's not a d.a.m.n thing I can do about it. Are you prejudiced?. . . No, let's not get into that. Just let me ask you this question, and if you can give me a straight and reasonable answer I promise I won't come out to your place. . . because what I want you to tell me, Mother Roberts -- and I mean this very seriously -- is why have I been in Houston for eight days without anybody offering me some cocaine?. . . Yes, cocaine, that's what I said, and just between you and me I'm d.a.m.n serious about wanting some. . . What? Drugs? Of course Of course I'm talking about drugs! Your ad said you could answer my questions and lift me out of sorrow and darkness. . . Okay, okay, I'm listening. . . Yeah, yeah. . . But let me tell you something, Mother Roberts: My name is Al Davis and I'm the Editor of Reader's Digest. . . Right, and I can have you busted right I'm talking about drugs! Your ad said you could answer my questions and lift me out of sorrow and darkness. . . Okay, okay, I'm listening. . . Yeah, yeah. . . But let me tell you something, Mother Roberts: My name is Al Davis and I'm the Editor of Reader's Digest. . . Right, and I can have you busted right now now for false advertising. . . Yeah, well I think I might pick up some of my people and come out to see you later on today; we want some explanations for this kind of anti-christ bulls.h.i.+t. This country's in enough trouble, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, without people like you running around selling drugs like cocaine to people in serious trouble. . ." for false advertising. . . Yeah, well I think I might pick up some of my people and come out to see you later on today; we want some explanations for this kind of anti-christ bulls.h.i.+t. This country's in enough trouble, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, without people like you running around selling drugs like cocaine to people in serious trouble. . ."

Mother Roberts hung up on me at that point. Christ only knows what she thought was about to come down on her when dusk fell on Houston. . . Here was the Editor of the Reader's Digest coming out to her house with a goon squad, and all of them apparently stone mad for cocaine and vengeance. . . a terrible situation.

It was not until Monday afternoon that I actually spoke with Mother Roberts on the telephone, but the idea of going over to Galveston and dealing with the whole Super Scene story from some rotten motel on the edge of the seawall had been wandering around in my head almost from the first hour after I checked into my coveted press-room at the Hyatt Regency.

And in dull retrospect now, I wish I had done that. Almost anything would have been better than that useless week I spent in Houston waiting for the Big Game. The only place in town where I felt at home was a sort of sporadically violent strip joint called the Blue Fox, far out in the country on South Main. n.o.body I talked to in Houston had ever heard of it, and the only two sportswriters who went out there with me got involved in a wild riot that ended up with all of us getting maced by undercover vice-squad cops who just happened to be in the middle of the action when it erupted.

Ah. . . but that is another story, and we don't have time for it here. Maybe next time. There are two untold sagas that will not fit into this story: One has to do with Big Al's Cactus Room in Oakland, and the other concerns the Blue Fox in Houston.

There is also -- at least in the minds of at least two dozen gullible sportswriters at the Super Bowl -- the ugly story of how I spent three or four days prior to Super Week shooting smack in a $7 a night motel room on the seawall in Galveston.

I remember telling that story one night in the press lounge at the Hyatt Regency, just babbling it off the top of my head out of sheer boredom. . . Then I forgot about it completely until one of the local sportswriters approached me a day or so later and said: "Say man, I hear you spent some time in Galveston last week."

"Galveston?"

"Yeah," he said. "I hear you locked yourself in a motel over there and shot heroin for three days."

I looked around me to see who was listening, then grinned kind of stupidly and said "Shucks, there wasn't much else to do, you know -- why not get loaded in Galveston?"

He shrugged uncontrollably and looked down at his Old Crow and water. I glanced at my watch and turned to leave.

'Time to hit it," I said with a smile. "See you later, when I'm feeling back on my rails."

He nodded glumly as I moved away in the crowd. . . and although I saw him three or four times a day for the rest of that week, he never spoke to me again.

Most sportswriters are so blank on the subject of drugs that you can only talk to them about it at your own risk -- which is easy enough, for me, because I get a boot out of seeing their eyes bulge; but it can be disastrous to a professional football player who makes the casual mistake of a.s.suming that a sportswriter knows what he's talking about when he uses a word like "crank." Any professional athlete who talks to a sportswriter about "drugs" -- even with the best and most constructive intentions -- is taking a very heavy risk. There is a definite element of hysteria about drugs of any kind in pro football today, and a casual remark -- even a meaningless meaningless remark -- across the table in a friendly hometown bar can lead, very quickly, to a seat in the witness chair in front of a congressional committee. remark -- across the table in a friendly hometown bar can lead, very quickly, to a seat in the witness chair in front of a congressional committee.

Ah. . . drugs; that word again. It was a hard word to avoid in NFL circles last year -- like the "missile gap" in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election, or "law and order" in 1968.

1973 was a pretty dull press-year for congressmen. The Senate's Watergate Committee had managed, somehow, to pre-empt most of the ink and air-time. . . and one of the few congressmen who managed to lash his own special gig past that barrier was an apparently senile 67-year-old ex-sheriff and football coach from West Virginia named Harley Staggers.

Somewhere in the spastic interim between John Dean and "Bob" Haldeman, Congressman Staggers managed to collar some story-starved sportswriter from the New York Times long enough to announce that his committee -- the House Subcommittee on Investigations -- had stumbled on such a king-h.e.l.l wasps' nest of evidence in the course of their probe into "the use of drugs by athletes" that the committee was prepared -- or almost almost prepared, pending further evidence -- to come to grips with their natural human duty and offer up a law, very soon, that would require individual urinalysis tests on all professional athletes and especially pro football players. prepared, pending further evidence -- to come to grips with their natural human duty and offer up a law, very soon, that would require individual urinalysis tests on all professional athletes and especially pro football players.

These tests would be administered by professional urinalysists -- paid by the federal government, out of tax-monies -- and if any one of these evil b.a.s.t.a.r.ds pa.s.sed urine that turned red (or green, or blue, or whatever), they would be. . . ah. . . well. . . the Staggers Committee is still mulling on the question of penalties.

Maybe studying studying is a better word. Or is a better word. Or pondering. . . pondering. . . That's right, they're still That's right, they're still pondering pondering it. . . and G.o.d's mercy on any muscle-bound degenerate whose p.i.s.s turns red if Harley ever pa.s.ses his law. The rumor on Capitol Hill is that Rep. Staggers is even now in the process of arranging for the construction of a model, medium security JOCK/DRUG PENITENTIARY AND REHABILITATION CENTER on the site of an abandoned missile base near Tonopah, Nevada. it. . . and G.o.d's mercy on any muscle-bound degenerate whose p.i.s.s turns red if Harley ever pa.s.ses his law. The rumor on Capitol Hill is that Rep. Staggers is even now in the process of arranging for the construction of a model, medium security JOCK/DRUG PENITENTIARY AND REHABILITATION CENTER on the site of an abandoned missile base near Tonopah, Nevada.

Meanwhile, the Vice President of the United States has been lashed out of office and disbarred in his home state of Maryland, the President himself is teetering on the brink of a Burglary/Conspiracy indictment that will mean certain impeachment, and the whole structure of our government has become a stagnant mockery of itself and everybody who ever had faith in it.

What all this means to Harley Staggers is hard to say. I am tempted to call him: It is 7:02 in Was.h.i.+ngton and I suspect he's wide awake, administering the daily beating to his pit-bulls in the backyard garage and waiting for calls from reporters: "What's up Harley? Who's gonna get it?"

"Well. . . let me say this: We know, for a fact, that the situation is out of control and I mean to put a stop to it or fall down trying. . ."

"A stop to what, what, Harley?" Harley?"

"Nevermind that. You know what I mean." (pause) "Let me ask you something: Does a phrase like 'The playing fields of West Virginia' mean anything to you?" (pause) "Wait a minute -- where were you raised? What's wrong with --" (click). . .

Ah, Jesus. . . another bad tangent. Somewhere in the back of my mind I recall signing a contract that said I would never do this kind of thing again; one of the conditions of my turning pro was a clause about swearing off gibberish. . .

But, like Gregg Allman says: "I've wasted so much time. . . feelin guilty. . ."

There is some kind of back-door connection in my head between Super Bowls and the Allman Brothers -- a strange kind of theme-sound that haunts these G.o.dd.a.m.n stories no matter where I'm finally forced into a corner to write them. The Allman sound, and rain. There was heavy rain, last year, on the balcony of my dim-lit hotel room just down from the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. . . and more rain through the windows of the San Francisco office building where I finally typed out "the story."

And now, almost exactly a year later, my main memory of Super Bowl VIII in Houston is rain and grey mist outside another hotel window, with the same strung-out sound of the Allman Brothers booming out of the same portable speakers that I had, last year, in Los Angeles.

There was not much else worth remembering from either game-- or at least not much that needs writing about, and the clock on the wall reminds me, once again, that a final deadline looms and there is hungry s.p.a.ce to fill out there in San Francisco. . . Which means no more thinking about rain and music, but a quick and nasty regression to "professionalism."

Which is what it's all about.

Indeed, I tend, more and more, to forget these things. Or maybe just to ignore them.

But what the h.e.l.l? Retirement is just around the corner, so why not wander a bit?

"You grow up fast in Texas and you got to lay it down Or you'll be working for somebody way cross town."

-- Doug Sahm The floor of the Hyatt Regency men's room was always covered, about three-inches deep, with discarded newspapers -- all apparently complete and unread, except on closer examination you realized that every one of them was missing its sports section. This bathroom was right next to the hotel newsstand and just across the mezzanine from the crowded NFL "press lounge," a big room full of telephones and free booze, where most of the 1600 or so sportswriters a.s.signed to cover The Big Game seemed to spend about 16 hours of each day, during Super Week.

After the first day or so, when it became balefully clear that there was no point in anybody except the local reporters going out on the press-bus each day for the carefully staged "player interviews," that Dolphin tackle Manny Fernandez described as "like going to the dentist every day to have the same tooth filled," the out-of-town writers began using the local types as a sort of involuntary "pool". . . which was more like an old British Navy press gang, in fact, because the locals had no choice. They would go out, each morning, to the Miami and Minnesota team hotels, and dutifully conduct the daily interviews. . . and about two hours later this ma.s.s of useless gibberish would appear, word for word, in the early editions of either the Post or the Chronicle.

You could see the front door of the hotel from the balcony of the press lounge, and whenever the newsboy came in with his stack of fresh papers, the national writers would make the long 48-yard walk across to the newsstand and cough up 15 cents each for their copies. Then, on the way back to the press lounge, they would stop for a p.i.s.s and dump the whole paper -- except for the crucial sports section -- on the floor of the men's room. The place was so deep, all week, in fresh newsprint, that it was sometimes hard to push the door open.

Forty yards away, on comfortable couches surrounding the free bar, the national gents would spend about two hours each day scanning the local sports sections -- along with a never-ending ma.s.s of almost psychotically detailed information churned out by the NFL publicity office -- on the dim chance of finding something worth writing about that day.

There never was, of course. But n.o.body seemed really disturbed about it. The only thing most of the sportswriters in Houston seemed to care about was having something something to write about. . . anything at all, boss: a peg, an angle, a quote, even a G.o.dd.a.m.n rumor. to write about. . . anything at all, boss: a peg, an angle, a quote, even a G.o.dd.a.m.n rumor.

I remember being shocked at the sloth and moral degeneracy of the Nixon press corps during the 1972 presidential campaign -- but they were like a pack of wolverines on speed compared to the relatively elite sportswriters who showed up in Houston to cover the Super Bowl.

On the other hand, there really was no story. was no story. As the week wore on, it became increasingly obvious that we were all "just working here." n.o.body knew who to blame for it, and although at least a third of the sportswriters who showed up for that super-expensive shuck knew exactly what was happening, I doubt if more than five or six of them ever actually wrote the cynical and contemptuous appraisals of Super Bowl VIII that dominated about half the conversations around the bar in the press lounge. As the week wore on, it became increasingly obvious that we were all "just working here." n.o.body knew who to blame for it, and although at least a third of the sportswriters who showed up for that super-expensive shuck knew exactly what was happening, I doubt if more than five or six of them ever actually wrote the cynical and contemptuous appraisals of Super Bowl VIII that dominated about half the conversations around the bar in the press lounge.

Whatever was happening in Houston that week had little or nothing to do with the hundreds of stories that were sent out on the news-wires each day. Most of the stories, in fact, were unabashed rewrites of the dozens of official NFL press releases churned out each day by the League publicity office. Most of the stories about "fantastic parties" given by Chrysler, American Express and Jimmy the Greek were taken from press releases and rewritten by people who had spent the previous evening at least five miles from the scenes described in their stories.