Arsenal Are In Big, Big Trouble, and You Don't Care

Today, the 2019-20 Premier League season begins. Arsenal make their season debut on Sunday, away to Newcastle United.

Both teams' fans were angry at team management. Newcastle fans actually have a case. Arsenal fans do -- but not for the reason the loudest and dumbest among them thought.

These whining bastards demanded the sacking of the great manager Arsène Wenger, finally causing him to decide he didn't deserve the disgusting abuse he was getting and retire after the 2018 season. The man who won 3 Premier League titles, including the unbeaten League season of 2003-04, the "Invincibles"; and a record 7 FA Cups, including League and Cup "Doubles" in 1997-98 and 2001-02, was gone.

Wenger went from 2005 to 2014 without winning a single trophy, before winning 3 FA Cups in 4 years. But he didn't win the League again after 2004.

Somebody wrote to me on Twitter that the problem wasn't Wenger, it was the huge amounts of money spent on players by Manchester United, then Chelsea of West London, then Manchester City, and finally, once they were bought by the owners of the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool:

Going to throw something out: People talk like we declined from the Invincibles to mediocrity, and it was completely the club's fault. Yet my view, yes, we had constraints, but also the other clubs grew after money became so huge! So as they improved, it effected how we were perceived.

The explosion of these money clubs altered what we could do and what we couldn't. It affected how far we could progress. We should factor that in when discussing how Wenger performed and what players he didn't buy and did buy, etc.

He's right. But the problem isn't just that all that happened, but also that a small but very loud minority of Arsenal fans took the failure to prevent it as a personal betrayal by "my club," and wanted revenge, not on the real perpetrators (the oligarchs and the officials), but on the team itself.

In other words, they presumed that the team could overcome anything; and, when it didn't, they felt personally betrayed. So they made it personal against Wenger, then owner Stan Kroenke, and now against the remaining Wenger players.

Wenger ended up being replaced by 2 men: Unai Emery as head coach, and Raul Sanllehi as director of football -- in other words, what North American sports fans would call the general manager.

Last season, the 1st under Emery, was a disaster. It is true that the team finished 5th, one place higher than they did the season before. And that they amassed 7 points more than they had the previous season (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw). And that they came 11 points closer to qualifying for the next season's UEFA Champions League than they had before, missing it by only 1 point.

But the season before was the ugliest in Arsenal's modern history. It wasn't just the filthy, unwarranted abuse of Wenger. It was the performance and attitude of Alexis Sanchez, a once-great player whose constant giveaways of the ball had cost Arsenal enough games to miss winning the League title in 2016 and qualification for the CL in 2017-18.

Wenger finally had enough of him, and realized that addition by subtraction was necessary, and sold him to Manchester United in the January 201I transfer window. Between that and the other moves he then made, the team got better, and there was hope -- until Arsène left.

But Wenger kept making another mistake, starting a washed-up Petr Čech in goal. If dumping Alexis and acquiring Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan were his last gifts to Arsenal, starting Čech was his final undoing.

Sanllehi brought in a new goalie, Bernd Leno. But Emery continued the starting of Čech, until an injury forced his hand, and the team got better.

But then, he stopped starting the team's best player, Mesut Özil. Emery would, instead, start Alex Iwobi, once considered one of Wenger's prize prospects, but a player whose progress had stalled, as he kept making the same mistakes over and over again.

Conflicting reports came from the team's training ground at London Colney, suggesting that Özil was injured, and then that he actually wasn't, and nobody seemed to to know what the truth was.

Then there were games when Emery would start only Aubameyang, or only Alexandre Lacazette, but not both of his world-class forwards.  Then there were games when he would drop another world-class player, Aaron Ramsey. Eventually, the team won every game started by Özil, Ramsey, Aubameyang and Lacazette; but those games turned out to be few and far between.

Emery said he sometimes dropped players "for tactical reasons." Tactical reasons? Whatever those were, they failed.

Then came word (from where, I don't remember) that Özil "didn't fit his system."

This is Mesut Özil, one of the best players in the world, who has won trophies everywhere he's gone, including the World Cup. If he doesn't fit your system, you change your system. He has won trophies for Arsenal, Emery has not.

There must have been a dozen League games where making one change -- starting Leno instead of Čech, or Özil instead of Iwobi -- would have meant the difference between qualifying form the 2019-20 Champions League with a finish of 4th or higher, and the stubborn Emery refused to do it.

But, among Arsenal management, there marriage been a feeling that qualifying for the 1919-20 CL by finishing 4th or higher in the 2018-19 Premier League was a lost cause, no matter what -- which turned out to be very wrong.

Instead, they may have hired Emery specifically so that he could get Arsenal in the back door of qualifying for the CL, by winning the secondary European toornament, the UEFA Europa League.

Before the rules were changed so that winning that tournament meant CL qualification, he had won it 3 straight years managing Sevilla of Spain, so they he figured he could get Arsenal in that way. And that seemed to be working, as he got them into the Final.

Down the stretch, there were 5 separate games that, if Arsenal had won any one if them, they would have qualified for the CL. Four of them were Weeks 34, 35, 36 and 37 of the 38-week PL season.

But Arsenal lost 3-2 at home to Crystal Palace, a far weaker team from South London; lost 3-1 away to Wolverhampton Wanderers, a Birmingham-area team that was the surprise of the PL season, finishing 7th; lost 3-0 away to Midlands team Leicester City; and could only manage a 1-@ draw at home to Sussex team Brighton & Hove Albion, a team they should have beaten without much effort. A win in the season's last League game, away to Lancashire team Burnley, was meaningless.

Ramsey was injured, and Emery didn't have him available for any of those games. Also injured were rising young centreback Rob Holding and world-class right back Hector Bellerín. Nothing he could do about that. But he left Aubameyang off the team sheet completely against Wolves. And he left Özil off the team sheet against Leicester. "Tactical reasons"? "System"?

Emery had done this before. Although he had won the French League 1 by managing Paris Saint-Germain, he had so badly alienated his best player, the Brazilian forward Neymar, that AS Monaco -- a team in a tiny country with an 18,000-seat stadium (about half their population), and by coincidence the team where Wenger made his first mark as a manager -- pipped PSG for the league title in 2018, getting him fired as their manager, thus making him available to Arsenal.

Then came the 5th late-season game that, had Arsenal won it, would have made the difference, the Europa League Final in Baku, Azerbaijan, against Chelsea.

Because of the conflict between the host nation and Mkhitaryan's neighboring homeland of Armenia, he wasn't even allowed in the country. A stupid move by UEFA, putting this neutral-site game in a country where that was possible.

That's not on Emery, as he couldn't do anything about it. Nor could he play midfielder Ramsey or Bellerín, because of their injuries. Had Arsenal lost this game simply because Chelsea were better -- and they did finish 3rd, albeit only 2 points ahead of Arsenal, so they weren't obviously the better team -- it would have been understandable.

But Emery went with a 3-4-1-2 formation. Laurent Koscielny at centreback and Nacho Monreal at left back made sense. Sokratis Papastathopoulos, normally a centreback, at right back did not. Pushing Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Bellerín's backup as right back, and Sead Kolasinac, Monreal's backup as left back, up as wingbacks also made no sense. They flanked Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka in midfield, Özil was in front of them, and Aubameyang and Lacazette were up top.

The game reached halftime scoreless, but early in the 2nd half, former Arsenal star Olivier Giroud scored, and that began the collapse, as the Arsenal defense could stop nothing, and Chelsea won 4-1.

With that score already in place, Emery subbed Özil off for rookie Joe Willock, and lip-readers said that Özil, finally willing to fire back at Emery's disrespect for him in public, yelled, in English, "You are no coach!"

The Wenger Out Brigade (WOB), who had been wrong about everything, told those of us who had seen through Emery that one season was not enough to get out of "the mess Wenger left us in," and that we should give him time.

If 1 PL game would have made the difference between making the CL and not, then it is stupid and ignorant to say that Wenger left Arsenal in a mess. Give Emery time? At this rate, he could get Arsenal relegated.

*

But someone had to be blamed for Arsenal's failure to qualify for the CL. Since the WOB were so invested in the next manager, no matter who it turned out to be, it couldn't be him.

So they turned on certain players. Özil, for being "lazy" and "not helping on defence." Xhaka, for being bad defensively. For usual starting centreback Shkodran Mustafi, for letting players go right past him for easy goals.

Defense is not part of Özil's job. And the statistics show that Xhaka and Mustafi -- both part of Wenger's 2017 FA Cup winners, and the latter Özil's teammate on Germany's 2014 World Cup winners -- are among the best players in the PL at their positions.

Most of all, they blame the man who has been Arsenal's majority owner since 2010: Stan Kroenke. He is an American (that, alone, males him an object of hatred among some if these ignorant boobs) real estate tycoon who made even more money when he married into the Walton family of Walmart infamy, also owns the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, the NBA's Denver Nuggets, the NHL's Colorado Avalanche, and MLS' Colorado Rapids.

He's had some success: The Rams reached the Super Bowl last year, the Avs have won 2 Stanley Cups, and the Rapids an MLS Cup. The Nuggets haven't won anything under him, but they got much better this past season.

He is responsible for building the Pepsi Center, home to the Nugs and Avs; Dick's Sporting Goods Park, home to the Rapids; and the new stadium that, starting next September, will be home to both the Rams and the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers.

He has been criticized for not spending enough money on bringing in world-class players to Arsenal (which is a flat-out lie), and for not caring enough to show up at big matches (which he is under absolutely no obligation to do, although it would be a courtesy).

A collection of fan groups got together to write a petition, and sent it to Kroenke, asking a big question that became a hashtag: #WeCareDoYou

The implication: "If you don't do what we want, which is spend lots and lots and lots of your own money on world-class players for Arsenal Football Club, and show up at the games, that will be proof that you do not care, and we will force you to sell the team to someone who does care."

It was an empty threat. They cannot force Kroenke to sell. What are they going to do? Not show up? Kroenke will still get the season-ticket money. Not renew their season tickets? There is a years-long waiting list for them, and the people on that list will simply move up, and those tickets will still be sold.

However, Stan's son Josh Kroenke, who is more involved in the running of Arsenal, answered the petition, essentially saying, "We do care, and if you'll stop being a bunch of entitled babies for one damned minute, the evidence will become obvious to you, you dumb schmucks!"

*

The Summer transfer window ended yesterday. Here is what Arsenal needed to do what it began:

* Find a centreback who will be an upgrade on Mustafi.
* Find an attacking midfielder who can properly replace Ramsey, whom the team refused to offer a new contract, and let it run out, and he signed with Juventus of Turin, Italy.

That's it. Two players. It should have been easy to get them, and still fall within the alleged Arsenal transfer budget of £45 million.

Then, Koscielny, the team Captain, demanded to be transferred. Now, the team needed 2 competent centrebacks, or else we'd be going into the season with the centrebacks being, in descending order of talent, Holding, Sokratis, the error-prone Mustafi, the prospect who never turned out Calum Chambers, and the still-prospect Konstantinos Mavropanos.

If Holding and Sokratis can start 32 out of 38 League games, Arsenal could be fine. But the team seems to have an injury crisis every season, especially among defenders: Last season, it should have been Bellerin - Koscielny - Holding - Monreal, but for most games it turned out to be Maitland-Niles - Sokratis - Mustafi - Kolasinac.

Sanllehi got 1 centreback, former Chelsea player David Luiz. Luiz is not an upgrade on Mustafi. He is a horrible player. What's more, he dives. He got away with that at Chelsea because team owner Roman Abramovich is a corrupt Russian energy mogul who bribes referees. Arsenal players don't cheat, not just because it's wrong, but because they wouldn't get away with it. One move by Luiz that even looks like a dive, and he will get sent off, leave us down to 10 men for the rest of the game, and get suspended for the next 3 domestic games.

The "replacement for Ramsey" is Dani Ceballos, on a 1-year loan from Real Madrid. Seriously? This is like getting George Lazenby to take over from Sean Connery as James Bond. He's not only not as good as Ramsey (few players are), but we'll have to replace him next Summer.

Iwobi was sold, and overrated forward Danny Welbeck was allowed to play out his contract. So that's some big wages off the books. Left back Kieran Tierney was bought from Glasgow team Celtic, for £25 million, or about 5 times what the best left back in Scotland's league would be worth in England's. He's not better than either Monreal or Kolasinac, nor is he likely to become better than either over the course of the next season.

Gabriel Martinelli was bought from Brazilian club Ituano. He's 18, and it will be a long time before he can be a suitable substitute in case Auba or Laca go down.

And Sanllehi broke Arsenal's transfer record -- previously £46.5 million for Lacazette -- by spending £72 million on Nicolas Pépé, a 24-year-old winger from the Ivory Coast and French team Lille, who has never won a trophy.

A lot of Arsenal fans were ecstatic: Not only had the team spent that much money on one player, something Wenger would never have done, but it was on a winger, something they wanted very badly.

They're idiots. Arsenal's tendency for the last 12 years or so, under both Wenger and Emery, is to make about 100 sideways passes before even attempting a shot, wasting time, and then not scoring anyway. The last thing Arsenal need is more width. But these people refuse to accept this obvious truth.

So the transfer window ended, and, instead of needing 2 players, Arsenal now need 3. They are worse off than before. And these #WeCareDoYou idiots are saying it's the team's best transfer window ever. They want a statue of Sanllehi.

Raul Sanllehi is a deadbeat dad: He bought all kinds of components for a great home entertainment system for his man cave, while the kids need food and new clothes.

And Unai Emery is a buffoon, who does not know how to manage players.

But, no, the idiots won't blame Emery or Sanllehi. They will blame Wenger, and whichever of his players are left. A player signed by Raul and managed by Unai couldn't possibly be at fault for any dropped points.

God help the last remaining Wenger player, whoever he turns out to be. He could score 3 goals in a game the team loses 4-3, but they will still blame him for "not tracking back" and helping with the defense.

So what are these alleged Arsenal fans going to do when the last remaining Wenger player has gone, and Kroenke has done what they demand, and spent £1 billion on new players, and Emery still hasn't gotten Arsenal back into the Champions League?

Will they blame Emery? Or Sanllehi? Or Kroenke, even after he's done what they demanded? Or will they still blame Wenger for "the mess" that "he put us in"?

Last season was a long season, with nothing to show for it. This season may be another. The next one may be another.

Did I say Emery might get us relegated? Suppose Arsenal bounce right back the next season. These fans will be happier with Emery's successor winning The Championship (English football's 2nd division) than they were with Wenger's last 3 FA Cups. "At least we won the League again!" No, finishing 21st among English teams is not "winning the League."

When I became an Arsenal fan, a big reason was that their fans seemed to be smart, and to take pride in being smart.

No one would make that mistake today. Today, the image of the Arsenal fan is of an ignorant, selfish boor.

I wouldn't advise anyone to become an Arsenal fan until this changes. And I don't think that it will change anytime soon.

Arsenal are in big, big trouble, and might be for a long time to come. And the people who claim they care not only don't care, they refuse to even see it.

Super Bowl FU

Tomorrow, Super Bowl 53 be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The opposing teams will be the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams.

As a Yankee Fan, I cannot root for a New England team. As a New Yorker or, at least,  a native and resident of the New York Tri-State Area, whose grandmother was a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, I cannot root for a Los Angeles team.

What to do?

Frank Bruni wrote this in this past Tuesday's edition of The New York Times:

I’m not really sure why they’re bothering with a Super Bowl this year. Sure, a bunch of people will make a boatload of money, tens of millions of us will reflexively tune in and we’ll find rare common ground over how cheesy the halftime show is.

But are we believers anymore? Will we really see the winner as the winner — or just as the charmed survivor of a grossly tarnished process? Be it the New England Patriots or the Los Angeles Rams, the team will have an asterisk after its name. And that asterisk is a big fat sign of the times.

I’m referring, of course, to the miserable officiating that’s arguably the reason the Patriots beat the Kansas City Chiefs and the Rams beat the New Orleans Saints, leading to the matchup in this coming Sunday’s season-finale game...

We’re still reeling from a presidential election that was colored if not corrupted by unfair advantages, undue meddling and disrespected rules, and here we have a Super Bowl that’s colored if not corrupted by unfair advantages, undue meddling and disrespected rules. Many fans are rejecting its legitimacy — sound familiar? There are conspiracy theories afoot.

Americans are so down on, and distrustful of, major institutions and authorities that we’re primed to declare their fraudulence, and the National Football League and the Super Bowl are on the receiving end of that. They’re not fresh targets, not by any stretch. But this time we've lost all sense of perspective...

Maybe the post-truth era has found its post-truth sport.

Indeed, perhaps the Roman numeral is not the lettering that should be used this weekend. Instead of "Super Bowl LIII," it should be called "Super Bowl FU."

Yesterday, the writer for the Twitter account for the Los Angeles public transportation system wrote, "This #SuperBowl weekend, Metro reaffirms our commitment to properly inflated bus tires. #justsaying #SBLIII (Go Rams!)"

Trollin', trollin', trollin'...

I wrote back, "Whatever else can be said about Los Angeles, your dedication to comedy cannot be questioned. Whatever else can be said about Boston, they are too thin-skinned to appreciate the joke."

But... deciding between a New England team and a Los Angeles team?

I can't root for Los Angeles. My Brooklyn fan Grandma would smack me from beyond the grave.

Or... would she? The thing she hated the most in life was unfairness. And what team in all of Western Hemisphere sports has gained more through unfairness than the Patriots? Maybe the Red Sox, but that's it.

Grandma would hold her nose and support the Los Angeles Rams.

Or maybe, rather, she would "support against" the Patriots. The following is an adaptation of what I wrote last year, when it was the Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles, the team that is the Giants' rivals, at least in a geographical sense.

People who watch Italian soccer probably have more than one rival for their favorite team. Because there are certain teams that the entire country of Italy does not like. Juventus, of Turin, is the most successful sports team in the country. Like the Yankees, the Patriots, the pre-2000 Dallas Cowboys, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Detroit Red Wings, Notre Dame in football, and Duke in basketball, they are the most popular team in the country, but even more people hate them than love them. And, as in each of those cases (yes, I am including the Yankees), there is some reason for that hatred.

The 2 teams that call the city of Milan home, AC Milan and Internazionale, or Inter, also have a lot of fans, but are also widely hated throughout the country. Therefore, a fan of any of these 3 teams tends to hate the other 2, not merely having 1 arch-rival.

So with all the cross-rivalry traffic going back and forth and Italy, they have a concept. They call it "gufare." Essentially, it means "supporting against." Therefore, if you are an AC Milan fan, and the Coppa Italia (Italian Cup) Final is between Juve and Inter, you have a decision to make, and, most likely, you won't be rooting for Juve or Inter, but you will be rooting against one of them, whichever one makes your blood boil less.

Therefore, if you choose to side with Inter, thus choosing your hometown of Milan against Juventus, you will say, "I am supporting against Juventus."

Let me show you how much Juventus are hated in Italy. There is a saying: Amo il calcio, quindi odio Il Juve. It means, "I love football, therefore I hate Juventus."

Americans don't think this way. We might say, "I love baseball, and I hate the Yankees," but even the most intense of Mets or Red Sox fans wouldn't say, "I love baseball, therefore I hate the Yankees."

But, maybe, if you love football, you should hate the Patriots. With their cheating, their arrogance, their dismissiveness of the tendency toward bad injuries (including concussions), and their support of Donald Trump, they represent everything that is wrong with professional football today.

So: Go, Rams, go!

Arsène Wenger and Connie Mack

Connie Mack, circa 1910, about age 48.

Most Englishmen have never heard of Connie Mack. And most Americans have never heard of Arsène Wenger.

*

Arsène Charles Ernest Wenger was born on October 22, 1949 in Strasbourg, France. He wasn't an especially good soccer player, but he became one of the best managers the sport has ever seen. (As with baseball, the position is called "manager," not "head coach," because the jobs of field boss and general manager are usually done by the same man.)

He managed AS Monaco -- the tiny nation of Monaco is separate from France, but its 1 professional team is in France's Ligue 1 -- to a French league title and a French Cup (Coupe de France), and Nagoya Grampus Eight to Japan's national cup (the Emperor's Cup), before being hired to manage North London team Arsenal.

He won both the Premier League and the FA Cup (that's called "doing the Double") in 1998. He did this again in 2002. He won the FA Cup again in 2003. In the 2003-04 season, he took Arsenal to the only unbeaten League season since 1889: As the announcer said, "They were, quite literally, unbeatable: Played 38, won 26, drawn 12, lost exactly none!" In 2005, he won another FA Cup. In 2006, he got them to the Final of the UEFA Champions League.

Then the team moved from the Arsenal Stadium, called Highbury after its neighborhood, into the new Emirates Stadium, 500 yards away. Highbury opened in 1913, its sideline stands opened in the 1930s, and its end stands opened in the early 1990s. It seated 38,000, and while it was an architectural marvel, it couldn't generate the kind of revenue needed in today's sports economy. The Emirates seats 60,000, and the luxury boxes alone generate more money than Highbury did.

Arsenal continually finished in the PL's top 4, thus qualifying for the Champions League. But for 9 years, no trophies. 2007: Lost the League Cup Final. 2008: Led the League in February, but fell apart due to injuries. 2009: Stayed close in the League until March, and reached the Semifinals of the FA Cup and the CL, but faltered. 2010: Stayed close in the League until April, but injuries piled up. 2011: Stayed close in the League until March, but injuries piled up, lost the FA Cup in the Quarterfinal, lost the League Cup Final, and brutally robbed in the CL.

It was about this time that fans, spoiled by what Wenger had given them, began to demand that he be fired -- "sacked" is usually the term they use in England. "Wenger Out." As Arsenal failed to win a trophy again in 2012 and 2013, the anger of a small but loud minority of fans got intense, but the vast majority of the fanbase supported the manager.

In 2014, Arsenal led the League in January, but injuries and the PL's usual atrocious officiating caught up with them. But the trophy drought ended as they won the FA Cup. They won it again in 2015. In 2016, they finished 2nd, but it was a distant 2nd. In 2017, they won another FA Cup.

But in 2016-17, a number of circumstances combined to bring Arsenal down to 5th, their worst finish since 1995-96, the last season before Wenger arrived. This season, those factors got worse, and, with a little over 2 months to go, Arsenal stand 6th, having lost the League Cup Final, being knocked out of the FA Cup in the 3rd Round (the 1st time Wenger had ever been knocked out so early), and having advanced to the last 16 of the UEFA Europa League, with hope for further advancement not being good.

Wenger's protesters have gotten absolutely repulsive. The disrespect they show the most successful manager in the team's history is inexcusable. Many have wished death on him.

After the debacle in the 2011 League Cup Final, when the drought had been 6 years, they said, "Trophies are what matter" and "He can't win trophies anymore." They maintained this until May 17, 2014, the morning of the FA Cup Final.

That's when he proved them to be idiots and/or liars, and started winning trophies again. Pardon my mixing of sports metaphors, but they moved the goalposts. They began to say, "The FA Cup has been diminished." Lie. "It's not a real trophy anymore." Lie. "The League is what matters" and "We haven't even challenged for the title since 2004." Lie: Arsenal challenged for the title in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2016.

Besides, Wenger does not owe them the League title, or the Champions League, or any specific achievement. He owes them nothing except his best effort.

"He is ruining the club" or "He is destroying the club." Lie. Did they learn nothing from how Leeds United crashed and burned? How Portsmouth twice came within hours of going out of business? How even Liverpool, the most successful of all British sports teams, nearly went out of business?

All after following the demands of these fans that Wenger "Spend some fucking money"? Besides, he has spent a lot of money the last 5 years, with the debt from the construction of the Emirates Stadium now close to being paid off. And the results have been less than what they were when he didn't.

His contract runs out at the conclusion of next season, May 2019. After yesterday's hideous defeat away to Brighton & Hove Albion (that's one team, in Sussex on the South Coast), the haters, including most of the British media, who hate all things foreign in "their game," are saying the end has come.

Arsène Wenger is not a quitter. He will see out his contract. And the team's board of directors are not going to fire him just because a bunch of selfish entitled crybabies -- who got only 25 people at their protest a few weeks ago, and only 300 at the previous one -- want him out.

He is 68 years old. He is not "senile."

*

Connie Mack was senile.

This wasn't always the case, though. Cornelius McGillicuddy was born on December 22, 1862 in East Brookfield, outside Worcester, Massachusetts. Because his son took "Alexander" as his confirmation name, word erroneously got out that his full legal name was Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy. He usually shortened his name to "Mack," because he didn't like the ways in which newspapers shortened "McGillicuddy" so it would fit into a box score. Nevertheless, legally, he never changed it.

Like Wenger was in his sport, he was an average player at best (he played 13 major league seasons as a catcher), who became one of the best managers in his sport's history.

In 1901, the American League was founded. One of its charter franchises was the Philadelphia Athletics. Mack, who had managed the Pittsburgh Pirates, was one of its owners, and was appointed manager and treasurer. He led them to AL Pennants in 1902 and 1905, then retooled the team, and won Pennants in 1910, 1911, 1913 and 1914, winning the World Series in 1910, 1911 and 1913.

But defeat in the 1914 World Series, combined with the salary war generated by the short-lived Federal League, led Mack to break up his dynasty, in what would now be called a "fire sale." Overnight, they went from first to worst. By 1916, they lost 117 games, an AL record until 2003, and still the worst winning percentage in League history. It was then that Mack coined a saying that is familiar all over the world, "You can't win them all."

It took a while, but "the Tall Tactician" rebuilt. By 1925, the A's were ready to challenge the New York Yankees for AL supremacy again. In 1929, they won the World Series with one of the greatest teams ever assembled, partly because of his brilliant maneuver of starting sidearming "junkball" pitcher Howard Ehmke, instead of the fastball-reliant Lefty Grove or George Earnshaw, in Game 1 against the fastball-gobbling Chicago Cubs. Grove, Earnshaw, George "Rube" Walberg and Eddie Rommel then pitched brilliantly to win the Series.

In 1930, they did it again, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals. They almost made it 3 straight in 1931, having won 107 regular-season games, still a record for both the franchise and any Philadelphia team (including a mind-boggling 31-4 season by Grove), but lost the World Series, as the Cardinals gained revenge in 7 games.

Mack wasn't a tyrant, but he was the absolute authority with the team. He would stand on the top step of the dugout, always in a suit, never in a uniform once he retired as a player, and he would position his outfielders by waving his scorecard. This pose was so familiar that it became that of the statue made of him after his death, which stands outside the Philadelphia Phillies' Citizens Bank Park today.

Connie Mack, circa 1929, about age 67,

or a year younger than Arsène Wenger is now.

But Mack wasn't like most major league sports team owners, who, then as now, tended to be incredibly wealthy men with diverse financial interests. In the early 20th Century, many baseball team owners also owned streetcars lines, which explains the locations of the ballparks they built: On those lines.

Mack was an ex-player. Baseball was the only job he'd ever really known. He made a fortune investing his baseball income, but it was wiped out in the stock market Crash of 1929, which began just 10 days after his redemption in that year's World Series.

Now, the team was his only source of income. As the Great Depression began, and wore on, he was forced into another fire sale. He ended the 1932 season with 4 future Hall-of-Famers: Grove, the best lefthanded pitcher of his generation; left fielder Al Simmons, who collected nearly 3,000 career hits; Gordon "Mickey" Cochrane, then called by many the greatest catcher of all time; and powerful 1st baseman Jimmie Foxx, whose 534 home runs were an all-time record for righthanded hitters until Willie Mays surpassed him in 1966. Like Wenger, trying to pay off the stadium debt, Mack had to sell off his stars.

Ehmke had already retired after the 1930 title. Shortstop Joe Boley was traded to the Cleveland Indians during the 1932 season. By Opening Day 1933, Simmons, 3rd baseman Jimmy Dykes, and center fielder George "Mule" Haas were sold to the Chicago White Sox, and Rommel had been released, never to appear in another major league game.

By Opening Day 1934, Grove and Walberg were pitching for the Boston Red Sox, 2nd baseman Max Bishop had also been sold to Boston, Earnshaw was pitching for the White Sox, and Cochrane was not only catching for the Detroit Tigers and winning the AL's Most Valuable Player award, but managing them to their 1st Pennant, and the next year to their 1st World Series win.

For 1935, right fielder Edmund "Bing" Miller had joined Grove, Walberg and Bishop in Boston. And for the 1936 season, Mack sold Foxx to Boston. Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, probably the richest man in the game due to owning paper mills, had almost singlehandedly kept the A's afloat during the New Deal era.

It got worse. Mack was 72, 4 years older than Wenger's current age, during the 1935 season, as the fire sale was ongoing. He shared ownership with Ben Shibe, for whom the ballpark, Shibe Park in North Philly, was named. Then, after Ben died on January 14, 1922, Mack shared ownership with Ben's sons Tom and Jack. On February 16, 1936, Tom died. A year after that, on July 11, 1937, so did Jack. Mack, team treasurer from day one, bought their widows out, and controlled 75 percent of the team. He gave his sons Roy, Earle and Connie Jr. minority stakes and management positions.

And he was still the manager, and couldn't be fired, no matter how badly he did. The owner wasn't going to force him out: He was the owner. Even Wenger has never enjoyed that kind of job protection.

But he couldn't hold off the effects of advancing age. In 1937, and again in 1939, Earle, who had briefly played for him and was serving as one of his coaches, had to manage the team for a time due to Connie being ill. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

In hindsight, once he bought the Shibe widows out, what he should have done was make Earle the manager, and "kick himself upstairs," and stick to being the owner and the GM. But, like Wenger, he believed he could turn it around one more time.

Unlike Wenger, he couldn't. The manpower drain caused by World War II leveled the playing field somewhat. The AL's legendary losers, the St. Louis Browns, won the Pennant in 1944. Another such team, the Washington Senators, finished 1 game out in 1945. But it didn't happen for the A's, the 3rd bottom-feeder. Their once-vaunted farm system had dried up. Set in his ways, old enough to remember the days before the invention of the telephone, he never had a phone connection installed between the dugout and the bullpen.

And Mack was beginning to lose it. Once an absolute authority, now, in his early 80s, he was falling asleep in the dugout; and, when awake, would call the names of long-gone players to pinch-hit or warm up in the bullpen. Earle and the other coaches would overrule him.

All-Star outfielder Sam Chapman: "He could remember the old-timers, but he had a hard time remembering the names of the current players."

All-Star shortstop Eddie Joost: "He wasn't senile, but there were lapses."

The results were obvious, far more than they now are for Arsenal: From 1934 to 1947, 14 straight years, the A's never had a winning season (winning more games than they lost). From 1934 to 1967, they had only 3 winning seasons in 34 years. In 17 of those 34, exactly half, they lost at least 96 games; in 10, they lost at least 100; 3 times, they lost at least 105.

He insisted he would keep managing as long as he was physically able to do so. And then, in 1947, when he was 84 years old, they had their 1st winning season since 1933. In 1948, they had another, finishing 4th, the 1st top-half-of-the-League finish since 1933. In 1949, they had another winning season. Their farm system had been rebuilt by the 2nd generation of "The House of Mack," as he called the family (even though the legal name renamed McGillicuddy). The decisions apparently made by "The Grand Old Man of Baseball," but more and more being made by Earle and the coaches, seemed to be paying off.

The 1950 season would be his 50th in charge of the A's, his 56th as a major league manager. There was reason to believe that, at the age of 87, he could do it one more time. Well, a Philadelphia team did win the Pennant that year.

But it was the Phillies, in the National League. During World War II, their ownership situation was even more of a mess than that of the A's, and the team was every bit as bad. No city has ever had as bad a baseball situation as Philadelphia did during The War. Bob Carpenter, fabulously wealthy as a member of 2 old-money families, the Carpenters of Philadelphia and the Du Ponts of Wilmington, Delaware, bought the team in 1943, rebuilt it from top to bottom, and the "Whiz Kids" took the Pennant on the last day of the season.

But the A's crashed to last place early in the season and never left. The Mack sons knew they would be crucified in the media if they forced their father out during his 50th Anniversary season -- the sportswriters who knew what was going on kept it to themselves -- but on May 26, with the team 11-21, they decided that they had no choice.

They contacted the other minority stakeholders, and ganged up on their father, voting Cochrane (who had his own mental health issues) in as general manager, taking that authority away from Connie Sr. And they forced the appointment of former All-Star 3rd baseman Jimmie Dykes, already a longtime A's coach, as assistant manager, with the stipulation that he take over as manager the next season.

Connie Mack, circa 1950, at age 87.

The old man was out: He would now be majority owner, but that was it. And things still got worse. The 3 brothers seemed to agree on nothing other than forcing their father out. It didn't help that Earle and Roy were Connie Sr.'s sons from his 1st marriage (the former Margaret Hogan died in 1892), and Connie Jr. was from the 2nd marriage. It didn't help that there was a big age difference between them: In 1950, Roy was 61, Earle was 60, and Connie Jr. was 37.

It also didn't help that the 2nd wife, the former Kate Hallahan, was still alive, and she was every bit the tyrant that Connie Sr. refused to be. Connie Sr. had expected Earle and Roy to run the team after him, while Kate expected Connie Jr., her son, to win the power struggle.

But 2 heads, even heads as fuzzy as those of Earle and Roy, were better than one, and Connie Jr. and the remaining stakeholders couldn't convince his older half-brothers to make the changes he wanted. Finally, Earle and Roy ganged up on dear old Dad once more, and together, they bought Connie Jr. and the others out.

In order to do that, they mortgaged the heck out of the team, and out of Shibe Park. In 1952, Earle and Roy sold the ballpark to Bob Carpenter. Despite knowing that the once-great cathedral of baseball was denied badly-needed maintenance due to the Macks' banjaxed finances, saying, "I need Shibe Park like I need a hole in the head," Carpenter made the purchase, and now the situation in place since 1938, with the A's as landlords and the Phils as tenants, was reversed.

Finally, after the 1954 season, Earle and Roy could hold on no longer, and sold the A's to Arnold Johnson, who moved them to Kansas City. Carpenter renamed the ballpark Connie Mack Stadium and allowed the old man keep an office there for the 1955 season and beyond. But there would be no beyond: Connie Mack died on February 8, 1956, at the age of 93.

*

So here are the essential differences between the Philadelphia Athletics under Connie Mack, and the Arsenal Football Club under Arsène Wenger:

* The A's were mostly owned by Mack, who had no other source of income. Arsenal are mostly owned by Stan Kroenke, a real estate tycoon who was already a billionaire before he married Ann Walton of the even richer Walmart family, and also the owner of the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, the NBA's Denver Nuggets, the NHL's Colorado Avalanche and MLS' Colorado Rapids. He may be greedy, but he has proven that he's willing to spend money if Wenger asks him to.

* Mack wouldn't fire the manager, because he was the manager, and he had his pride. That is not an issue with Kroenke.

* Mack relied on his sons as his assistant general managers and scouts. Wenger has a better support system in place, not relying on his children. (He has a daughter, but she is not involved with Arsenal.)

* Mack knew that the New York Yankees would dominate the American League for the time being. Wenger knows that the Premier League has several possible champions, even as Manchester City are running away with this season's title. (The other "big clubs" didn't "seriously challenge for the title" this season, either. Should their managers lose their jobs? Not necessarily.)

* Being the manager of a Major League Baseball team prior to the 1969 season, Mack had only 1 route to success: Have the best regular-season record in the League, thus "winning the Pennant," and then play in the World Series for the "World Championship." In contrast, being the manager of a team in the Premier League, Wenger has 4 routes to success: The League title, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and European competition.

* Age-wise, Wenger is now where Mack was in 1931; competitively, he's about where Mack was in 1935. True, at the same age, Mack did not yet show signs of cognitive decline, but, then, neither has Wenger, contrary to what his moronic haters say. What's more, financially, Wenger is at a place Mack never reached, before or after the Crash of '29.

* Both men have often been accused of being "set in their ways" and "stagnant." The former is certainly true. The latter is not: One of the ways in which Wenger is set is innovation. He's always looking for the next big player and the next winning tactic. Wenger being "set in his ways" is a good thing.

* Finally, the biggest way in which Arsène Wenger is not Connie Mack is that the media covering Mack protected him from criticism. They never reported his age-induced mistakes. In contrast, the British media has always hated Wenger. And the longer he lasts, the stronger their hate grows.

And he should last longer. He should last as long as he wants. Unless and until he starts doing what Mack did, and tries to send Gilberto Silva (gone since 2008) on as a substitute for Granit Xhaka, he has earned the right to leave the job when he wants.

What the moaners want is irrelevant. They play FIFA 18 and win the Champions League with Sheffield United in just 4 "years," and they believe they know more about the sport than Wenger does.

They don't. They don't even know as much as the former players on British networks who mock Wenger, but have either never been hired as managers themselves (like Danny Murphy and former Arsenal star Ian Wright), or have, and have failed (like Alan Shearer).

There's only one Arsène Wenger -- and he's not the second coming of Connie Mack.

*

Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 1, tomorrow night, at 10:00 Eastern Time, in the Quarterfinal of the CONCACAF Champions League, against Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente, a.k.a. "Xolos," at Estadio Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico, just over the border from San Diego. (This may be the closest San Diego ever gets to having a team in Major League Soccer.) The return leg will be at Red Bull Arena next Tuesday night. In the previous round, the Red Bulls eliminated Olimpia of Honduras. The Red Bulls will play their 1st league game of the season on Saturday night, at 7:00, home to the Portland Timbers.

Days until The Arsenal play again, 2, on Thursday, at 1:00 PM our time, a Europa League Round of 16 match, away to AC Milan, at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, better known, for its neighborhood, as "the San Siro." The return match will be a week later at the Emirates. All trustworthy indications (in other words, not from anyone in the British media) are that Arsène Wenger will manage The Arsenal in both games.

Days until the U.S. national soccer team plays again: 22, on Tuesday, March 27, at Sahlen's Stadium in the Raleigh suburb of Cary, North Carolina. Then, in June, there will be a trip to Europe, to play Ireland in Dublin and France in Lyon. These should have been warmups for the World Cup later that month. Alas...

Days until the New Jersey Devils next play a local rival: 26, on Saturday night, March 31, against the New York Islanders at the Prudential Center. They won't play the New York Rangers again until the last week of the regular season, on Tuesday, April 3, at the Prudential Center. They won't play the Philadelphia Flyers again during the regular season, although a Playoff matchup is possible.

Days until Opening Day of the 2018 Major League Baseball season: 24, on Thursday night, March 29, as the Yankees open away to the Toronto Blue Jays. A little over 3 weeks. The Yankees now have Brandon Drury, who can hit major league pitching and can play either 2nd base or 3rd base -- but not both at the same time. So while one of those positions has been filled, the other isn't. So general manager Brian Cashman either still has some work to do, or he (and so do we) have to hope that some rookie hits like crazy in Spring Training and looks ready for the regular season, so that Drury can be put at the other position. Otherwise, he only way we Yankee Fans will see the postseason is if we've paid our cable bills.

Days until the Yankees' 2018 home opener: 28, on Monday afternoon, April 2, against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series begins: 36, on Tuesday, April 10, at Fenway Park.

Days until the Red Bulls next play a "derby": 61, on Saturday afternoon, May 5, home to New York City FC. Their 1st game against the Philadelphia Union will be on Saturday night, May 26, at Red Bull Arena in Harrison. Their 1st game against the New England Revolution will be on Saturday night, June 2, at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. Their 1st game against D.C. United, and their 1st game ever at the new Audi Field, will be on Wednesday night, July 25.

Days until the next World Cup kicks off in Russia: 101, on June 14. A little over 3 months. But the U.S. team won't be playing. At least now, Donald Trump doesn't have to choose, and can root for his favorite country, the host nation, Russia.

Days until the 2018 trading deadline, after which we won't have to fear Yankee general manager Brian Cashman trading any proven good players for "prospects": 148, on Tuesday, July 31. Under 5 months.

Days until the next North London Derby (after this one): Unknown, but not until next season. The Premier League season opener will be on Saturday, August 11, but you never see a derby on the opening weekend. So, more than 159 days.

Days until September 2018 roster call-ups, when we can finally start to expect seeing most of these wonderful "prospects" that Yankee general manager Brian Cashman wanted: 180. Under 6 months.

Days until Rutgers University plays football again: 180, on Saturday, September 1, home to Texas State University. 

Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: Unknown. The 2018 schedule hasn't been released yet. But the season opener is usually on the 1st Friday in September. that would be September 7, which is 186 days from now.

Days until the next Congressional election, when we can elect a Democratic Congress that can impeach and remove Donald Trump from the Presidency: 246, on November 6. About 8 months.

Days until the next Rutgers-Penn State game: 257, on Saturday, November 17, at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey.

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge Thanksgiving high school football game: 262, on Thursday, November 22. Under 9 months.

Days until a Democratic Congress can convene, and the impeachment process can begin: 305, on Thursday, January 3, 2019. A little under 10 months.

Days until the Baseball Hall of Fame vote is announced, electing Mariano Rivera: 325, on January 23, 2019. A little under 11 months.

Days until the next Women's World Cup kicks off: 460, on June 7, 2019, in France. Under a year and a half, 15 months. The U.S. team, as 3-time and defending Champions, has, as usual, a better chance than the men's team would have had in 2018 anyway.

Days until my 50th Birthday, at which point I can join AARP and get discounts for travel and game tickets: 655, on December 18, 2019. Under 2 years, or a little under 22 months.

Days until the Baseball Hall of Fame vote is announced, electing Derek Jeter: 690, on January 22, 2020. A little under 2 years, or a little over 23 months.

Days until the next Summer Olympics begins in Tokyo, Japan: 874, on July 24, 2020. Under 2 1/2 years, or over 28 months.

Days until the next Presidential election, when we can dump the Trump-Pence regime and elect a real Administration: 977, on November 3, 2020. Under 3 years, or under 30 months.

Days until Liberation Day: 1,055, at noon on January 20, 2021. Under 3 years, or a little under 35 months. Note that this is liberation from the Republican Party, not just from Donald Trump. Having Mike Pence as President wouldn't be better, just differently bad, mixing theocracy with plutocracy, rather than mixing kleptocracy with plutocracy.

Days until the next Winter Olympics (after the current one in Pyeongchang, Korea) begins in Beijing, China: 1,432, on February 4, 2022. Under 4 years, or a little over 47 months.

Days until the next World Cup for which the American team will be eligible is scheduled to kick off: 1,727, on November 21, 2022, in Qatar. Under 5 years, or about 57 months. The charges of corruption against Qatar may yet mean that they will lose the tournament, in which case it will be moved to a nation where it would not be too hot to play it in June and July.

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the St. Louis Rams for Moving Back to Los Angeles

After 21 seasons in the Gateway City, the St. Louis Rams are going back to Los Angeles.

It's about time, too. "St. Louis Rams" simply didn't look right.

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the St. Louis Rams for Moving Back to Los Angeles

5. Identity. Los Angeles was not the Rams' 1st home. They played in Cleveland from 1936 to 1945. But the Forest City was completely uninterested in them.

Even when they won the 1945 NFL Championship Game, against the Washington Redskins, a team led by the greatest quarterback the game had ever seen to that point, Sammy Baugh, they got just 32,178 fans into Cleveland Municipal Stadium -- meaning there were about 53,000 empty seats.

For comparison's sake: The 1944 title game, between the Giants and the Green Bay Packers at the Polo Grounds in New York, drew 46,016; the 1946 title game, also at the Polo Grounds, between the Giants and the Bears, drew 58,346, a sellout.

True, the Rams were still suffering from the effects of World War II: A lot of players, and a lot of fans, were still in the armed forces in December 1945. And it was the coldest NFL Championship Game yet played, and would remain so until the Green Bay Ice Bowl in 1967. But for a championship game against Slingin' Sammy, they should have gotten more than 33,000 fans.

In contrast, the Rams regularly put 80,000 fans into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, topping out at 102,385 for a 1957 game against their arch-rivals, the San Francisco 49ers. That was an NFL regular season record that stood until 2005. (Restoring the Rams-49ers rivalry, which didn't make sense when it was St. Louis vs. San Francisco, also helps.)

The Rams were L.A.'s 1st major league sports team, preceding the Dodgers by 12 years, the Lakers by 14, the Angels by 15, and the Kings by 21. They won the NFL Championship in 1951, and reached the Championship Game 4 times in their 1st 10 seasons out there.

From the 1940s into the 1970s, their players, such as Bob Waterfield (who married actress Jane Russell), Norm Van Brocklin, Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, Tom Fears, David "Deacon" Jones, Merlin Olsen and Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier, frequently appeared in movies and on TV shows filmed in L.A. This helped to build their identity as L.A.'s team, as Hollywood's team, before Walter O'Malley pandered to the studios and got Frank Sinatra (a Dodger fan in Brooklyn who went west before they did) and other Hollywood celebrities to come first to the Coliseum, and then to Chavez Ravine.

The Rams were still drawing well in L.A. in 1979, when Georgia Frontiere, having already talked her husband, team owner Carroll Rosenbloom, into doing it, moved them down the freeway to Anaheim following her husband's death. Apparently, she didn't like going into the ghetto: The Coliseum and the University of Southern California campus it abuts are on the edge of South Central.

It was Anaheim that doomed the Rams: The expanded stadium was no good for either baseball or football, and the crowds stopped coming. So in 1994, she decided to move the Rams to her hometown of St. Louis.

But aside from the brief "Greatest Show On Turf" era, 1999 to 2004, the Rams were never popular in St. Louis. When she died in 2008, and her children sold the team to Stan Kroenke in 2010, the team was successful neither on the field nor at the box office, and there was no reason for Kroenke to keep them in St. Louis.

As with the Raiders (who want to move back to Los Angeles 20 years after going back to their original hometown of Oakland), the Rams are going home.

4. The Stadium Situation. The Edward Jones Dome opened at the northern edge of downtown St. Louis in 1995, but was designed before Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992. Camden Yards rewrote the rules for stadium and arena construction. Suddenly, the Rams had a brand-new stadium that was obsolete. Why? Not enough luxury boxes.

The lease was also an issue. The good news was, unlike the City of San Diego with the Chargers, the City of St. Louis was willing to build the Rams a new stadium. The bad news was, it was going to be further north of downtown than the current location. And the Rams still wouldn't be owning their own stadium.

The City of Los Angeles, through the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, owns the Coliseum (and the adjacent Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena), but Kroenke has already made a deal to build a new stadium on the site of the now-demolished Hollywood Park racetrack, near the Forum in Inglewood. So the Rams will only have to play the 2016, '17 and '18 seasons in a stadium that they don't own, built when Warren Harding was President, next to a ghetto. They'll probably still bring in more fans and make more money than they would have if they'd stayed in St. Louis.

Artist's rendering of what is currently being called

City of Champions Stadium. Most likely, naming rights

will be sold before the Autumn 2019 opening.

(UPDATE: SoFi Stadium.)

And, in 2019, they'll have a stadium they own and operate. If something happens that they don't like, instead of whining that it isn't getting fixed, they'll have the money and the authority (but also the obligation) to fix it. If there's one thing NFL team owners like having more than money, it's control. Kroenke married into the Walton family of Walmart infamy, so money wasn't the biggest issue with the team being in St. Louis: Control was.

3. St. Louis Is Not a Football Town. In 2014, the Rams averaged 57,018 fans per home game. Only the Minnesota Vikings did worse, and that was because they were groundsharing with the University of Minnesota while a new stadium was built on the site of the Metrodome. UM's stadium only seats a shade over 52,000 people, so the Vikings could have sold many more seats.

In 2015, the Rams did even worse than the Vikings: 52,402. They only filled the Edward Jones Dome to 80 percent of capacity. By that measure, the next-worst in the NFL was the Raiders, who only got the Oakland Coliseum 86 percent filled.

To make matters worse, St. Louis-area fans don't even seem to care that the team is leaving. In October, the NFL owners met at a St. Louis hotel. With the threat of moving to L.A. having hung in the air pretty much for Kroenke's entire 5-year ownership, meaning a move would not have surprised anyone, how many fans showed up to tell the owners not to approve the move? About 1,500. That's right: One thousand, five hundred. I've been to high school soccer games with bigger crowds. And that's the biggest protest I could find on Google.

(The NFL owners voted 30 to 2 to allow the move. Even Alex Spanos of the San Diego Chargers, who also wants to move to L.A., possibly to share the Inglewood stadium with the Rams, voted for it. The only ones to vote against it? Understandably, Mark Davis of the Raiders. Less understandably, Mike Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals: Apparently, he thinks that the Rams being in L.A. will mean less money for team owners.)

St. Louis is not a pro football town. When the NFL Cardinals were in St. Louis, they filled Sportsman's Park from 1960 to 1965, but it only seated 31,000 people. Busch Memorial Stadium seated about 54,000 for football, but the Cardinals played there from 1966 to 1987, and -- with brief exceptions in the mid-1970s and early 1980s when the Cards made the Playoffs -- they didn't fill it then, either. The Cards moved to Arizona, and even when they couldn't get 50,000 into Sun Devil Stadium (let alone the 64,000 that now regularly fill the University of Phoenix Stadium), owner Billy Bidwill never regretted the move.

St. Louis is not a college football town, either. The University of Missouri's Faurot Field is 126 miles from the Edward Jones Dome. And that's the closest Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) school to St. Louis. The next-closest such team is the University of Illinois (which, of course, is not in Missouri), and their Memorial Stadium is 173 miles away.

Isn't there a football school in the City of St. Louis, or even in the adjacent (not contiguous) County of St. Louis? No. Washington University suspended its program in 1943, due to World War II. When they revived it in 1947, it was on what was then called a "small college" level. Since 1973, they have been in NCAA Division III, and give no hint to going upward. Saint Louis University (for some reason, "Saint" is always spelled out with them, never abbreviated to "St.") dropped its football program after the 1949 season.

Nor is St. Louis known for producing great football players. Go ahead: Name a great football player who came from within a 50-mile radius of the Gateway Arch. The best is Kellen Winslow, the great tight end of the Chargers. The next-best is Billy Sims, born in the City, but he moved to Texas in the 8th grade.

After him, it's probably Jimmy Conzelman, a St. Louis native who played at the city's Washington University, and won an NFL Championship. You might not have heard of him, because that title was with the 1928 Providence Steam Roller (who went out of business 3 years later). He coached the Cardinals to the 1947 title and the 1948 title game, but that was in Chicago, not St. Louis. And he's been dead since 1970.

In other words, St. Louis' greatest football products are 2 guys who peaked in Ronald Reagan's 1st term, and are now 58 and 60 years old; and a guy who has been irrelevant in the game since Harry Truman was President, and dead since Richard Nixon's 1st term. Go ahead: Name another great football player from St. Louis and environs. I can't.

UPDATE: I later re-checked. Mark Collins, a cornerback who helped the Giants win 2 Super Bowls, was born in St. Louis. So was Darnay Scott, a very good receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals. But both of them grew up in -- relevant to this post -- Southern California. New England Patriots safety Lawyer Milloy was born in St. Louis, but grew up in Washington State.

The great linebacker Brian Cox grew up across the river, in East St. Louis, Illinois. Receiver Jeremy Maclin grew up in nearby Kirkwood, Missouri. And running back Ezekiel Elliott is from Ladue, Missouri. So that's three you could add. I wouldn't add Blaine Gabbert, from Ballwin, Missouri: A decent quarterback, but a career backup.

Still: Conzelman, Sims, Winslow, Cox, Elliott... Given the size of the area, and 100 years of the NFL, I stand by what I said in 2015:

St. Louis is not a football town.

2. Los Angeles Is a Football Town. Before the Rams and the Raiders, the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) packed the Coliseum time after time, and not just against each other.

USC averaged 75,358 fans for its 7 games at the Coliseum in 2015. That's at a 92-year-old stadium with few modern amenities, and issues with parking and neighborhood safety. And in a season where they went 8-6, were on probation, and ended up firing their coach in mid-season. (They still managed to reach the Pac-12 Championship Game, although they lost it.)

UCLA has played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena since 1982, but, going a good but not great 8-5 overall this season, they averaged 66,807 in their 6 home games. The Rose Bowl is in a much safer area, but it's even older (by a few months), their facilities are every bit as outdated, and their traffic issues are worse: I saw a video on how their 1st Super Bowl, XI in 1977 (Oakland over Minnesota), was a disaster for people getting in and out. But when USC and UCLA played each other at the Coliseum this season, the "derby" drew 83,602.

And both programs have gotten fat off local talent. I could only name 2 great NFL players from St. Louis: Conzelman and Winslow. And Conzelman (perhaps unfairly) isn't in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I found a site that listed the Top 10 football players to come from Los Angeles and its environs. Check out these names, whom I have listed here in chronological order: Glenn Davis, Ron Mix, Mike Haynes, Anthony Munoz, James Lofton, Ronnie Lott, Warren Moon, John Elway, Bruce Matthews, and Tony Gonzalez.

That's 8 guys who are already in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1 who almost certainly will be (Gonzalez), and a College Football Hall-of-Famer and Heisman Trophy winner (Davis), who played 2 seasons in the NFL, probably would have played more if not for his Army commitment and a knee injury, and got the Rams into the NFL Championship Game both years. The Rams lost to the Cleveland Browns in 1950, and beat them in 1951. Davis' injury meant that he didn't play in that '51 title game, and he never played again.) (UPDATE: Gonzalez was elected in 2019.)

Oh, yes, Los Angeles is a football town.

1. Money. Look at market size. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has about 18.4 million people. If the Rams have it all to themselves (as they do, for the moment), then, considering that New York, whose Tri-State Area has about 23.5 million, is split (not evenly, but for the sake of argument, let's presume that it is) between Giant fans and Jet fans, the Rams will have the largest market in the NFL.

If the Raiders or Chargers come in, then they'll have half as many in their share: 9.2 million. That would make the Rams and the Raiders or Chargers the 4th and 5th biggest teams, behind the 2 NYTSA teams and the Chicago Bears (just under 10 million).

Contrast that with St. Louis: They have just 2.9 million. Before this move, they were ranked 20th among the NFL's 32 markets. Throw in the Canadian Football League, which includes Toronto and Montreal, both larger, and St. Louis would have ranked 22nd out of 41 professional football markets in North America.

Portland, Oregon and Orlando, Florida don't have NFL teams, and their metro areas have more people than St. Louis. Sacramento isn't far behind in terms of metro area population, and they've had trouble holding onto just 1 team, the NBA's Kings (although they now have a new arena under construction, ensuring they'll stay put for a while).

St. Louis also has Major League Baseball's Cardinals, who are by far the most popular team in town; and the NHL's Blues, who are more popular in St. Louis and its vicinity than the Rams, despite not reaching the Stanley Cup Finals since the Kent State Massacre (May 1970), or even the Conference Finals since before 9/11 (May 2001).

The baseball Cardinals are a beloved, iconic franchise, backed by enough money to overcome any "small market" issues. The Blues are doing very well at the box office. Both of those teams have venues that they own, control, and sell out on a regular basis. They're not going anywhere.

But St. Louis lost the NBA's Hawks to Atlanta in 1968, right after getting the Blues, proving they couldn't hold 4 major league teams. They lost the football Cardinals in 1987, and have now lost the Rams, proving yet again that they can't even hold 3 major league teams. And while Major League Soccer is looking to expand, and is in such small markets as Portland, Orlando and Salt Lake City, they are not seriously looking at St. Louis, despite its deep roots in American soccer history (several members of the iconic 1950 World Cup team came from there).

UPDATE: MLS made a fool out of me there, establishing St. Louis City SC in 2019, and they began play in 2023.

Somebody recently said, "How bad can St. Louis be, if it can produce Yogi Berra?" Good question. I'm not saying that it's a bad city. But it's not a big market, and it's just not a football town. Los Angeles is both, and it's the Rams' historic home.

*

The case for the prosecution is that the Rams shouldn't be moved, because it's a betrayal of their loyal St. Louis fans.

The case for the defense is that the Rams' fans in St. Louis aren't especially loyal, that their truly loyal fans are back in Los Angeles, and that they'll have a better deal in their own stadium in Inglewood in the Autumn of 2019, even if they have to play 3 seasons in the Coliseum first.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. Let the Rams go home.