Just RIP, baby . . .

I just heard legendary Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis has died.

I grew up loving the Raiders. They were outlaws, outcasts, scary, people nobody wanted on their teams. Which means I thought they were a lot like me. Players who were busts everywhere else suddenly seemed to discover who they were when they wound up in Oakland. Maybe it was because of the top notch coaching they had back then--John Madden, among others.

Maybe it was because they realized Oakland was their last stop. If they didn't make it there, they were going to be out of the game.

Or maybe it was because of Al Davis--a bit of an outlaw himself. Eccentric, either a genius or a madman, it was impossible to tell. His own vision of who he was influenced the identity of the team. They became a reflection of him.

This was good, up to a point---he was tough, focused on winning, focused on the team as opposed to the individuals on the team. He would take it a bit too far, sometimes, however, which could become infuriating. His decision to move the Raiders to LA for a while drove me nuts--they were the Oakland Raiders, dammit! He tended to short change his own players, not paying them what they could make if they played somewhere else. He interfered with the football decisions of his coaching staff, sometimes firing coaches for no apparent or for bizarre reasons, or allowing others to stay on even though every other organization in the league would have given them the axe.

But Oakland is the only team that had a frakkin' offensive lineman I used to adore--Jim Otto, number 00, center. I used to watch him on every play. Then there are the other guys--Snake, Mark Van Eegan, Tuz, Sistrunk, Lamonica, Ray Guy, Blanda, Bo frakkin' Jackson, Marcus Allen . . . . other than my Falcons, the only team I would watch on TV regardless--and make plans to stay home so I could do so--was the Raiders.

So, love him or hate him--and I did both--Al Davis is going to be missed. RIP, man. There will never be anyone else like you.