Charger Critics Point to Carson Grassy Knoll

The San Diego Chargers left La Jolla and came to Carson this summer to conduct training camp and “bond,” as team management told us.

I’d imagine every last player on that team shares a common bond, hating Charger management for taking them from Shangri-La and moving them to a sweat pit. And now, in their own way, they are repaying management, coming together in back-to-back miserable performances to put the Chargers in the basement again.

The Chargers have lost six in a row, nine of their last 11. Before the first home game of the 2003 season was over, their small-town fans were booing them. Same old Chargers.

The Carson experience was supposed to change all that. In fact, the team’s general manager, A.J. Smith, said this was the team’s “push year” to make the playoffs. Coach Marty Schottenheimer pronounced his troops postseason-worthy.

I checked. Smith and Schottenheimer are not related to Dan Evans.

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WHAT WENT wrong with the Chargers? The Union-Tribune printed the following letter from Chula Vista’s David Johnson:

“The Chargers have been plagued with more bruised/sore heels this year than in any year in recent memory. Bad heels were common during training camp, affecting Tomlinson, Tim Dwight and David Boston. Now, Boston will sit out the home opener against the Broncos because of an injured heel. I don’t recall this many bruised heels occurring in La Jolla. What lurks beneath the surface at the Home Depot Center?”

I called a spokesman for the Home Depot Center to ask if the Anschutz Money-Making Empire was indeed behind the Chargers’ demise. I wanted to know if it had done something to sabotage the team’s chances for success, turn the San Diego faithful against them, which would force management to make a deal to come to L.A. in partnership with the Money-Making Empire.

I was just kidding.

But the spokesman for the Anschutz Money-Making Empire got all huffy and mighty defensive, and immediately tried to shift the blame for the number of heels in the Chargers’ organization that have become problems to the Carson Hilton, where the team stayed during training camp.

“To allow a fan to speculate on something like that and then make it into a story would make you look kind of foolish,” said the Money-Making spokesman, as if that’s a concern that has ever sidetracked me before. “We haven’t had any complaint from the Chargers. You can’t make the assumption it was our field.

“What credentials does a fan have to say something like that? What’s the team’s medical staff say? The Chargers could have had three guys trip in the hallway playing football in the hotel when they were here. There could have been lots of horseplay in the hotel.”

I was just kidding UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell a couple of weeks ago too, in much the same way, when I asked if one of his players had been hit with a DUI, and you know what we learned later. Maybe the Chargers did leave their game in the Hilton hallways.

I called Richard Gaines, the general manager of the Carson Hilton, and asked if he or his hotel had been a party to the Chargers’ disastrous start.

When he stopped laughing, he said, “We were hoping for some action,” and so are the fans of San Diego, and so I knew we were talking about the Chargers. “We even had contingency plans in case something happened here.

“Listen, there wasn’t any horseplay here. The Chargers were boring.”

Still are.

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I CALLED the Chargers to see if they’d found fault with the Home Depot Center, and blamed it for their injuries and poor start.

“No, everything went smoothly at Carson,” a Charger spokesman said. “I think the grass was good-quality there.”

I thought about calling the Money-Making spokesman back to tell him the Chargers had nothing but praise for the grass in Carson, but I thought I’d better just leave things alone.

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THE HANSHIN Tigers clinched the Central League title Monday in Japanese baseball, and Associated Press reported that thousands of fans in Osaka jumped off the Ebisubashi Bridge into the “murky” Dotonbori River, which is considered a ritual there when the team wins a title. It’s been so long since the Dodgers won a playoff game -- can anyone remember what everyone is supposed to do should such an unlikely event occur?

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THE DUCKS signed Petr Sykora to a three-year contract that will pay him $3.9 million this season and $4.1 million the next two years.

“I am very happy,” Sykora said, and who says you can’t buy happiness.

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UCLA’S OFFENSE ranks 117th out of 117 Division I-A football-playing schools. Dorrell closed practices this year, so it’s not like anyone has been spying on the Bruins and passing on their offensive secrets. Apparently, the Bruins just stink.

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HOW BADLY are things going at UCLA? The school doesn’t begin classes until Sept. 25, but defensive back Matt Clark sat out Saturday’s game because of questions regarding his academic status. That’s interesting, because apparently there was nothing wrong with his academic status when he played Colorado a week earlier. That’s a tough school when a student can run into academic difficulties and classes aren’t even in session.

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GOOD NEWS. Dorrell made it through his Monday news conference without any announcement that a player has been suspended.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Matt D.:

“My name is Matt. I graduated from UCLA in 1995. I taught elementary school before pursuing my lifelong dream of becoming a fireman.... I’d be honored to meet [the daughter who is having a hard time finding a date].”

Sorry, wrong school.

T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected].