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Al Davis rings up four score

AL DAVIS turns 80 today, and, to increasingly jaded Raiders fans, none of his previous 79 years matter anymore. This year counts the most.

Years 81, 82, 83 and beyond mean a lot, too. Everyone wants to know how long Davis will rule over the Raiders, because what he's done lately isn't cause for celebration.

That's too bad. The Raiders' past six seasons have been so bad and miserable that their carnage overshadows the legacy that Davis has committed nearly 50 years of his fascinating life to building.

So, um, happy birthday?

"It'll be happy when we win," Davis replied when Greg Papa offered him birthday wishes during a recent interview, of which only a seven-minute snippet (out of a two-hour chat) aired Thursday night on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area's "Chronicle Live."

Davis did, however, happily stroll down memory lane in that segment, shedding light on his mysterious childhood in Brooklyn, from ages 5 to 18.

He dropped no bombshells. He shared tales, name dropped and casually boasted. Refreshingly, he did not mock anyone, a common theme in his recent speeches that accompany a near-annual coaching change.

This was Al Davis, The Early Years. This was an important history lesson. But today's NFL cares less about history, more about current Super Bowl odds.

He, for better or worse, is still in charge of the Raiders' Super Bowl designs. He thrives on that command, and it traces to his youth in a diverse Brooklyn neighborhood.

He proudly recalled Lincoln Terrace Park, not only playing there but surviving and eventually ruling its rough turf. He relayed that story to Mike Tyson in 1989 when they delivered eulogies at Sugar Ray Robinson's funeral.

"We were talking and I told Mike, who was about 20 (actually 37) years younger than I was: 'Mike, I played in Lincoln Terrace Park and I tell you what, it was tough,'"‰"‰" Davis recalled. "He said, 'What do you mean you played there?'

"I said, 'I played there every day, day and night, unless I went to practice baseball, basketball and football.' And I said, 'I owned that park, Mike.' He turned to Don King and said, 'This guy is an S.O.B. He's a tough S.O.B. If he can come out alive of that park, he must be a tough S.O.B.'"‰"

To Davis, that must be the perfect compliment, and he constantly reinforces that persona in pro football's locker rooms, boardrooms, personnel rooms and courtrooms.

So why all the retrospection? Why now?

Is it just for the 80th birthday milestone, which he planned to celebrate with a small dinner party rather than a traditional Las Vegas jaunt? ("I felt this year, predicated on the economy and all, we would just whittle it down to a few friends for dinner and hold off, because we didn't want to flaunt it whenever everyone else is having trouble financially," said the man who's vastly overspent in recent years to try upgrading the Raiders roster.)

Is his health failing him as badly as it's seemed the past couple years, with a quadriceps injury hampering his movements? Is he in life's two-minute drill? Who really knows? If you haven't heard, he is tough.

Love him or hate him, he played a vital role in pro football's timeline. That includes spurring the American Football League's 1970 merger with the National Football League, a feat he apparently plans to detail in a book.

An in-depth profile on Davis is in the works at Comcast, so Thursday's show was simply an insightful tease. Davis started off by recalling how his family moved to Brooklyn (from Brockton, Mass., at age 5) so his father ("an entrepreneur") could manufacture raincoats there.

"The memories are great," Davis recalled. "I lived there until I was about 16. My dad had a home in Long Beach, Long Island. We were moving from Brooklyn to Long Beach to Brooklyn to Long Beach."

Let's pause here for the obvious Raider imagery: Oakland to Los Angeles to Oakland to "...

Davis hoped to launch a basketball career at star-studded Erasmus High, but football interested him more by the time he got to Syracuse University. "I just understood there was more to it than just running the football," Davis recalled. "There was a passing game. I saw it. I believed it."

So he drew up pass plays on a blackboard, to which a teammate asked if those could be used at the high-school level. "I said, 'High school? You can run this in pro football.'"‰"

Flash forward to Year 80, A.D. Can the Raiders' pass plays work once again? That is what an impatient and frustrated Raider Nation (including Davis) wants to know, for that is how our what-have-you-done-lately society works, especially for a franchise that Davis insists still has greatness in its future.

By Cam Inman
Staff columnist
Posted: 07/03/2009 08:22:34 PM PDT
Updated: 07/04/2009 05:25:15 AM PDT
Inman: Al Davis rings up four score - Inside Bay Area