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In 2016 the Rams left St. Louis for Los Angeles--having departed L.A. for St. Louis in 1995--and caused much heartbreak among fans. NFL teams are notorious for decamping to more profitable markets and the Rams' history of opportunistic moves goes back to 1946, when they left Cleveland, their original hometown, where fans had cheered them to a championship a month earlier.
The move to L.A. from Cleveland shocked the NFL and shook up its power structure. It also jolted the all-white league into reintegration, prepared the way for the Browns, and made the Rams the only NFL champs ever to have spent the following season in a different city.
This is the story of how the Rams went from a home-grown Ohio team funded by local businessmen to the first major-league franchise on the West Coast, and how their departure jumpstarted a chain of events in Cleveland that continues to this day.
List of contents
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction: "A Champion scram team"
Part I: Start-Up
¿1.¿"We became the Rams"
¿2.¿Razzle-Dazzled and Bedraggled
¿3.¿This Time Pro Football Was Going to Work in Cleveland
¿4.¿Rams to the Slaughter
Part II: Upstarts
¿5.¿Race-Wrecking Rams
¿6.¿The Rams' Lewis and Clark Expedition
¿7.¿"The public be pleased"
¿8.¿The War Year, the Lost Year
Part III: On the Up and
¿9.¿Twenty Months to a Title
10.¿The Hero's Journey to Cleveland
11.¿A New Power Rises in the West
12.¿"An even zero": The Title Game
Part IV: Up and Gone
13.¿"The public be damned"
14.¿"The Cleveland Rams ceased to exist"
Appendix: What Became of Selected Individuals
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
James C. Sulecki is the corporate content director of a northeastern Ohio business media company. He lives in Mentor, Ohio.
