DE Assistant Sports Editor

It used to be the only teams that ever moved out of their respective towns were those that were so abysmal that each fan had its own vendor and paper bags are the headgear of choice.

My, how things have changed.

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Load up the wagons and get out of Dodge.

How can anyone explain the Seattle Mariners? This is a team, granted, that has been less than mediocre for a long time, but this may be the worst case of bad timing I’ve ever seen.

The M’s get into the playoffs for the first time in its history and the ownership talks about give me a new stadium or else … . The reasoning? They can’t draw fans to the Kingdome.

The logic here confuses me. The Mariners can’t draw fans to its ballpark, yet, they want a new stadium to draw phantom fans into? Not only that, but watching the playoffs on television, I didn’t see too many empty seats in Seattle.

Fans in the Great Northwest are not the only ones being strung along by the race for the almighty greenback.

The folks in Los Angeles have been completely abandoned by the NFL. The Rams loaded up and moved to St. Louis and the Raiders moved (again) back to Oakland.

There wasn’t a whole lot wrong with the Rams. They were better than their record showed (look at what they’re doing this season) and they were a young team. What was wrong was Georgia Frontiere cried poor (that sounds pretty familiar), asked for a new stadium, didn’t get it and loaded up a bunch of moving vans in retalliation.

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Al Davis … well, I’m not sure how to explain Al Davis and the Raiders, except to say he was being Al Davis.

At least NFL Comissioner Paul Tagliabue realizes the value of that market and is desperately trying to get a team back in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, the National Hockey League is on the moving bandwagon, too.

The Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils were as good as in Nashville, Tenn. after capturing the title.

No offense to Nashville, but when I think of hockey, I think of Detroit, Chicago, Edmonton, Quebec (oops, they moved to Colorado and became the Avalanche), and Winnipeg but they’re moving to who knows where at the end of this season.

Well I think you get the point.

No group of fans is safe. My beloved Bears are in the midst of rumors they will up and move unless Chicago and/or Illinois will help pay for a new stadium and for what? Michael McCaskey is tired of sharing revenue with the Chicago Park District. So, what does he do? All together now … he cries poor, asks for a new stadium … I’ll spare you.

Moving-mania has gotten out of control, and hopefully fans will soon get so tired of hearing this every other year that they treat it like the boy who cried wolf.

I liked it a whole lot better when teams just went on the road to play away games.