An Old Shepherd Misses His Flock : Fillmore’s C.C. Moore, 83, Trying to Come to Grips With Beloved Rams’ Announced Move to St. Louis

FILLMORE —  A year to the day after the Northridge earthquake had shaken many of his Ram souvenirs off the shelves of his trailer, smashing them to bits, C.C. Moore was considering his latest loss.

The Rams.

“It really hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Moore, an 83-year-old retired bakery executive who has missed only nine of the Rams’ home games in the past 49 seasons. “It’s just like losing part of the family.”

Although Ram owner Georgia Frontiere announced this week she will move her team to St. Louis for next season, Moore seems blinded by loyalty. He hasn’t given up.

“I still think there’s a chance they might not go,” he said. “The owners, you never know, they will vote on that. I thought all along that Georgia would sell the team. That’s what I thought. They talked about Disney buying them.

“I was sure that would happen.”

Sorry, C.C. Your team’s fate was sealed by the thousands of fans who chose to show up at Anaheim Stadium on Sundays disguised as empty seats.

If the NFL owners approve the move, the Los Angeles Rams will be just a memory, a monument to which will remain in his Fillmore trailer.

“Oh, God, I’ve got so many (fond memories),” he said. “I’ve gotten so churned up. I love football so much. There were a lot of thrills.”

If the Rams did it, Moore saw it.

He and Marie, his wife of 60 years, made it to every home game they could, prevented only by flu or a couple of unavoidable trips out of town. When the Rams were on the road, Moore camped in front of his television and hung a banner that read: “Rams playing--do not disturb.”

It wasn’t always this way for Moore, though. He was a Ram fan before there were television sets for him to watch.

In 1946, when the Rams moved to Los Angeles from Cleveland, Moore couldn’t even wait for the ticket window to open. He showed up at the ticket manager’s hotel room and bought 16 tickets--at $3.90 each--for each game.

Moore attended practices regularly when the Rams trained in San Fernando in the 1950s. He once took four months off work just so he could see the team every day. Moore and his wife also ran a North Hollywood hot-dog stand called “The Golden Ram,” and players would come by after practice.

He met dozens of players as he was feeding them hot dogs or at team booster functions, and he has the artifacts to prove it.

Among his favorite items are Jack Youngblood’s helmet, a football autographed by the Rams’ Super Bowl XIV team and, of course, a jockstrap from Elroy (Crazy Legs) Hirsch with the inscription: “For a real Ram supporter.”

His favorite was Bob Waterfield, the Hall of Fame quarterback from the Rams’ early days in Los Angeles.

“He was the best all-around player,” Moore said. “He wasn’t as good as some, but he could play any position.”

Moore said his interest didn’t diminish in recent years, but he grew frustrated as the team struggled on the field, attendance dipped and St. Louis and Baltimore popped up as potential new homes for the team.

“I knew they weren’t doing very good in the draft,” he said, “and they weren’t spending the money to get the players. It’s kind of hard to just have a coach make a team out of nobody. . . .

“It was real tough there last year, when they were booing (Jim) Everett. He had nothing to do with it. They just had no one to keep the guys off him. . . . I never booed the Rams. I would never boo a football player. Anyone who gets down there and plays that kind of a game, they’ve got my respect.”

Moore hasn’t decided whether he will root for the team in St. Louis.

“I’ve still got that feeling that I’d like to see them win,” he said. “It’s going to be awful tough though.”

At least he won’t have any more of the pregame butterflies that made it difficult for him to force down breakfast on Sundays. And he won’t have to endure the 84-mile trip from Fillmore to Anaheim.

“We’re getting kind of old for it anyway,” he said. “I guess we’ll just fade out. I know I won’t go to Raiders games.”