They Won’t Be Pushed Around by NFL

Bill Plaschke [Aug. 31] doesn’t understand the new reality of pro football in the 1990s. NFL football is fast becoming the sport for minor league cities, cities with inferiority complexes that feel the NFL will soothe their minor-league egos (Baltimore, St. Louis, Nashville and Jacksonville, to name a few.)

Los Angeles, on the other hand, is a city that doesn’t need the NFL to know that it is great. Los Angeles is the new leader because we will define the terms for the return of the NFL and if it doesn’t come we won’t care because it is simply not that important to us. Football and the NFL are clearly not our national pastime--basketball and the NBA are.

ANDY ROSENBURGH

Westwood

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Bill Plaschke’s column is divisive and segregationist. It discourages fan participation in this important issue. The future of sports in Los Angeles will not be decided by the NFL.

As far as The Times’ participation in this fiasco, first we had T.J. Simers’ discredited infomercial for Peter O’Malley, ignoring the surrounding communities’ organized opposition to a second stadium. Now we have Plaschke writing an infomercial for the NFL.

MICHAEL BYE

Los Angeles

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Bill Plaschke’s diatribe against the Coliseum not only was an insult to the people residing in the area, but to the 30,000 USC students just across the street.

If the NFL thinks it can blackmail Los Angeles into building a new stadium by picking and choosing what it arbitrarily claims are “desirable” sites, I don’t care if there never is another pro game in town. The Coliseum is a Los Angeles landmark and there is no reason it cannot be used for football for many years to come.

FRANK J. STEVENS

North Hollywood

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Push is coming to shove about the NFL. Bill Plaschke sounds like a bully when he says everybody should “Shut up and get out of the way.” He seems to think the NFL can dictate terms to Los Angeles and get whatever it wants. That’s just BS.

The NFL needs L.A., we don’t need the NFL. Nobody says our economy is suffering because the Raiders left. Pro sports do not increase the overall economy in a metropolitan area as big as L.A. If we have NFL football, it will be a political decision more than a private NFL decision.

Neighbors of Dodger Stadium support football in the L.A. Coliseum, not in Elysian Park. If Peter O’Malley says he will build a second stadium, he will be declaring war on his neighbors. We will rise to meet that threat now and over the long haul.

JEB BRIGHOUSE

Neighbors of Dodger Stadium

Los Angeles

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Bill Plaschke suggests the NFL forget about playing football in the Coliseum. I suggest forgetting the politics and the high cost to the fans of building a new stadium. Those uninterested in attending games in the Coliseum can stay away. I don’t recall seeing empty seats for the Raiders’ playoff games against Denver in 1994 or 1995.

JOHN HOUGH

Hawthorne

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It’s not the location of a sports venue that counts, it’s the people inside it.

JOE AUDINO

Marina del Rey