PRO FOOTBALL: WASHINGTON REDSKINS 24, RAMS 21 : Small Crowd Leaves Ushers Alone With Their Memories : Employees: For financial reasons, they want football at the stadium, but not if it's the Raiders.

PRO FOOTBALL: WASHINGTON REDSKINS 24, RAMS 21 : Small Crowd Leaves Ushers Alone With Their Memories : Employees: For financial reasons, they want football at the stadium, but not if it’s the Raiders.

By CHRIS FOSTER

Dec. 25, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ANAHEIM — It’s Saturday, and we’re standing in Southern California’s loneliest spot.

Aisle 269, Anaheim Stadium.

Below, the Rams and Washington Redskins are putting the finishing touches on such memorable, not to mention pitiful, seasons before a cozy Christmas Eve afternoon audience.

Up here, usher Miguel Martinez’s only companion is the voice on his walkie-talkie.

“It’s a sad feeling,” Martinez said. “They have to get a winning team in here.”

Martinez pauses.

“I hear the Raiders might move here,” Martinez said.

He shivers. Is it the wind whipping through the empty tunnel or the thought of plenty of warm, silver-and-black-and-blue bodies, liquored up and ready for fun?

Martinez looks at the seats above him. He had plenty of company Nov. 13. People were rolling in the aisle that day, when the Rams played the Raiders.

“If the Raiders come here,” he said, “I heard some of the guys say they’ll quit.”

It’s easy to understand an usher’s concern. Raider games have been few and far between at Anaheim Stadium. Most ushers would prefer they be fewer and farther between.

The idea of eight, eight Raider games here a year--not counting the exhibition season--doesn’t sit too well with them.

Their experiences with Raider fans haven’t been pleasant.

“The Raiders can stay in Los Angeles,” usher Thayle Denney said. “Whenever they come here, it’s a zoo. I just don’t like their fans. It’s like a zoo.”

Still, but better a zoo than a mausoleum?

The Raiders, like the Rams, have been making noise about moving. While the Rams have looked east, to St. Louis, the Raiders have looked north, to Oakland, and now south, to Inglewood and, yes, to Anaheim.

And Anaheim may be looking their way as well.

“This stadium needs a football team,” said Debbie Engel, who worked her way from usher to lobby receptionist. “A good team. A winning team.”

Engel was working the turnstiles the first game the Rams played in Anaheim Stadium in 1980. A 20-year stadium veteran, she had never seen anything like it, before or since.

She remembers the buzz that has become snores.

“Fans were running to the gate to get inside,” Engel said. “They wanted to see the new stadium design. They wanted to see the team. It was so exciting.”

But the thrill is gone, and so may be the Rams.

If they leave, ushers will take a financial hit. Engel said she and others probably will be cut back to six months a year.

Still, better an empty wallet and an empty stadium on Sundays than an ungrateful team, according to Engel.

“When the Rams started crowing that the fans didn’t support them, I got offended,” Engel said. “They offended their fans. This is my stadium, and they can go.

“Let’s get a winning team in here and the fans will come out.”

Well, the Raiders are winners instead of whiners. At least they beat the Rams this season--twice.

“Oh, anybody but the Raiders,” Engel said. “Their fans are so . . . so . . . so difficult.”

Apparently, the Raiders have worn out their welcome with ushers. There were problems during the exhibition game in August and they escalated on Nov. 13.

Martinez vividly remembers that unpleasant afternoon. He was working section 269, where the worst of the fights occurred.

“This girl got punched right in the face,” Martinez said. “But she was hitting people too. People were rolling down four or five rows. The police couldn’t stop it.

“Maybe the Raiders will move here, but not their fans. They have this macho attitude.”

For ushers, that’s bad. This is a second job for most of them, one that provides a little walking-around money. Others are retired and want to keep busy.

None want the headaches of fan free-for-alls each week. Most do the job because they enjoy the games.

Ron Kehoe, an usher supervisor, has been a Ram fan since the 1950s. He has worked at Anaheim Stadium since it opened in 1966, starting as an usher.

“I remember seeing Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin when I was a kid,” he said. “I felt like a kid again when the Rams moved here.”

Now he’s seeing them leave, maybe.

Kehoe, who is also a music teacher in the Garden Grove Unified School District, already lost about $900 because of the baseball strike. If the Rams leave, it will hurt his wallet a little more.

He, like others, hopes the football void will be filled by another team if the Rams leave.

“We need a team,” usher Jim Bennett said.

Any team?

“Oh, not the Raiders,” Bennett answered. “Maybe the Cleveland Browns. The Rams did pretty good when they moved from Cleveland.”

Still, another team isn’t the answer for some.

“The Rams should stay,” usher Denney said. “They have L.A. tradition and heritage.”

Hmmm, he wants a team with L.A. tradition and heritage. Is there another one like that out there?

“No, not the Raiders,” Denney said. “Let them go back to Oakland.”

PRO FOOTBALL: WASHINGTON REDSKINS 24, RAMS 21 : Small Crowd Leaves Ushers Alone With Their Memories : Employees: For financial reasons, they want football at the stadium, but not if it’s the Raiders.

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