Breakfast of Champions? Not if Raiders Are There

I just survived what could have been one of the most harrowing experiences of my life--breakfast with a pair of Raider fans.

They called, and wanted to know if we could meet somewhere.

I demanded a public place, weapons on the table and no one going to the bathroom like in the Godfather, finding a gun in the towel dispenser and leaving me face-down in my Denver omelet.

These two guys are well-known Raider fans, one a Costa Mesa sales rep and the other a Long Beach accountant, and get this: They admitted Saturday they struck some deal with the Raiders in 1998 to pepper L.A. politicians and media with letters, faxes and e-mails suggesting the team will return one day.

They won’t say what their arrangement with the Raiders is or how much they’re being paid: “Obviously nothing is for free,” one of them said.

They said they weren’t the only ones hired. They said the Raiders will deny knowledge of their existence if called. I called the Raiders, and the Raiders deny their own existence.

For the past few years the letter writers have been given seats in a luxury suite in Oakland to watch the Raiders, an indication the team thinks the pair has done a good job pestering the L.A. media and politicians.

Mike Baltzer and Mike Bernstein sent the first letter to me on Dec. 1, 1998, and just about every week or so since, the propaganda barrage has continued. Let me tell you, that’s a lot of letters, faxes and e-mails I’ve thrown away.

You’ve probably seen their names under letters from readers in The Times, the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Daily News and the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Mike & Mike have had their names in the paper more than Plaschke & Pucin, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, just an observation.

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NOW FOR all we know Mike Baltzer and Mike Bernstein are pen names for Al Davis. Bernstein, however, swears it’s Baltzer who writes the Raider blabber to a mailing list of more than 50 politicians and media after the two have compared notes.

Bernstein said the whole thing got started because he knew someone who goes way back with Davis. He said he spotted several Raider billboards around the L.A. area, which he took as a signal from the football gods the team was coming back to town. The old pal relayed this to Davis, who obviously took notice, because all along he thought he was one of the football gods.

The Raiders told Bernstein he could help and they’d show their appreciation. He had met Baltzer, another Raider fan, at a local gym years earlier, so Mike & Mike came together to litter L.A. on the Raiders’ behalf.

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NOW I was worried I would lose my appetite sitting across from two guys wearing nose rings, fearful they might catch me staring at their spiked hair or cause a disturbance in the restaurant with all the chains they’d be packing.

I’ve had experience eating with the wife’s three brothers, and all the embarrassment that comes with sitting with three messy chow hounds in public. But these two guys are on Davis’ payroll, so it would have been nice if I could’ve convinced Dwyre, or someone else with no future, to come along as a food tester.

The first Mike I met, however, looked like he was ready to receive his First Communion, his hair combed just like his mother might have done it for him. A very friendly, sane man who doesn’t look or act anything like a Raider fan. He just had a stack of mail he’s sent to politicians and media sitting a foot high in front of him.

The second Mike didn’t take any offense at all when I told him he’d have to eat without a knife. He ordered a waffle with strawberries, gummed his food without complaint, and is a very nice father of three daughters who attempts to brainwash them only on game day, when they’re required to wear Raider T-shirts.

These were the two Raider monsters who have been harassing me for more than three years, and I swear if I had yelled “boo,” they would have reacted just like the Raiders in postseason play, and curled up in a ball.

“We’re Raider fans and we just want to put the facts out there, a little spin with some humor and just make sure the people in the media keep their eyes open,” Bernstein said. “It’s 50-50 now, but we still believe the Raiders are coming back.”

Recent stories that have the Anschutz Empire making nice with the Chargers don’t concern Mike & Mike. They believe the Raiders will be here before the Chargers, and wrote to say so. They were writing to everyone three years ago saying the expansion team would go to Houston, and they were right. They were writing to everyone a year ago saying the Raiders would win their L.A. court case, and they were wrong.

And because there’s no end to what a blubbering Davis has to say, they will continue to write. Only now, I’ll really know who is writing.

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I STOPPED by Edison Field Saturday night to congratulate Tim Salmon on baseball’s single biggest achievement in the past 50 years: Salmon getting four hits in the same game. He reacted, though, as if I had been sent there to strike him out, and then promptly whiffed on my first three questions. I hope it doesn’t send him into another slump.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an office memo:

“NFL writer Sam Farmer is the proud father of Claire Elizabeth Rose Farmer, who was born at 4:34 p.m. Wednesday. Mother and child are doing well.”

My job now is to make sure little Claire doesn’t grow up to be a Charger fan.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]