Voice of the 'Fan

For the second time, St. Louis is without an NFL franchise. The citizens have more than enough right to be upset, especially with someone they thought was one of their own.

Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who had to turn over control of his other franchises, the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the NHL's Colorado Avalanche, to his son when he bought the Rams six years ago, won the bid to move his club back to Los Angeles after an absence of 21 seasons. And so it is that the team once known as the "Greatest Show on Turf" when they won the Super Bowl with Kurt Warner at QB, will swap the artificial turf at Edward Jones Dome for natural grass as they return to the LA Memorial Coliseum, where much of the team's history was built.

The mere fact that the Arizona Cardinals, another club that once called St. Louis home, is in the playoffs, is a painful reminder to the fans in St. Louis of what might've been had Bill Bidwell not decided to move the team nearly 30 years ago. The Cardinals came oh-so-close to winning the big one a few years ago, if not for the heroics of Pittsburgh's Santonio Holmes. Oh, yeah. Warner was the QB for the Cardinals at the time.

So the NFL is happy that they finally can serve one of the bigger media markets in LA, but St. Louis, which is in the top 20 among media markets, is left out in the cold again. Luckily, hockey & baseball seasons overlap each other, so the Blues & Cardinals will keep the folks in "Gateway City" entertained, and they'll soon forget about the Rams.

At least, until the NFL either puts an expansion team there (doubtful) or finds someone to fill the void.