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This Day In Sports…January 17, 1995, 30 years ago today:

Owner Georgia Frontiere makes it official—the Los Angeles Rams are moving to St. Louis. The Rams had been a staple in Southern California since moving from Cleveland in 1946, spending the final 15 seasons playing in Anaheim. That same year, the Raiders moved back to Oakland, and the nation’s second-largest market would go 21 seasons without an NFL team until the Rams returned to L.A. in 2016.

More than two years earlier, Frontiere wanted to break the Rams’ lease at Anaheim Stadium, which was a baseball park scotch-taped together to look like a football stadium. After the 1993 season she tried to move the franchise to Baltimore. After being blocked by NFL owners, Frontiere turned her attention to St. Louis, where they were prepared to build a new domed stadium. Owners finally acquiesced after Frontiere threatened to sue, and St. Louis welcomed the Rams eight years after being jilted when the Cardinals moved to Phoenix in 1987.  

Frontiere, a St. Louis native, shed tears as she announced the move. They weren’t tears of sadness for L.A., but rather tears of joy for her hometown. “I’m overwhelmed,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve been this happy since the last game we won.” The stadium was the key, as Frontiere and subsequent owners had a thing about their facility being rated in the top 25 percent in the NFL. That wasn’t ever going to happen in Anaheim, and it ended up not happening in St. Louis. Hence, Gateway City fans were jilted again.

The Rams spent 21 seasons in St. Louis before heading back West. The team was on the rise is its early years there, and they won their first Super Bowl after the 1999 season, 23-16 over the Tennessee Titans, with an offense branded “The Greatest Show on Turf.” The Rams rode that wave back to the Super Bowl two years later but fell 24-21 to the New England Patriots (Tom Brady’s first championship). In their final 14 years in St. Louis, the Rams would record just one winning season. 

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)

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