Heaven Can Wait: How Warren Beatty Made Me a St. Louis Rams Fan

In 1978 I was nine years old.  I had been a fan of football for a number of years but did not really have a team in the NFL.

Then my Mother took me to see Heaven Can Wait, a romantic comedy remake with Warren Beatty playing the main character.

This movie made me a fan of the Los Angeles Rams.

In looking back on it now the LA Rams were at the time a good team, not great but good.  They were not a team a neophyte would generally cling to however. 

In this respect I have to blame my fascination with underdogs and LA teams in general.  I had started liking teams from Los Angeles after visiting there as a young child and when the LA Dodgers set up their short season A league team in my home town.

While that love lasted only a few seasons it was an important time in Rams history. In 1979 the LA Rams reached their first Superbowl losing a close game to the all world Pittsburgh Steelers.

Watching that underdog fight against the steel curtain.  With Jack Youngblood limping through the playoffs with a broken leg.

I mean how can you not love them?

Then the team entered the years of Eric Dickerson, my favorite player of that period, as you can see by my picture from 1987.  The man was money for the team.

So many of the names of that era still flash through my mind today.  During a period when the Rams fell short against the San Francisco 49ers time and time again. 

Joe Montana and Jerry Rice were the burden of the NFC West and they beat the Rams too often to mention.  While the the Rams were having troubles finding a quarterback.

Then when the Rams migrated in the mid 1990s to St. Louis I followed their progress. I watched as they traded Jerome Bettis, gained Marshall Faulk, Torry Holt, and Isaac Bruce.

Then in one shining moment the team I had followed for 20 years, the sad sacks facing the big boys became the big boys. 

Rams fans everywhere remember fondly the greatest show on turf and the 1999 season. 

That victory justified now thirty years of following the team.  Even now as they strive to repair their damaged team I continue to think back and wonder.

Why on earth did Warren Beatty have to quarterback the Los Angeles Rams in that movie?