Al Davis: A Salute On Talk Like a Pirate Day

Today be talk like a Pirate day...arghhhh. Even for ye land lubbers all it takes tis a bit of the ancient pirate soul. Lift a rum to an old Raider, lift a beer for a Buccaneers, what better nickname in sport then to be named after the legendary Sea Pirates of yore?

Bang the rum bottle and sing...

The Autumn wind is a pirate
Blustering in from sea
With a rollicking song he sweeps along
Swaggering boisterously

 Remember when Al Davis greeted Bud Grant's Vikings like real Raiders....

"Arrr, the Viking is like a duck without wings! We'll close for the kill and then board her. And I'll dangle Uncle Fran from the fore yard!! Heh, he he he!"

 Ah to hear the old Raiders sing Super Bowl songs and count their looted treasures...

15 men on a dead man's chest/Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum/Drink and the devil had done for the rest/Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum/The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike/The bosun brained with a marlinspike/And cookey's throat was marked belike/It had been gripped by fingers ten;/And there they lay, all good dead men/Like break o'day in a boozing ken/Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum…

When Ted Hendricks used the ole Marlinspike to pressure the passer ye knew it was a division game.

Al Davis didn't care if his players ran wild off the field as long as they performed on the field. The rules were much simpler then....

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot./Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!/We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot./Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack./Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!/Maraud and embezzle and even hijack./
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!...

Even before free agency a pirate's world was a vicious one which the Snake, the Assassin, and Ghost learned when they were sent to the port of Houston for having too much fun...

Its all about the treasure.

And those buccaneers drowned there sins in rum/The devil himself would have to call em scum!/Every man on board would have killed his mate for a bag of ginnys or a piece of eight, a piece of eight, a piece of eight/5 6 7 8…

In this corporate NFL world tis good for the blood to have a pirate about. The NFL is all about parity, sameness, and shallow hype. Sure he's grown old but once Al sailed the AFL ship to NFL shores. When ye see him, old and tired, remember once his pirate soul changed the league.

Oh, better far to live and die/Under the brave black flag I fly/Than play a sanctimonious part,/With a pirate head and a pirate heart./Away to the cheating world go you/Where pirates all are well-to-do;/But I'll be true to the song I sing/And live and die a Pirate King.

For I am a Pirate King!/And it is, it is a glorious thing/ To be a Pirate King!/For I am a Pirate King!...

So Cheers! And Arghhhhhh! Bring the Rum cask aft.

Have a wicked shot for mean old Henry Morgan!.

Captain Morgan ye call his bottle now, a pirate then a pirate hunter and finally when his Pirate's Paradise, the most wicked place on earth, Port Royal, Jamaica, sank into the sea the cemetery with his body in went with it.

Loose in the deep blue sea once again!

Arghhhhh to Captain Morgan!

And a rum for Blackbeard's Bad Head which swim in angry circles long after it was severed from his sword swinging body!

And lift a demon rum to an old Raider! And talk like a pirate as ye discuss his raiding days of yore when the blood flowed and treasure never was sold.

Arggggh To Al Davis, the Raider King fore he grew old!

Still life is pretty good for Al, why wouldn't it be? He's a pirate after all.

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.—Mark Twain