Rough Trade

listening at all—a fact I found particularly annoying. As Beau Rendell’s closest business adviser he, more than anyone else, knew that the Monarchs were in no position to close the door on any viable offer. But of course, if Harald Feiss knew anything at all about business, the Monarchs wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
    Perhaps sensing that he was losing his audience, McWhorter produced copies of a term sheet outlining the specifics of what L. A. was prepared to offer to bring the NFL back to Southern California. There was a copy for each of us, individually numbered in the top right-hand comer. It was a familiar lawyer’s trick, useful for keeping track of sensitive documents and making sure that stray copies didn’t find their way into the wrong hands. The front page was also stamped “confidential” in big red letters. Given the subject matter, they could just as easily have been labeled “dynamite.”
    It took me only about ten seconds of adding up the numbers to realize that what I was holding wasn’t just a proposal but the team’s salvation. Los Angeles wasn’t offering a deal, they were offering a bribe—a football palace, a new stadium whose every square foot was designed to make Beau Rendell money. To sweeten the deal they were even offering a one-time $100 million “moving fee” to help the team defray the costs of the transition, which Beau would be free to spend any way that he saw fit. All he had to do was sign the agreement with L.A. and his troubles would be over.
    From beside me I could sense the relief move through Jeff’s body and hoped that he wasn’t wearing it on his face as well. Any way you looked at it, this was going to be a complicated transaction. Even though the terms L.A. was offering seemed extremely favorable, there was still much that needed to be negotiated and the longer we were able to keep the Monarchs’ financial situation under wraps the better. Desperation is never an advantageous position from which to strike a bargain.
    Beau, no stranger to playing his cards close to his chest, maintained a cypher-like demeanor. He let Jack finish and then dismissed him with the neutral promise that he would confer with Jeff and Harald Feiss before coming to any decision. It wasn’t until the door had closed behind McWhorter that the owner of the Milwaukee Monarchs let us know what he really thought of L.A.’s offer. Beau Rendell fixed his eyes upon his son directly across the table, picked up the copy of the term sheet, held it up, and tore it into little pieces.
    “Just so that you and I understand each other,” he proclaimed coldly. “I’ll die before I move this team.”
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    In the aftermath of his father’s performance with the Los Angeles term sheet Jeff maintained an incendiary silence—one that I, half friend, half lawyer, felt uncomfortable trying to breach. Instead, I suggested we save our discussion for the relative privacy of his office at the stadium, a suggestion he seemed eager to embrace. Following behind him in my own car as we headed downtown I hoped that the drive would give him a chance to calm down and collect himself. Beau’s refusal to even consider L.A.’s proposal moved things one step closer to catastrophe, which meant that Jeff and I had much to discuss.
    As we passed through one pristine suburb after another I was struck, not for the first time, by how much Milwaukee seems like a cleaner, kinder version of Chicago, a sort of metropolis in miniature perched on the edge of Lake Michigan. It was almost as if God, foreseeing what a sprawling mess Chicago was destined to become, decided to let the Germans try their hand at doing better. The result was a small big city, beertown to Boston’s beantown, true to its blue-collar roots and, in deference to its Teutonic heritage, almost fanatically clean.
    Kickoff was still almost an hour away, but the parking lots surrounding Monarchs Stadium were already crowded with fans. Despite the dismal weather, the team’s depressing record, and their even gloomier prospects against Minnesota, a carnival atmosphere reigned. A lot of it had to do with the fact that over the years Monarchs fans had developed their own variation of the tailgate party, with die-hard supporters gathering before every game in their own version of a Monarch’s court. Dressed in approximations of medieval garb, they ate turkey legs and called each other thou, as in “Will thou pass me another