By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
OAKLAND -- No one's ever judged this region by what might be called normal standards. The Bay Area, Northern California, was settled by Spanish missionaries, who were pushed out by pioneers looking for gold, with a lot of frontier justice on the side.
The edge of the continent may have put a limitation on movement -- this is as far west as you can go without a ship or a surfboard -- but there never has been any limitation on ideas, no matter how irrational or unpopular.
Almost anything is acceptable. Almost.
This situation with the man who coaches the Oakland Raiders has all but reached a point of unacceptability, with people who don't know exactly what happened screaming "Off with his head'' and those in a position to find out the details saying very little.
Oakland is one city south of the Protest Capital of the World, Berkeley, or as the late columnist Herb Caen called it, "Berserkeley.'' It was an Oakland native, Gertrude Stein, who said of the city, upon returning to find her old home had been razed, "There is no there, there.''
These days, with Tom Cable being accused of everything except that recent mechanical failure of the Bay Bridge, the one that closed the structure for eight days, there is plenty there.
Too much for Cable and the Raiders organization.
The Raiders have a bye this weekend, which, when you're 2-6 for 2009 and haven't had a winning season since 2002, might be viewed as beneficial. Instead, it's proving just the opposite, since media that might be focused on the team's troubles instead are concentrating on Cable's.
And they are many.
During camp in August, up at Napa in the middle of the wine country -- where else would a Nor Cal team train, anyway? -- Raiders assistant Randy Hanson incurred a broken jaw during a meeting of the coaching staff.
He accused Cable of causing the injury, either, as the story goes, by shoving him out of a chair in which he had leaned back, or punching him in the jaw.
After an investigation, and surely deliberation, the district attorney of Napa County declined to press charges, maybe because he didn't believe the case was strong enough, maybe because Napa didn't want to aggravate the Raiders and chance losing them to another city.
For a few days after the announcement, the Raiders' subject matter dealt with the ineffectiveness of third-year quarterback JaMarcus Russell and other paranormal items. Then on its "Outside the Lines'' program last Sunday, ESPN provided the revelation that some 20 years ago Cable had hit his ex-wife and early this year smacked a girlfriend.
The Raiders contended they were blindsided by ESPN, a network the team contends harbors a grudge against it. But to the credit of the Raiders -- meaning owner Al Davis, considerably more sensitive than his critics want to believe -- and chief executive Amy Trask, the allegations were not taken lightly.
"We will undertake a serious evaluation of this matter,'' read a release from the Raiders. "We wish to be clear that we do not in any way condone or accept actions such as those alleged.''
This was not good enough for the National Organization for Women, which demanded Cable be suspended while the allegations are checked out. It wants NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has spoken about fairness, to make a statement about Cable.
Earlier in the week, asked about his future, Cable insisted, "I'm coach of the Raiders, and I think my future is to be coach of the Raiders.''
Al Davis does not like firing coaches, despite all the coaches he has fired, and he likes even less dismissing them during the season, having done that only twice, Mike Shanahan and Lane Kiffin, over the past 40 years.
But this uproar over Cable is an embarrassment. It may even become a distraction, although the players, worried about their own futures and paychecks, invariably ignore everything except trying to keep the opposition from making a touchdown while making some touchdowns of their own.
Cable conceded he did slap his first wife, with an open hand, not a fist, and has regretted it. He said he did not strike any other female.
A team as bad as the Raiders, groping for any reason to be optimistic, hardly needs the current scenario, a coach under fire for reasons other than his record, and even the folk of Northern California wondering what is going on.
Any moment, we may all go over the edge.
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.
49ers,