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Commentary by Matt Hickman
GLENDALE — For years, Arizona Cardinals fans have suffered under the yoke of the Dallas Cowboys.
Sunday, it all changed on the field as the Cardinals lost a game they should have won in regulation, then battled back to win in overtime.
But among the crowd of nearly 65,000, there was a war going on, too.
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And for the first time, the Cardinals won that contest, outnumbering Cowboy fans with Cardinal red two-to-one despite many Arizona season ticket holders selling their seats at outrageously inflated rates to desperate Cowboy fans.
Brothers Armando and Frank Gomez of Phoenix, self-described “die-hard Cardinals fans from way back,” know all about this struggle all too well.
Their medusa-like red, white and black party hats expressed their optimism this time around.
“It kind of hurts,” Frank said of the rivaling numbers of Cowboys jerseys to their Cardinal ones. “We don’t have too much fan support but we’ll root our team to the dying day.”
Frank and Armando remember the humiliating days at Sun Devil Stadium when Cowboy fans would outnumber loyal Arizonans two-to-one.
“I remember with there being Dallas there being a lot of fights,” Armando said. “Big-time fights all the time.”
The brothers say they don’t fight — they’re just trash-talkers for fun — but when fellow Arizonans begin singing the praises of Cowboy blue — them’s fighting words.
“If you ask them they say it’s because they were Dallas fans before Arizona had a team,” Frank said.
Armando isn’t satisfied with that explanation.
“Nine times out of 10, I’ll tell them, ‘It’s been 20 years. Get out of my city!’ ”
Frank continued, prior to kickoff.
“If the Cardinals win, this is what they’ll say: ‘At least we have five rings. How many do you have?’ That’s always their excuse. And they’re always talking about the ’80s ... we’re in 2008.”
Minutes later, Bisbee resident, legendary Puma baseball player and coach Butch Hammett came up the concourse. He and his family have been lifelong Cowboy fans and didn’t switch when Mr. Bidwill picked up and moved his team out west from St. Louis in 1988.
“I remember back in the day, 1995 at Sun Devil Stadium when the fans tore down the goal posts and marched them down Mill Ave.,” Hammett said. “My dad’s from Texas and I’ve always supported my ’Boys. It’s always a raucous crowd when the Cowboys and Cardinals get together and I look for a high-scoring game.”
Early on, it didn’t look like there would be much scoring at all. The Cardinals appeared to force and recover one Tony Romo fumble deep in Cowboy territory, and later the same in the Cowboy end zone, only to have both turnovers taken away by the referees — the first time out of sheer incompetence, and the second on the much-villified “tuck rule.” The same rule that saved Tom Brady on a snowy night in Foxbourough in 2002, and allowed the Patriots to win the first of their four Super Bowls.
The Gomezes and I, and any true Arizonan, were immediately seeing the fix was in. Arizona defensive star Darnell Dockett saw this coming, even if the attractive woman walking along the concourse holding high a sign that read, “Shoot me Pac-Man, I bleed Cardinal red,” didn’t.
“I told the team, don’t expect no calls, we’re playing against America’s Team — don’t complain,” Dockett said. “Anytime you play a team that’s always at the top of their division, don’t expect no calls.”
And when the officials weren’t out to get the Cardinals, the gods of football were. After a Cardinals touchdown that was taken away that would have made for a 14-0 advantage for the home team, the Cowboys moved 91 yards to tie the game at 7-7.
And being up 10 points with three minutes to go wasn’t enough as Tony Romo threw a dump pass to Marion Barber for an inexplicable 70-yard touchdown to make it a three-point game with two minutes left.
Then, with no time outs, the Cowboys advanced it to the Cardinal 39, but an injured Travis LaBoy couldn’t get off the field in time and got a 5-yard offside penalty, which proved to be just enough of an edge to sneak it over the crossbar.
The fix, from within, and without, was clearly on.
Ah, but maybe, for once having the red outnumber the blue — if only slightly — made the difference and got the Cardinals over the top.
Wide receiver Steve Breaston, who had a career game with eight catches for 102 yards and a touchdown, felt the same.
“The energy of the fans — it was a mixed crowd today — but the energy of the Cardinal fans, you can feel that,” Breaston said. “This is your home; these are the games you’re supposed to win.”
But there were examples of Cowboy backers and Cardinal backers getting along — maybe.
John Chambers of Phoenix and Janis Wilson from Frisco, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas, met on match.com and had a Sunday rendezvous at the game. She came sporting Cowboy blue, and Chambers, a Cardinals fan of 20 years, hoped for the best.
“It’s all good, we’ll fight while we’re at the game, but hopefully it won’t be anything physical,” Chambers, a lifelong Arizonan, said. “It’s all in good fun.”
Chambers made a poster that read “Here lies nasty T.O. and the ruthless Cowboys.”
To make things right with his girlfriend, Chambers made another sign with the much more lukewarm pro-visitors’ message of “Arizona is Cowboy Country.”
Wilson expected that sort of tepid response.
“It’s wonderful, you know,” she said. “The Cowboys are the team everyone loves to hate.”
But will their relationship survive the rivalry?
“You’ll need to check back with me tomorrow,” Wilson said. “This is going to be the test of all tests.”
