You would be hard-pressed to find a Rams player for whom his team meant more than Kermit Alexander. He sold newspapers as a child so he could afford to attend the team’s games, called his trade to L.A. in 1970 “the greatest moment of his pro career,” and, not surprisingly became a season ticket holder when the Rams returned to Southern California last year. While his love of the Rams is unwavering, Alexander’s experience of Los Angeles was forever changed in 1984 when his mother, sister and two nephews, ages 8 and 13, were murdered in South Central Los Angeles.  Joshua Neuman speaks with Alexander about his complicated relationship with L.A., experiencing the Rams/Niners rivalry from both sides, and hobnobbing with Ram-loving celebrities Bill Cosby, Telly Savalas, and Warren Beatty. Join us for a very special episode of the Greatest Show on Grass about love, loss, and the power of memory.

#31: The Schoolboy Assassin, Eddie Meador

The Greatest Show on Grass: Los Angeles Rams podcast that celebrates the present-day NFL team against the backdrop of its rich and little-known Hollywood past. Hosted by Los Angeles-based writer, filmmaker, and Rams chronicler Joshua Neuman, The Greatest Show on Grass connects on-the-field analysis with broader conversations about pop culture, politics, gender, and race as it explores a football franchise that’s been as interesting off the field as on it. The Greatest Show on Grass is also a love story between a team and a city. As one prominent sportswriter wrote a half century ago: “The Rams find themselves as much a part of the scenery [of Los Angeles] as the Hollywood Hills, the subject of more newspaper space than the atom bomb, and an object of civic concern second only to smog.” Long before the St. Louis Rams of 1999-2001 were The Greatest Show on Turf, the Los Angeles Rams were The Greatest Show on Grass.