Behring’s Rotten Week No Worse Than County’s

In his many years as a professional puller of wings off flies, Ken Behring must have had better weeks.

The Seahawks owner was all but laughed out of the NFL owners’ meeting when he and his son, David, tried to parlay their manufactured terror about an earthquake at the Kingdome into a rationalization for moving the Seahawks.

Later, Behring’s inquiries about possibly purchasing the California Angels baseball team, presumably with the proceeds of a Seahawks sale to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, were rejected with a swat worthy of Dikembe Mutombo.

“On a scale of 1 to 10 on whether I’d sell to him,” said Jackie Autry, wife of club owner Gene Autry and the club’s chief decision-maker, “he’d rate about a minus-3. I don’t respect Mr. Behring.”

Congratulations, Jackie. You’re an honorary Seattleite.

Now that the Behrings have gained temporary permission to have coaches and players use a training facility in Anaheim, Calif., NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has summoned David to the woodshed for a potential spanking worth $500,000. The league can’t figure out why players must train in L.A. when the team facility in Kirkland has never been labeled as a seismic hazard.

Mocked, derided and soon to be fined, Behring is discovering his only friends are attorneys, who for $300 an hour will do anything.

His only redeeming moments lately come when he reflects on the fact that life also hasn’t been so good for his chief adversary, King County.

Recent word is that the county’s white knight, Allen, is having second thoughts about owning the team in his hometown. The sale price seems to be secondary to the potential intrusions into his mostly private life.

There is some sentiment in the county to let the legal case run its course, where the presumption is that Behring will lose and be forced to sell more cheaply. The controversial terms of lease concessions to a new owner could be delayed until after the primary election.

The problem with that strategy is that a court defeat is always a possibility.

To top off the county’s week, the Kingdome was disclosed by the Seattle Times to be home of the BoogerBurger. While the county might want to lay off on its concessionaire, Ogden, the building’s wretched foodhandling practices, the fact is that this mammoth public relations debacle is another example of King County’s chronically poor oversight of its largest physical asset.

It’s doubtful a moldy hot dog, even several hundred thousand weiners that can be carbon-dated back to the Ruppert Jones/Don Testerman era, would be sufficient to allow Behring to break his lease. But if he had in hand the county’s records of Kingdome food violations, his arguments about a first-class facility would have produced a whole lot more nervous coughs at the courthouse.

So the Seahawks saga continues to careen brakeless down the hill, damaging reputations and careers on both sides, as well as the franchise, the league and the county.

Unfortunately, there appears to be only one clean solution for all parties, and it isn’t a likely one - the granting of an expansion franchise to Los Angeles and Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley.

The move would have the effect of checkmating Behring without the humiliation of applying more heat to a frat brother. The NFL would get who and what it wants in L.A., while precluding more Behring-like maneuvers from other owners. Seattle would get the Seahawks back.

Forced by circumstances to sell, Behring would still get most of his outrageous asking price of $225 million, and he would save a little by ending the litigious charade that is costing him as much in credibility as cash.