Cable fracas only rates a 5 in Raiders' legacy of lunacy

It doesn't take long for the immunity to set in. After a few seasons of following the Raiders, shock doesn't register anymore. The outside world sees high comedy and pure lunacy. Those of us in closer proximity have become fairly blasé.

The reports that head coach Tom Cable hit assistant coach Randy Hanson at training camp two weeks ago, sending him to the hospital, rose to another level. The surprise lasted a good hour, before the usual sentiment returned. It's the Northern California equivalent of "Manny Being Manny." Shrug. Roll eyes. Sigh. Catalogue the absurdity and wait for the next one.

Tom Cable is apparently coaching the right team. (Getty Images)

The mixed messages on what happened to Hanson were fairly typical of the Raiders. Instead of coming out and saying, "I did not, as reported, punch an assistant coach," Cable first refused to discuss the issue with the general media, calling it an internal matter. Then he talked to ESPN and denied the report. Then, pressed by the local media again, he said, "Nothing happened," even though a police report and Hanson's absence suggested otherwise.

A coach who isn't even on the same page with himself? This is what you come to expect in the world of the Raiders.

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This season will be the 15th since the Silver and Black returned to Oakland from Los Angeles. In that time, the team has been in the Super Bowl once (then lost at least 11 games for a record six straight years), sued its own municipality, gone through eight head coaches and hired a bed-and-breakfast proprietor as its offensive coordinator. The eccentricities pile up quickly and voluminously, but some do stand out as definitively Raider-esque. Here, in no particular order, are one bystander's top 10 memories from the start of the second Oakland era:

1. Art Shell, at the start of his second term as head coach, commented on the 2006 NFL Draft and called both Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart "Mike."

The Raiders drafted Michael Huff out of Texas in the first round of the April draft that year. Nine months later, after ex-B&B owner Tom Walsh had installed an offense that was the equivalent of a transistor radio in an iPod world, Shell had a 2-14 record and a pink slip. Lane Kiffin, an assistant from USC, would be introduced as the new head coach and saluted by his boss, Al Davis, as "young Lance." Compared to what Davis would be calling Kiffin the following year, that was a supreme compliment.

2. Kiffin's needling comments in the fall of 2008, practically begging Davis to fire him.

The two had begun a battle of wills after the 2007 season, when Davis wanted his young coach to resign and give up the rest of his contract. In a quiet, flat tone, almost sighing, Kiffin would say things like: "You can't really imagine what it's like here unless you've been through it."

If you've ever seen The Bad Seed, the classic horror film in which an apparently cherubic little blonde girl hides a murderous heart behind a sugary surface, you can picture Kiffin doing his shtick.

3. Linebacker Bill Romanowski channeled his inner Vivien Leigh on the witness stand during the 2005 lawsuit filed against him by Marcus Williams, a teammate he punched in practice and sent to the hospital.

Trying to portray his football career as an Oprah-worthy tale of triumph over the odds, Romanowski described working in tobacco fields as a youngster to help with family finances. He remembered the shame of being excluded from the traveling squad during his freshman season as the coach ordered one group of players to don yellow jerseys. His voice choking, Romanowski said he vowed that he would never wear that jersey again. The only thing missing, as Williams' lawyer pointed out later, was Scarlett O'Hara's defiantly raised fist and the words: "As God is my witness ..."

Williams, whose eye socket was fractured with the punch, won a $340,000 judgment. Romanowski's acting career placed him in two Adam Sandler movies. He's still waiting for the remake of Gone With the Wind in drag.

4. Head coach Bill Callahan, after yet another error-filled game in 2003, called the Raiders "the dumbest team in America."

In two seasons as head coach, this was the only time he evinced any personality in front of the media.

5. A group of players chanted "Cable, bumaye" at practice this week, after the reports came out about Hanson's trip to the hospital.

They were mimicking Muhammad Ali fans in Zaire, who chanted "Ali, bumaye" -- "kill him" -- during the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" fight with George Foreman. The historical reference was impressive, but Cable soon disputed their knowledge of current events. Then he sort of disputed himself. But we've already covered that ground. Whatever the resolution to reports about Hanson's injury might be, the chant will be the moment for the scrapbooks.

6. A judge hearing part of a 1996 lawsuit filed against the NFL suggested that if the ruling goes the team's way, the Raiders might have to "put a daisy on your uniform."

The Raiders had asked for an injunction prohibiting Tampa Bay and Carolina from wearing their uniforms in California because they had copied parts of the Raiders' distinctive look. The Bucs' pirate logo and Panthers' swaths of silver and black, the suit argued, violated Raiders trademarks.

Seven years after filing the suit, the Raiders had their answer: Get over it. The Bucs got to keep their pirate on their trips to the West Coast, just as the Raiders could hold on to theirs when they went to Florida.

7. OK, the judge didn't really say: "Get over it." Those were Davis' words to Kiffin.

The words appeared in a letter firing the coach four games into the 2008 season and chastising him for not appreciating JaMarcus Russell, the quarterback Davis took with the No. 1 pick in the '07 draft. I borrowed the line to paraphrase the judge's decision. I hope I won't be sued for violating a Raiders trademark.

8. This spring, Russell responded to a question about Michael Vick's imminent release from prison by saying that two years out of football would be good for Vick because he would be well-rested.

9. Jeff George, the quarterback in 1997 and '98, provided a little less than the leadership one expects from the position.

Sidelined with a groin injury in '98, he rarely hovered around his backup and didn't offer advice between possessions or go over plays with the assistant coaches. Instead, he usually stood at the far end of the sideline, away from the bench, probably humming Solitary Man.

This came just two years after the Falcons suspended George for a sideline outburst against their coach at the time, June Jones. So George's attitude wasn't entirely an outgrowth of the Raiders' culture. But the fact that he ended up in Oakland afterward says a lot. Years later, wide receiver Randy Moss saw nothing wrong with quitting on the team early in the season and admitting it in a radio interview. That's what you want to see in a franchise: continuity.

10. Davis, unhappy over something that San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler had written in 2006, said that if he were 20 years younger, he would kick Ostler's butt. This happened after one of the Raiders' two wins that season. In the locker room. In front of players and other reporters.

Still, it wasn't all that shocking. This was, after all, the Raiders' world. The shocking part was that Davis admitted that he was getting older and chose not to fight Ostler.

Gwen Knapp is a sports columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. Her next column will appear Sept. 2.