Hey, Dad: I saw bumbling Bucs in weird game Tom Zucco, The St.Petersburg Times , published 1987 Dear Dad, So here I am in Tampa. I finally made it. What a place. The car ran great and I'm fine. Thanks for the sandwiches. The traffic here is a nightmare, and you know, it just doesn't seem like Christmas is only five days away. Styrofoam snowmen and sidewalk Santas wearing shorts just doesn't cut it. But hey, who's complaining? It's real laid-back here, as if everybody is living at 33 1/3 while the rest of the world is at 45. Sunday afternoon I went to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the St. Louis Cardinals. Some nice man outside the stadium sold me a great ticket for only $25. Boy, did I fool him. What a game. Lemme tell ya. Yeah, it was those Bucs. The team Grandma used to watch on TV and think was a segment of The Benny Hill Show. Remember how she laughed? Anyway, so the Bucs have this rookie quarterback, Vinny Testaverde, and sometime before this century is out, he'll be really good. At least that's what everybody says. He wasn't too bad Sunday. He only got sacked six times, and the guy sitting next to me said his interceptions look a lot nicer than the ones Steve DeBerg used to throw. Speaking of people, there were 32,000 of them at the stadium, which is about 42,000 less than the stadium holds. They sure were quiet most of the time, except when they booed the announcement of Fan Appreciation Night. Sheez. And then, when the game was over, they chanted some strange things as the Bucs ran into their dressing room. Stuff like, ``St. Louis is looking for a team,`` and ``Bring back McKay.`` Why do they want the Bucs to move? And why do they need an announcer? Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. The Bucs did look pretty bad, Dad. There was one time when their placekicker, a little guy named Donald something-or-other, caught his own field goal. St. Louis blocked it right into his hands, and he tried to run with it. He got squished. And then there was the time the St. Louis quarterback threw this real long pass. The ball hung in the air for what seemed like an hour, and it gave the Buc defenders all sorts of time to run over and try for an interception. So what happens? The Tampa Bay guys stand around and watch the St. Louis guy catch the ball. It was as if he was signaling a fair catch on a punt. Or he had some horrible disease and nobody wanted to get close. I gotta tell ya, that was worth the 25 bucks. Anyway, the Cardinals scored right after that and pretty soon it was 31-7. By then, a lot of people were getting up and leaving. But I figured the Bucs were just setting up the Cardinals for a fourth-quarter rally, like the 28 fourth-quarter points St. Louis scored against the Bucs earlier this year. Only the Bucs didn't quite do that. They came close. Kind of. With 48 seconds left, while the Cardinals were walking toward the locker room, the Bucs finally got a touchdown. St. Louis won 31-14, but only a couple hundred people stayed around to see the end. I heard some of the things the Bucs said afterward. They said they all tried real hard, made some improvement, but couldn't evaluate their performances until they saw the films. They said they're the youngest team in the NFL, and that they'll get better. But everybody here says they're getting worse. And they're tired of the same old excuses. Dad, you gotta feel sorry for the fans. There's nothing else here, and they deserve better. After the game, the Bucs coach, a man named Ray Perkins who reminds me a little of Charles Bronson, said he was mad as hell. He said heads will roll. He scares me. I think it's gonna get worse before it gets better. And I'm glad I don't live here and have to watch this all the time. Sorry if I depressed you. I'll write again soon. Send money.