Super Bowl Notes : Oakland Gives Big Welcome to Dolphins

The other city beside the bay was beside itself when the National Football League returned to Oakland Monday night.

The Miami Dolphins found the lobby of their Oakland hotel decorated in turquoise with hundreds of displaced fans, a life-sized goal post, artificial turf and Mayor Lionel Wilson standing there with his hand out and a smile on his face.

“The fact that the Raiders have been gone three years does create a lot of nostalgia,” Wilson said. “But my firm belief is that we haven’t lost the Raiders.”

Wilson pointed out that the city’s eminent domain suit is still alive: currently on appeal to overturn the Superior Court decision in favor of the Raiders.

“We have a strong chance of getting them back,” Wilson said. ‘I’d say an 80-20 chance. We should get a reversal in the Court of Appeals, and we would then expect the (state) Supreme Court to deny them a hearing. The law is already on our side.”

It was the State Supreme Court that originally ruled the city could make such a case. Wilson said he wasn’t just talking like a mayor.

“I was on the Superior Court bench of Alameda County for 16 years myself,” he said.

Playing It Straight: When the 49ers arrived at their Super Bowl hotel in Detroit three years ago, Coach Bill Walsh greeted them in a bellhop’s uniform.

This time, no bellhop uniform. No hotel. The 49ers will be living at home most of the week, and Walsh didn’t seem in the mood for levity, anyway, when he met the first wave of media late Monday.

“It’s been drained out of me,” Walsh told a battery of a hundred reporters and 15 television cameras--a smattering of what is to follow in the regular press sessions starting this morning.

Walsh said, as he had all season, that this 49er team is “much better” than the one that defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, 26-21, in Super Bowl XVI.

Walsh cited “maturity, experience, playing in a certain system longer and communication between the players and coaches.”

Walsh said in the off-week since winning the NFC title game from the Bears he has studied so much film of Miami quarterback Dan Marino that “we could do a highlight film for you. “But the more we view the film the more respect we have for the Miami defense. So it may be a low-scoring game--24 or 28 points. But I think that many points may be needed to win it.

“We concede their offense some yardage because they throw the ball so much. Our hope would be we could slow them to where they’re going for field goals . . . (that) through a pass rush and coverage we can upset their rhythm of throwing to where they don’t have a constant string of completions.”

Most people anticipate a classic offensive performance from both sides. Walsh was asked if he would be disappointed with an inartistic victory.

“We’ll settle for any kind of win,” he said.

Walsh insisted his team will be on “a normal (practice) schedule this week,” but offensive tackle Bubba Paris said it will be somewhat different.

“Normally, we knock off at 6 o’clock and do our own thing,” Paris said, “but this isn’t a normal game. This game requires total mental concentration 24 hours a day.

“He (Walsh) has requested that we forget the rest of the world exists and just concentrate on Miami. It will be easy because of the rewards: an extra $18,000 (to the winners) and that Super Bowl ring.”

Paris has been concentrating so hard that he discovered something unusual about one of the Dolphin defenders he’ll be facing, linebacker Charles Bowser.

“He’s slewfooted,” Paris said. “If he’s facing north, his feet are facing east and west.”

Paris, who came from Michigan as the 49ers’ top draft choice in 1982, said he weighs 305 pounds and is fined every day for every pound over 300.

He wouldn’t say how much, “but I’ve probably been fined more in one day than some people make in a year.”

Asked if he is weighed before or after practice, Paris said: “It’s my choice. Whenever I feel lighter.”

Dolphin Coach Don Shula appeared to be more relaxed than Walsh Monday night.

One of the first questions he was asked involved coaching styles--his and Walsh’s.

“It’s a little early to get into the genius thing,” Shula said, laughing. “We’ll have all week to talk about that.”

The Dolphins’ chartered 747 showed the movie “American Dreamer” on the way out.

Shula mopped his brow before the TV lights several times but noted that “it’s a little cooler than what we’re used to in Miami.”

Psychology Angle: Is Bill Walsh starting to play little mind games with the Dolphins?

The 49er coach indicates now that he’ll leave Ronnie Lott at left cornerback and Dwight Hicks at free safety in the secondary against Dan Marino.

Lott, bothered by various injuries all season, played three late-season games at safety, then corner in the NFC title game against the Bears two weeks ago after Hicks sprained an ankle against the Giants.

Hicks is supposedly the quicker of the two, but Walsh said Lott “has looked very good (at corner) in practice (and) Ronnie is 100% healthy for what could be the first time this season. He looks as quick as I’ve ever seen him.”

Walsh also has been known to switch them unannounced, as he did against the Rams early this season.

Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle, on the umbrella and booze ban:

“The NFL wants you dry on the inside and wet on the outside.”