Spike more bark than Bite?
2005 Football Season
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com

Oakland, Calif.-It's a few minutes past 6 in the morning. The sun has yet to rise. But inside his dimly lit garage, Mark Shandinger, a man in his 40s with thinning brown hair down to his back, lifts weights. "Broncos today, baby, Broncos," he says between reps. "Man, I hate them. The best day of my life was when John Elway gave me the finger.

"Today we raise hell. Today we turn the Black Hole into an absolute jungle. No mercy today. It's the Broncos." Seven hours later, the Oakland Raiders are about to take the field against the Denver Broncos. Every beer-chugging, street-strutting, look-at-me-the -wrong-way-and-I-might-pop-you-in-the-mouth Raiders fan is charging toward McAfee Coliseum, eager to not miss a play. Spike a member of the Visa Hall of fame of Fans-- which is an exhibit at the Pro Football Hall of Fame--is hunched over behind his black Dodge Durango, searching for fresh air. His chain-, Spike- and skull-covered shoulder pads sit next to his feet. His stud-covered arm pads sit next to that. And his sleeveless black leather trench coat is rolled into a ball on top of it all. The sweat from the mid-afternoon sun is causing his eye black to run like wet mascara. He doesn't care. Not now. This is his time. No fans. No pictures. No autographs. Just 10 simple minutes, before he heads into the stadium, with nothing between him and a frosty cold can of Miller Lite. Or so he thinks. "Spike, is that you?" a stranger calls from a few feet away. "Can my daughter get a picture? "Sure," he replies. "Just give me a second to get my gear back on. What's her name?" Shadinger gets re-dressed in silver and black death-first regalia and frowns. Click. This, Apparently, is raising hell. Showing no mercy. Posing for pictures, signing autographs, passing out football cards and Raiders pennants, carrying around children's books that teach lessons about life, recruiting fans to join the Army-- this is apparently how the Black Hole turns into an absolute jungle. One fan at a time. There is no group of fans more polarizing in all of sports than that of the Raiders. The stories over the years are endless. Urinating on fans of the opposing team. Spitting on opposing players and coaches. Battery throwing, fighting gangster!  

Screaming every mom, sister, wife and daughter insult in the book. "Were evil. We're the devils, the degenerates," says Shadinger's younger brother Eric, who dresses as "Howie" on game days. "The Raiders! We're the bad guys. The misfits. I watch guys like T.O. Terrell Owens run his mouth off, and I say to myself, "Keep it up buddy sooner or later" you'll be out here with us. We're the guys that nobody wants their daughters to marry." Really? Spend a day with Spike and Howie, the tag team brothers from Sacramento, who sit one row behind Wayne Mabry, another Hall of fame Fans member known as "Violator," and beyond the skulls, spikes and decapitated rubber head inside a Broncos helmet, you start to realize that their bark is whole lot louder than their bite. Three of most visible Raider fans out there-- the go to guys for photographers looking for that fan reaction shot -- are more Saturday morning cartoon characters than Friday night devil worshipers. They tell you they want Mike Shanahan on a stick. That they want someone to clothesline John Lynch. But then you find a neon green children's book in the back of the Durango, complete with a pop-up rubber football that spueaks when you squeeze it. "Oh, that's for the Kids," Spike says. The Black Hole? Well it's more like a pink locker room. How else do you explain Spike, stopping for a quick picture before heading to his seats, slipping into a mini-panic when he realizes he posed with a child while holding a beer? I don't like posing with people when they're holding a beer," he explains, "nevertheless holding my own beer. That just doesn't look right." And how else do you explain Howie, spotting a pair of jersey-wearing Broncos fans in the parking lot, offering a handshake, a pat on the back and a "may the best team win" remark? And how else do you explain Violator, even when his team is down three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, accommodating yet another photo request from yet another stranger? "The first kid you turn away will be the one who will stop cheering for the Raiders," Mabry says. "And we just can't have that." Of course not. Not in the Dungeon of Doom.

Mark says! "You see three types of people out here, "The good, the bad and the ugly. There's plenty of bad and certainly some ugly. We just try to bring a positive image to being a Raider fan. We want to show people that cheering for the Raiders can be a fun thing" And with--pads included --along with a black Raiders tie and a foam Raiders hat. Spike's setup is a little more complex. Besides the football pants and jersey, there are the spike-, sword,-chain,-and skull-covered shoulder pads, an "OAKTOWN' bandanna, a plastic Raiders helmet and arm bands covered in silver studs and bullets. On one shoulder pad, a sticker reads, "If I wanted your opinion, I'd beat it out of you." While Howie wears gym shoes, Spike wears a pair of six-inch leather boots, covered with even more studs and chains. He built the entire costume himself from head to toe 10 years ago, when the team first returned to Oakland from Los Angeles. "I did everything but the sewing," he said. "Being a Raiders fan, I'm not allowed to use a sewing machine. It's just not manly" Amidst the skulls, spikes and plastic sticks of dynamite, there's one part of the uniform, though, that's anything but manly: a fanny pack. They both wear them. "Where else am I going to carry my stuff?" Spike concedes. "A fan called me on that in Cleveland once --it bothered me for weeks. They can yell, 'you suck' all they want. But when they point out the fanny pack, "Man that hurts."

Once they're dressed, the onslaught begins. Walking the pre-game parking lot with Spike is like going to the mall the Saturday before Christmas with Santa Claus. You can't move five feet without someone mugging you for a picture.
Each and every time, Spike obliges, contorting is face into the meanest grin possible. Smiles aren't allowed. "They show weakness," Spike says. And, of course, blow the legend of doom cover. Kids are given football cards, stickers, pennants and plastic helmets. Mark, who works 60 hours a week as a truck driver, spends his own money on the gifts --almost as much as the $700 he spends on his second-row obstructed view seat each season. "You get parents who will come by and say that their kid just left for college and took the pennant we gave him," Spike says. "There are few things that can compete with that." As the pre-game tailgates continue, Spike spends the majority of his morning working at an Army recruitment booth, posing for pictures and encouraging people to join the Armed Forces One kid comes by wearing a black T-shirt that reads, "Welcome to Hell"-"Choice Word?" Howie, meanwhile, is making the rounds through the parking lot. After an hour of glad-handing, changes his shirt and pours handfuls of cheap grocery-store quality cologne over his body. "Whatever it takes to cover up the smell," he concedes. Minutes later, he spots a pair of jersey-wearing Broncos fans. But he doesn't urinate on them, pour beer on them or toss pieces of dismembered animals at their hands, he brings one of them into a makeshift cage, then closes the door and starts shaking it with the fan inside. The guy laughs. Smiles. And yells for his friend to take some pictures. Before long, other Broncos fans want their turn. It's this type of level of runaway-chain saw-in-a-Haunted-House terror with which the habitants of the Black Hole feed on. "The whole concept of building evil is for the next generation," Howie explains. "Those 13 years we lost in Los Angeles -- we can't get those back. But we can make sure we never lose this team again."
While Mark, 41, is single, Eric, 38, is married. His wife Michelle, who grew up a 49ers fan, is the daughter of a California state patrolman. And he's a 49ers fan. "Before we got married, he handed me a bullet, "Eric said. "And he told me, if you ever hurt my daughter, I will put this inside you? " Michelle is pregnant with the couple's second child and Eric spends much of game day parading around the stadium, telling anyone who will listen that Michelle's pregnant, he's "the man" and "Daddy did his job" Mark is holding out judgment. He's hoping for a boy. "And if you don't name that kid Howie, I'm taking away all your Raiders gear, he says. The brothers finally reach their seats just before kickoff. "Welcome to Hell's Kitchen,"Vilator says from the front row." Bring on the body bags," Spike responds. The seats are just off the 50-yard line, next to the tunnel where the players enter and leave the field. It's half a stadium away from the heart of the Black Hole -- the section in south end zone where the heart of Raider rebellion beats-and you can tell. At halftime, Shanahan, Lynch, Jake Plummer --they will all be within arm's reach of Spike, Violator and Howie. Yet when both teams leave the field, Howie and Spike stand there and applaud the Raiders. Violator, whose wife wears a jersey that reads, "Violated," is the most vile of all. But even that is nothing extraordinary. When Norv Turner elects to punt on fourth-and-1 in the second quarter, she yells, "Where's your balls?"  When the public address system plays commercials on the video board during timeouts she screams, "Shut your hole." When a nearby teenager yells to quarterback Kerry Collins that he sucks, they roar his approval. "We love it. Anyone that speaks the truth around here." It's like showing up for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and getting on, "It's a small world." The action on the field isn't much better, with the Raiders losing to Denver 31-17. When it's over, Mabry says good-bye, climbs in his hearse and heads back to his dungeon in Southern California. Howie and Spike change clothes back at the Durango, leaving the dark side and transforming back into Mark and Eric for the 90-minute drive back to Sacramento. And just like that, the Haunted House is closed. "The reputation that people have about this place is pretty unfair," Eric said. "But it's not always a bad thing for people to think we're the axis of evil. We aren't exactly a bunch of angles. And that can get into an opponent's head."

It Could. If only it were true.
Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPEN.com

The Silver Lining
By Spike
July 7, 2007

I hope you enjoyed the ESPEN story written by Wayne in 2005, "What's up Raider Nation! "Now! Please if someday we meet in public just call me "SPIKE". My real name is Mark; for some strange reason all of us Raider fans have nicknames so be "Cool! When my Raiders returned home in 95" little kids would see me and call me Spike, so it stuck like glue. My younger brother Eric (Howie) at that time was my roommate; we made a decision to buy season tickets and made all kinds of crazy plans and had crazy ideas like making all types of Raider uniforms for game day, turning two guys from Sacramento, Into N.F.L. legends "SPIKE and HOWIE!

Hardcore fanatics where born! It all came easy; we had been to hundreds of live sporting events over the years, in our childhood years we did some crazy stuff when we played sports. In recent years, we found ourselves watching T.V. and cheering for our favorite players and teams, acting like they could hear us threw the T.V. true sports diehards' big time! Like my hero's JIM OTTO, MATT MILLEN and PETE ROSE, we work hard and play every minute of the game, as our lives where at stake? We as fans yell when the game starts until our voices are horse we can really screw up our opponent's game plan? Ask anyone who has the will to win! The difference we can make. Fans and players that don't care make me sick! As we lead by example it proves that it's not an act "It's called passion! I see the same enthusiasm with fellow Raider fans that have the same passion, like Pastor Armando with this one of a kind website, you see everyone of us is living a dream. He wanted me to talk about the story I had from the 2005 football season for ESPN (More Bark than Bite) I love doing stuff to help get Raider football in the media, The sad fact is in the last 2-years, I have had only a couple Big Time gigs, So I have been turning my focus to away games-charity events, working a lot and doing my best to walk with Lord Jesus "Ya! That's right I'm checking out church! It's cool; but I said to Pastor Armando, I don't know about all this song and worship stuff, my take is we need to get some "Rock Roll! Into the church? Pastor Armando had a good laugh, he gave me some "heads up" on what to look for when you start going to church. In general my phone rings from Aug. until Jan. it's always a mixture of misc. stuff, football people, and media members. Wayne Drebs of ESPEN the top guy wanted me for a show he couldn't fly me out, but we did talk about what I do on game day, I really wanted them to go on a away game with me but I think he got "scared? He wanted a home date, so we chose Denver at Oakland in early November-"Man! If they really wanted a story I wish they would have gone to an away game with my crew walking into "hostile territory! Maybe next time, Cameras and microphones don't faze me," You just have to watch what you say? - Here's the problem at games where 60,000 plus attend, they all yell a lot and say stuff? And its not all PG-13, my personal focus is to make Raiders football a game day experience, and to be positive for the fans and players. When we started to draw out plans for the story, we made the decision to start from my house on that early morning. Wayne would pretty much shadow us throughout the day and return with us in the evening back to our home?  We made a decision to treat this event like any other home game, we didn't tell anyone that they would be with us, we just went about the day like normal, I believe we did a good job in the story talking about all we do, along with explaining how the Raider Nation goes about their business supporting the Raider organization.  Okay I'm starting to repeat myself! You read the story! It was funny to see, one second Wayne would be next to me and ask me questions of people that would stop by for pictures and then he would disappear behind the scenes. At times he would ask me why they would say certain things! Wayne would just write on his note pad and pretty much paint a picture?  Over all it was very positive. Several Raider executives thank me for a job well done, two things clearly happened when that story came out on the front page of (Feature Story) the biggest sports website in the world, Just maybe for the 1st time in history did a positive story come out about the Raiders organization and it's fans. 2nd- Millions of people from all around the country must have seen or read the story? Years later I'm still meeting them, during my travels I was really surprised, "Hey" only time will tell if I made a difference. Who knows maybe things will change? The way the league treats our Raiders, do you "Think! "Wow! A lifetime of passion, endless amounts of hard work and money spent, "Here's the cool thing" the spot light shined bright in my eyes and I didn't "Blink! It's a dream come true.

"Spike!
"Will never forget!
Thank You Lord
Best Wishes "SPIKE"