Another reason I am liking the World Cup…..

Beacause I can turn it on-and the resident Fox News morons fans don’t come along and change the  TV. Last week was perfect. We could turn on the World Cup in the morning then switch it over to the US Open. A whole week without Glenn Beck on the tube ( something I rise to switch off the TV near my cube when it comes on). That is worth celebrating.

I do find the passer’s by reactions very interesting. One of the folks at work who is ardent hocking fan called the game “boring”. Uh, yes-but fundamentally it is not different than hockey. In fact its a lot like hockey-without checks to the boards.

I agree with this quote about Americans and Soccer though:

I’m an avid fan of football, baseball, and basketball, and while I appreciate the international love for soccer, I’m certainly in the majority of Americans who will never be soccer fans.  It wasn’t enough that stars like Babe Ruth, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Red Grange, and Jim Thorpe were charismatic; they were the top scorers of their time.

Die-hard fans of any sport enjoy the nuances of fundamentals and defense. But to attract the casual fan, American sports leagues have had to cater to higher scoring.  In baseball, they seized on Ruth’s popularity as a home run hitter by ending the “dead-ball era,” lowered the mound after the late ’60s favored the pitcher, and turned a blind eye to performance enhancing drugs in the late ’90s when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s home run chases brought back fans that had left after the mid-’90s labor issues. Football has tweaked its rules from the beginning to favor scoring, right up to this day when quarterbacks and wide receivers are protected to an enormous degree by the rules.  Similarly, the rough and tough defenses of 1980s basketball have been practically outlawed by the foul-calling of NBA officials to stimulate scoring, and the NBA’s first big breakthrough was spurred by the installation of the 24 second shot-clock to pressure players to score more quickly.

The problem with soccer, and the reason it will never be widely accepted by the casual American sports fan, is that it cannot adapt the game to increase scoring – such as shortening its huge friggin’ field – without losing legitimacy within the international community.

I played soccer for two years in high school before deciding that I liked making money more than chasing the ball up and down the field. ( I did love having money that was mine-and that my parents had no say in how I spent it). So I have an appreciation for the beauty of the game. Furthremore-30+years of stalking various and sundry bars around the world, force you to become interested in the game-if only for a means to start a conversation with a woman in the bar. ( Thanks to the increasing ban on smoking-my old trick of bumming a cigarette from a woman smoking has decreased in potential over the years. Don’t laugh, if a woman smokes, she ……..).

But they have it right-Americans will only get on board if and when the US makes it to the finals and hopefully it will be against a team that the beating of which would have political implications. (e.g. US vs Iran).

Go USA!