Got the usual treatment this morning from the TSA wannabes at security check. It's always the one meatball brotha and then another or two feed off him. So I get ready to go through the line and he says, STOP THIS IS THE FOOTBALL LINE ONLY. I just laughed out loud. One of his cronies mentioned how you wouldn't find replacement refs in soccer. Another guy was like "yeah, because the people would riot". The one Romanian-born guard just remained silent through it all, mainly because he and I talked about how we already know the real deal with this sport as a global whole. It gets a bit old but more and more laughable how the one guard will make his jabs at soccer and the old sheep follow suit.
Last time I flew back to DC from a visit home (Nebraska) I got into a great conversation about MLS with the (younger than the others) TSA guy at Epply Airport in Omaha. Guy grew up playing soccer, drives down to KC for Sporting games regularly, follows Creighton, etc. All because I was wearing my DC United cap. When I lived in Nebraska up until 2000, that almost never happened (granted I lived in Lincoln, which isn't yet the soccer hotspot that Omaha is becoming, but still).
This is one of the most well written and intelligent defenses against soccer I've read. I love soccer, but there are lots of credible points made here as to why it truly is inferior as a specator sport for sheer entertainment value of competition and drama than other sports that many Americans prefer to watch.
Yeah, I think soccer is one of the rare reversals where Americans aren't the arrogant, stupid stubborn ones but the rest of the world is. In the world of professional sports, Americans are truly more cultured.
Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. You're just going to get him started now about how dumb Americans are. See, in his mind, it's totally alright for non-Americans to mock popular American sports. But there is no escape from the fury should someone mock soccer.
The average American can talk about the local pro sports team in the NFL or MLB or the NBA with more than a modicum of knowledge about its top players, coaching staff and ownership. Soccer isnowherenear to this...more people know Beckham play(ed) for LA, than they know that Donovan does/did. They mightn't even know who Donovan is. If we were culturally bound to the sport like European nations are, the fate of Donovan's playing future would be headline news on a near daily basis. Hey, how 'bout them Knicks?!
When my oldest son was going to college he fell in love with a women from Australia. Well not actually from Australia it is the Sicily of Australia Tasmania. I did not want him to leave the U.S. to go chasing after a women so far away from us in Brooklyn. I looked up the place and told him there are more animals in Tasmania that can kill you then any place in the world. I told him this was even worse then Harlem where I grew up where everyone is an animal that could kill you. His mind was made up, but that women might even make me move if I was young again. Then he showed me where they would be living. It was beautiful ocean front property. It was almost as nice as where I live now in Brooklyn. Then I told him they did not have boars head cold cuts there. That did not even make a difference. Then I said you won't be able to get Knick games there. not seeing Knick games got him to stay.
Uh.. no it's not the World vs US. US is just a part of the world and there are locally popular sports in US. Just like India is part of the world and Indians like Cricket. It's just that football(not American) is the most popular sport overall in the world for reasons.
Years ago I was coaching and under 9 team in Brooklyn. The field was called the Dust Boul because it had no grass, but what it did have was lights. So we could practice until 7 pm at this time of tge year when it is dark by that time, we had the permits for the field. The club was called Sporting Club Gjoa I had no kids on the team. I played on tge adult team I had just moved from Harlem to Brooklyn. While we were practicing. A adult soft ball team showed up and found a batting cage facing our practice field. They had no permit to play on it. They showed up at 6:30pm. Then they started to hit balls out right where we were practiing. Our parents were there. I told one of them to tell the soft ball guys we will be off the field at 7 so wait for us to leave before hitting anymore balls out. For what ever reason they decided to continue. Finally I told some of the parents to get any soft balls hit near us and put them with our equipment. Then one of them comes over to get their softball back. Funny thing about softball players they swear their playing real baseball instead of an old mans game. I told the guy they will get them at 7pm and to get lost until then. Now it's 6:50 more or less and I told my assistant coach and the parents practice is over and to pack up our stuff and take it to the cars. So they start to leave now I go over to the softball players. I already made up my mind what I was going to do as I was walking over to them. I left the softball where I put them. They were not all wise guys. Some of them had kids of their own. But some were I started to yell at the leader/instigator what was he trying to do hit our kids with those softballs. He said something to me forget what it was, but it started me up. I told him those soft balls are mine now. While I am yelling at him I picked up one of their softball bats. I guess he thought I would not hit him with it. He was wrong I tapped him in the head with it. I guess it shocked tge rest of them they all backed off. I had the who's next look on my face. There were no takers so I taped the guy in the knee and left with their bat. I keep stuff like that as throphys. It is not as nice as the Harmon Killabrew model Louisville slugger bat I used as a kid, but it is ok. My two best throphies was the cane sword I took of the leader of the Viceroys. The other was the dumb hat Big Sam used to wear. He was originally a loan shark up in Harlem. Then he became a captain and then a boss for thirty seconds. When my friends from Harlem visit I wear that hat for fun.
I've played on that field in Brooklyn and probably played against you when I was with BW Gottschee. Here's my softball story...not nearly as cool as yours, nor worth two House thumbs up. Playing in a pick-up soccer game in Astoria Park 6 or 7 or 8 a side (it constantly changed as guys would enter and leave with no warning. Some softball team shows up and hitting onto the perimeter of our game (toward their left field...the power lane). Some of there shots go over the the left fielders head and bounce into our game. We stay on the look out for these random hits and continue playing. I get a pass and start moving up the left side, looking for someone to next play the ball to, the smack of a hard hit can be heard from the softball area and there's this deep high hit well out of the left fielder's range coming straight toward me, but its hit so high it still some time for it descends. So much time, that everyone stops and stands still in our game and from the softball guys. I'm perfectly positioned underneath the softball's path. It drops like a rock and I catch it bare-handed with both hands without a bobble; take a skip step and a hop and throw the ball back to the pitcher on one bounce. The 20 or so guys there are speechless. The soccer players have this look of " how the hell, and why the hell would you even try to catch that thing?" I sort of shrug at everyone, look up field and see a player on my side wide open, but decide to step on top of the ball and walk away to defend instead. I played Pony League Baseball into my teens as a catcher and had a decent arm.
One Costanza is worth how many House's? I would have preferred a Kramer, but hey, thanks for the effort!
Played your games at Met oval before they put in the field turf right? They say your not a NY soccer player until you played in Met oval. Funny new teams would play there and had to ask the local people where the field was even some of them did not know where the field was. I loved playing there. I moved to Brooklyn in 1970. Played for Gjoa for my first 5 years there. Then moved to Brooklyn Italians in the CSL then in the Northeast Super division. When my so was 11 years old he played for Gottsche for 2 seasons. They would practice at McCarin park he is in his 40s now