Are non-journalistic blogs really the stuff threads are born of? Should we start a thread here for every MLS related blog on BigSoccer, too?
BSguy, do you own this blog? This is the second time now that you post an irrelevant article from this "news source".
not sure what the fuss is. blog posts spawn threads all the time on bigsoccer. if you think its a crap piece thats something different all together.
With all due respect to the auther, his comment that "the problem that existed between 1820 and 1996, was that there was no truly unified and national professional soccer league in this country" simply isn't true. National leagues in baseball and football were confined to the northeastern portion of the country -- draw a line from Washington DC to St. Louis to Chicago to mark their southern and western boundaries. Professional soccer too was concentrated in the northeast. The ASL was our league, and it was far, far better and popular than most people realize. At least 11 key players on the 1930 World Cup team that reached the semi-final were drawn from ASL teams, including the Fall River strikeforce of Billy Gonsalves and Bert Patenaude. Thankfully, Colin Jose has collected the history of the league, along with some great photos. My favorite -- sorry, I've only seen it in the book, so no link -- is a U.S. Open Cup Final match between Bethlehem Steel, in their Rangers like blue shirts and white shorts, against Fall River in their Celtic like hoops, playing before a huge crowd at the Polo Grounds, which was the home of "big game" soccer at the time. Here's what the stadium looked like after 1923 and in another big game during Hakoah Vienna's tour: Bethlehem Steel, Fall River Marksmen, New York Giants, Brooklyn Wanderers, Hakoah, Boston Wonder Workers, New Bedford Whalers. None survived the Depression. Had they survived and the affiliated "western league" been formed with teams in St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit to play a final much like in baseball, the game's development in the U.S. would have been completely different IMO. Instead, it struggled for over four decades before the NASL increased it's profile. What might have been . . .
Not to mention that the US had a pro soccer league as far back as 1894. I thought the Princeton-Rutgers game was in 1869.
Holy shit, that entire web site sucks. One article states: "Two weeks ago Commissioner Don Garber made some very disturbing remarks to the Associated Press. He indicated that MLS has to sign more foreign players and resemble European football more than it does currently to win over masses of football fans in the United States." He did? I sure as hell didn't see an AP article with those quotes.