I lurk here a lot, but rarely post. Even more rare is a thread started by me. But I stumbled on this the other day I thought some of you might get a kick out of it. Was digging through my closet the other day, and I came across a yellowing Ft Worth Star-Telegram sports page dated Wednesday, October 18, 1995. Now why on earth did I still have that? Turned a few pages and there was the answer. It was the paper's MLS unveiling, that's why. Two articles and a graphic. Took some doing, but I was able to scan the graphic outlining the teams of the league. http://www.geocities.com/lonestar0912/MLS95.html This was the first time I saw the original team locations and names. I remember not being all that thrilled with some of the names, but that's old hat in these parts. Here's what Gil LeBreton had to say about the Burn unveiling........... In quasi-dramatic fashion, general manager Billy Hicks pulled the ceremonial rope yesterday and waited to unveil the nickname and logo of Dallas' newest professional soccer team. Ahem. I said, he pulled the rope. (Tap foot and insert nervous laughter here.) OK. He got a ladder. Untied the knot. And then he pulled the rope. Ta-dahhh. And on that auspicious note, the Dallas Burn was introduced. Dramatic, perhaps, but still. Just some fun history regarding the first steps of the league and club.
Nice scan. Would love it if you could scan or type up the articles too. This is also interesting: http://www.tomathon.com/AKITA/AKITA5.html
That's a typo - the real color was WASABI ! Asparagus - the most intimidating of the green vegetables..
LOL...OMG! Asparagus?! LOL Lone Star...thanks for the posting. * Asparagus? I can only imagine the next day some one at MLS HQ's going "Asparagus?" * Hugo Sanchez. How did he do? Did he play at all? * Wiz....tee-hee. * New York-NJ MetroStars. A team for two states!
Wasabi is the Designated Player of green: spicy, exotic in a foreign sense, known to be feared by those who confront it. Asparagus is the hack spare center back of green: tall, skinny, rather bland, known to be feared by those who confront it. Kinda like Clarence Goodson, pre-2007, pre-Big Balls Goodson.
As interesting as the "MLS: The Early Days" stuff is, I had more fun with some stuff I noticed while scrolling through the other articles on that site. Such as the following from an article on a Long Island RoughRiders/Shamrock Rovers match - spelling errors those of the writer... "And with it, the NYC amatuer league Shamrock Rovers New York, plus some friends, families, and random aquaintances, arrived litterally by the bus load. Heaps of Celtic supporters, wearing The Hoops. Joy. For those of you who don't know, The Hoops are the green horizontinal striped shirt worn by Dublin's Shamrock Rovers, The Great Glasgow Celtic, and Irish Clubs throughout the world." Hoops. Joy. And this, also from the same article. When reading the following, in order to fully appreciate the soon-realized irony it is important to keep in mind the POV of the writer - he's a Metros supporter - and remember that MLS hasn't yet played it's first match... "We stood along the fence for the entire second half, not ten yards from the RoughRiders goal, and yelled rude things at Tony Meola. If you ever get a chance, I highly recomend yelling rude things at Tony Meola. He never learned that coping mechanism everyone else did in kindergarden: ignore it. Consequently, he got incredibly flustered and pissed off at us, the opposing players, his own side, and the officials, and almost got sent off. One time he bumped his toe and went into this huge pantomime about it, writing on the ground untill the stopped the clock for him. It was such a transparent act that the ref carded him. So what does he do but, tem minutes later: he does it again. This time he's pointing at the other toe, and doesn't even have the common decency to fall over. He just stands there, yelling at the phisio, yelling at the ref, pointing at his foot. I talked to a guy who's friends with the ref a few weeks later, and he told me that the ref was about to send him off, but only pulled back when he realized that this would disqualify him from the USISL championship. Any way, while this big scotsman yelled unrepeatable things at Tony. We sang "there's only one Brad Friedel" and "Sampson doesn't need you" punctuated by shouts of "Near Post Tony!" When the Irish guys started asking for him to come over and sign some autographs (and just what he could sign it on) during a slow patch, he began playing looking at only one side of the field..." Ah, memories...
I can't be the first one to think of this ... ... but an Inferno chant for a game against KC might go: Take the Wiz! Or a pro-KC chant: Let's go wiz! How does that stuff get by the geniuses that own these teams? Can't say that NY Red Balls is any better, tho ...