Yes latino baseball players have been around a long time, but it is only fairly recently that they have been so numerous in MLB. Over thirty years ago, MLB was heavily dominated by native-USA/Canadian players, with few latino players and no asian players - and by that I don't mean players with hispanic surnames, but actual imports from outside North America. I can remember when a non-USA citizen in MLB was extremely rare, and it was not that long ago, historically speaking. Remember prior to the 1965 immigration reform it wasn't that easy to immigrate into the USA. Also, more than thirty years ago the rules in international football made it very difficult to import players. That changed, however, for political and other reasons that have little to do with purely sporting or cultural issues. I can remember what MLB and European football was like thirty years ago (of course in the case of Europe I wasn't living there, but I was reading about football over there in the newspapers, in Soccer America, in Soccer Digest, etc.). My distinct memory was that starting in the late 70's, and picking up speed in the 1980's, both European football, and MLB (followed later by the NBA and NHL) started to import more and more non-native players. Both Europe and the USA followed pretty much the same pattern. Both the top MLB teams and the top European football clubs are very heavily staffed by non-native players today but that was not the case over thirty years ago. This has been part of a global pattern of change, and it was not something that was initiated or pioneered by MLB alone.
NFL Europe is a joke. They only have six teams, one in the Netherlands and the rest in Germany. Sure it looks impressive on paper that they "averaged" 18,965 in 2005, until you factor in the fact that they only played thirty games in total: As someone else pointed out, what is that compared to 7 million Europeans watching a water polo final on TV? There are probably as many or more Europeans who have watched that water polo final than have payed to watch all of the NFL Europe games combined. And water polo isn't the only sport besides soccer that can kick NFL Europe's butt when it comes to European interest: team handball, basketball, field hockey, ice hockey, rugby union, rugby league, lacrosse, cricket, rounders, even baseball and softball are all team ball sports with varying amounts of support and interest in Europe which dwarf NFL Europe by comparison. If the NFL did not fund NFL Europe today, NFL Europe would disappear tomorrow and be completely forgotten by most Europeans within a week. Unlike soccer in the USA, gridiron football has zero committed long term fan base in Europe or native born players of the game in any significant amount; yes there are a handful of amateurs trying to play gridiron in Europe just as there are a handful of amateurs trying to play aussie rules in the USA, but they are completely irrelevant. These are sports that simply don't have any roots in these countries; NFL Europe is entirely a creature of the NFL and would not exist without the NFL paying the bills. We've been hearing these "facts" about basketball for twenty years now. Basketball has been a major sport in South America, Asia, and Europe for a very long time now. Basketball has a big following. But it's never going to overtake football as the world's sport. There are lots of other sports that are "gaining ground" on football, simply because they are already so far behind: cricket, rugby, handball, basketball, baseball, softball, lacross, field hockey, ice hockey. They are are or have been "growing" faster than football at one time or another, but all sports hit a plateau in their growth. Unless you think basketball is somehow going to be unique and keep on growing forever, the fact is that it is going to plateau just like every other sport, and at the end of the day football will still be at the top in terms of total world popularity.
Given that he got suspended for not taking a drug test at the required time, I guess we'll never know, especially as a later test was clean. Lots a doubt both ways on this.
And why is he always lecturing us on how we have to change soccer to make it more appealing to people who don't like soccer, especially since he does not like it? Remember this post the next time he tells us we have to "Americanize" soccer so that it can "succeed" in America and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a "Euro-snob". I've often suspected that the loudest voices calling for "Americanizing" soccer are coming from people who don't really like or understand soccer at all, and finally we have some proof. One would pray devoutly that these people take their "helpful advice" elsewhere and ruin some other sport that would be less harmed by their advice....like, say, roller derby, or something.
Americans don't "dominate" sports anywhere nearly as much as we like to think. American medals at the Olympics look impressive, for instance, until you factor in the population size of the USA. For our size, we don't dominate the Olympic medal race. Countries like Australia do much better, per capita, at winning Olympic medals or other international competition. Face it, we Americans just don't care as much about sports as we like to think; certainly not about international sport. We like to think we are the best at everything, so we assume we are the best at sports as well, but we are not. If we were really serious about sports we would fund them properly and have a department or ministry of sport just like a lot of other countries do, but we don't. Americans really don't care about sports that much, and if someone suggested funding the USA national teams with taxpayer money, he'd probably be called a commie or something. Tax money to pay for an NFL stadium? No problem. Tax money to pay for our Olympic teams? No f_cking way, man, keep your hands out of my wallet, Uncle Sam!
I've also heard plenty of American baseball fans, announcers, and journalists denigrate soccer; it is not just something done by the gridiron people. I don't recall American basketball or ice hockey people denigrate soccer, but then again there aren't as many of these people in the American media. IMO the two top sports and their supporters are the ones who feel most threatened by soccer. Basketball and hockey are a bit more niche sports in the USA compared to baseball or gridiron, and are more recently "arrived" as major sports in the USA, so they can remember when they were the new kids on the block, too. Maybe they don't feel it is their job to haze the new kid (ie, soccer) the way the older jocks do.
Don't you just love it when some idiot decides it's his duty to speak up for the whole world.Maybe in your stupid little world nobody cares.That's ok with me.Notice i'm speaking for myself only.
You're obviously part of his stupid little world.That's ok with me too.When you start talking for everyone on the planet that bothers me.
stupid little world is a bunch of american soccer fanatics gathered on an internet site you'd realize it if you had a life, moron the world out there couldn't care less
Well, soccer fans may be few in number in the US at this point, however, if the USA soccer authorities decide to push the sport by getting big corporations behind it! And, if we begin to put more emphesis on developing our young players to the International style of play and get involved in more international matches - well I would venture to say the USA might get real BIG real soon!!!!
Bestianera from Valvasone! Would that be Italy? If so dude - Yea you guys lucked up and won the 2006 World Cup and I congratulate you for that! But, before you start bad mouthing American soccer fans - you might want to help clean up the graft, corruption and sleazy reputation of soccer in your country!! Doesn't do well to set an example for others!
Surely you don't know what the word means since you've never had any.You're too busy swallowing the big one.
The world's two favorite sports -- soccer and complaining about America -- all in one convenient thread!
It seems like everyone, no matter what country you are from has found a way to embarass themselves in this thread.
Make that soccer and soccer bashing as the two biggest. Bashing America comes third. Afther that, we are stuck with NASCAR .
"O primeiro caso de doping no Europeu sub-21 foi este domingo tornado público pela UEFA. O ucraniano Dmytro Nevmyvaka foi suspenso «provisoriamente de todos os jogos internacionais, isto depois de o defesa ter acusado positivo num controlo antidoping a 1 de Junho, após o jogo com a Sérvia e Montenegro». " Translation (short version): An Ukranian player suspended following a positive test for "doping" during the Eu sub-21 in Portugal this Summer.