I checked Sunday's late edition, Sports Section. The MLS results were lumped together in a short piece below the BIG story -- a WNBA game. Unless I missed something in the Business Section, the NY Times ignored the opening of HDC. It never happened. Pele' was not in town. Becks didn't show up to wow the kids. The parade of MLS saints and angels? An illusion. The Depot doesn't exist as far as the NY Times is concerned. If it weren't for the fact that I need a big Sunday rag to provide for 3 large bird cages, I'd just pass on the Gray Lady. On top of its recent exposure as a haven for fiction and plagerism, I discovered a bit of historical ignorance couched in a review of a short story collection in Books of the Times today. (The reviewer offered a paragraph example of the author's fine style -- in which US Grant was credited as being the Union commander at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Sorry, but Grant was over a thousand miles away on the Mississippi River, making plans against Vicksburg at the time. Burnside was the boss at Fredericksburg. Which dismantles the cute anecdote the author constructed involving Grant's attractive green-eyed great-great-great-grand daughter, and the great-great-great-grandson of a soldier at the battle, making both author and reviewer appear either professionally lazy or just plain stupid. But I digress). The opening of HDC was a statement on so many levels -- sport, business, culture to name three --that to ignore it is to ignore the very reason why the Times is supposed to be in business. I am all the more surprised because the Times has been relatively generous in its coverage of the MetroStars, MLS, WUSA and our national teams. I can only suppose the recent shake up at the paper, with editors coming and going, resulted in what must be called a glaring oversight.
lmao thats disappointing to see. here in the Wichita Eagle (Wichita, KS), there was a tiny story about the HDC opener. Something like, "The L.A. Galaxy beat the Colorado Rapids 2-0 in their home opener at the new HDC". Something like that, at least.
Let's s see: Yankee pitcher (Roger) going for 300th win NY bred horse going for triple crown Devils one win away from Lord Stanley's Cup Nets in NBA finals ........ Soccer isn't on most sports editors radar.
least star ledger had some coverage nice picture .. although it was ap... cant count on ny times for mls coverage more than you could count on sportscenter
If by "relatively generous" you mean "they cover it when they feel like it" then yes, I agree completely.
in la we got a full page of soccer today. 3 articles on the game the stadium and the fans. and then a bunch of smaller side articles on the soccer world in general. if u want soccer in the papers ur best bet is la. the tv news casters are way too stupid to report it they never played a sport in their lives so for them to even know whats going on in pointy ball is amazing let alone real football. later.
The Times has Jack Bell and Alex Yannis. When they cover soccer it's usually good. But they don't appear in the paper very frequently. My Sunday edition of the NYT had nothing on the MLS games on Sunday at all. Granted, some of the night games may be difficult given the paper's deadlines. But the LA game was in midafternoon on the east coast. I would have thought that one of the two writers that cover soccer would have wrangled a trip west to cover the opening. After all, the former Cosmo Pele was there. In my Sunday sports section there was plenty of fluff and stories on sports even more obscure than soccer. Sure the Belmont Stakes and NJ teams in the playoffs and the Yankees take precedence. But how about a couple of column inches devoted to your first place soccer team?! All in all, the NYT is a pretty poor source of soccer news. The Washington Post beats the Times six ways to Sunday on soccer coverage. The Post has beat reporters that cover DC United and the Freedom. Steven Goff went to Richmond to report on the US game after covering the United game on Saturday night. The Times is still worth reading (but sadly less so given the recent revelations), but you have to get your soccer fix elsewhere.
That's true; it is also wrong, since the opening of the stadium is news on many levels, as I said. To ignore the news is a professional failure; if the FAA operated such a 'radar screen,' inflight disasters would be an hourly issue. It's high time the radar got fixed. The HDC story is equal in importance to any of those listed above -- again, for reasons beyond those that any soccer fan might offer. The entire facility serves tennis, track-and-field, and an indoor velodrome. There was room in the sports section for this story, had a real editor been in charge, instead of a good, old boy on remote control. If it hadn't been for the stadium opening I would have shrugged off the minimal reporting of game results. But this failure to report the news does not flatter what purports to be the journal of national record.
I got it. I think I really got it. Attending Saturday's game at the HDC was such a mind-blowing event that I think I've had a spiritual awakening (although, that it took me so long to come to this conclusion, it's certainly of the educational variety ). I don't care if soccer never gets its fair eyeball-share in sports TV. I don't care if we never actually get on the air when we call in to sports talk radio. Nor do I care if Graeme bleeping Jones becomes the Galaxy beat-writer. Euro-respect? Bah. Who needs it? Respect from Mexican futbol asi. I call the game soccer, the field a field (sometimes a ballpark), the clothes worn by the players uniforms, the shoes cleats, and my team's home alternately Victoria Street or "The HDC". There are others who think differently on some or all of these points. That's their perogative. The reason for this revelation? I went to a soccer game and enjoyed myself. Tremendously. So did 27,000 other people. I was entertained. There may be others who think the quality of play was inferior. That's nice. Really, bully for them. There may be others who could give a rat's red ass that there was a soccer game in Carson. Their loss. I had a good time. End of story. I can continue to attend soccer games and continue to have a good time. Others can continue their lives, as well.
Maybe it was a bit of that East Coast V West Coast rivalry thing. East Coast has been talking about building a soccer stadium for years. West Coast talked about about , then did it.
MLS was conveniently completely ignored this week in my local news paper, as it often is. Even though it's still like 1950 here it's sad that soccer is completely ignored again and the new stadium.
I just watched the news and the opening of the stadium was the main sports story. Plus, it was an NBC station so that sort of say alot.
Yes, but isn't this mainly due to the Chargers tie-in to HDC? Aren't they supposed to be using facilities at HDC for their preseason training or some such?
You mean they're going to play pointyball on those sacred real football fields. This is an outrage! Sorry.
Not really, no. As a matter of fact they didn't mention it this time. It was a nice sequence...they were talking about yesterday's San Diego Spirit game then he said "Speaking of which...the final for the Women's World Cup will be held at the new soccer specific stadium in Carson" (or something to that extent.) From there he went on to talk about Pele being there for the match as they showed highlights of the game. They also had an interview w/the San Diego Socker's head coach because he went up to "observe" it.