The continued decline in US Sports

It started with baseball. Cuba and Japan routinely defeat us in our national pastime. Almost as embarrasing, even in basketball the U.S. no longer can just show up and claim the gold medal. But now, even more humiliating, our continued decline on the world stage of sports continues. More humiliating than our baseball losses, worse than the basketball fall from glory...now we can't even place in the World Wife Carrying Championships. Next thing you know we will not even be allowed to compete at Marbles...

1 way to reduce violence in sports

In a complete about-face, I have come to love soccer. Not so much for the product on the field as for what surrounds it. After all, if I were a soccer fan under "Hobbies" or "Special Experience" I could list "hooliganism" and "recreational soccer-related rioting". You must agree with me that would be awesome!


Well, not everyone agrees...some people think violence around soccer has gotten out of hand and are trying to deal with it. So they organized a soccer game to promote peace. It went off almost without a hitch. The only flaw was the post-game brawl....

How dare they!!!!!!!!!!

A raging inferno of revulsion and disgust roiled the sports world today. Accusations were leveled in terms of foul play, malingering, lack of national spirit, and so forth. A great travesty is in the offing, a (sports) crime about to be committed, a lack of comunal good will shown.

Many things have happened to deserve this; Kobe Bryant, the man who helped a room service girl over a chair (with a sensitive part of his anatomy, while married) is a basketball hero (in some circles). Shaquille O Neal, a man who would be called for an offensive foul about 30 - 40% of the time he touches the ball if the rules were enforced is also considered (in some circles) a basketball hero. Barry Bonds, a man famed for his churlishness and (alleged) illegal and rule-breaking consumption of performance enhancers is about to break one of the most cherished records in baseball.

But it is none of these things. No, the crossing of the line of bad taste and good sportsmanship was even worse. The crime? A soccer club is insisting on playing a game at the time it has been scheduled for months.

Their desire to do what they contracted to do many months ago, have sold tickets to based on the time and place....this is suddenly not acceptable to their opponents. Somehow the scheduled game time is suddenly a plot to prevent their rivals from winning some title or other that they would win if the game were delayed 24 hours.

Uh...okay. So they are not being supportive of the countries soccer teams because they want to honor their commitment to the fans? Horrors! This craziness must stop!

I admit it. I am starting to love soccer. No other sport provides this level of entertainment. Oh, sure, the basketball game between Golden State and Dallas the other night was so good I caught myself sitting on the edge of my couch with a big goofy smile as the lead changed, swelled, changed, and so forth...much different than the goal-a-month pace of soccer, but soccer has its bennies. Oh, sure, I very much enjoyed Anaheim's come from behind surge in the third period against Vancouver as the hockey play-offs surge forward...the crunching hits, the slick passes, the amazing goalie saves and the beautiful redirect off the stick of Teemu Selanne for the tying goal and then the rush to the overtime game-winner are hard to compare to the back and forth thumping of the soccer ball...but soccer has its bennies. And while the thrill of a stolen base or dramatic home run have no such moments in soccer, still...soccer has what we need.

I guess what I am saying is that on the field I am still not a fan of the soccer product. But off field it is far and away the best sport. No other sport gives us as many riots, penis tattoos, David Beckham as news because he is shopping for a house, hooliganism, front office chicanery...in short, soccer is far more entertaining off the field than most sports are on the field. Thanks, soccer!

oh, and Beat Manchester United!

Well, at least it wasn't ridiculous

Sometimes people do strange things that still, somehow, manage to come off as pretty cool. Like the guy taking a week to "run" a marathon...still cool because he is raising money for a charity, Children with Leukemia. That is a worthwhile cause, at least. Would I run slo-mo for 26 miles and change? I am going to go with no, here, but hey...he is having fun with it and doing a good deed, so more power to him.

Then again, sheer power is what was displayed by Manjit Singh. He managed to use his ears to pull a jet airplane.

Oh, sure, it starts in good fun to raise money for a charity...I am not sure a "charity" designed to involve more people in sports is on quite the same level as one combating a hideous genetic disease, but...then again...Singh is indescribably much cooler because he wants his stupidity....err, fantastic feat...immortalized in the Book of Irrelevancy and Geekdom sometimes called the Guinness Book of World Records.

Enough already. Okay, people...if you want to do something stupid and pointless, knock yourself out. Lots of people do unbelievably dumb and/or pointless things every year. Do you really have to compound it by annoying us by finding the most outlandish, pointless, useless, counter-productive activities and having them "immortalized" in the tree-killing tome of stupidity?

Soccer scores (now with crunchy sheep flavoring)

Soccer is noted for its (lack of) scoring and the (lack of) intelligence of (some of) its fans. But think how fun it would be if you could combine the two.

For example, what if your local soccer team was sponsored by a local sheep farmer? And even better, what if you were the ultimate anomaly, a goal-scoring soccer defender? Who racked up, say....16 goals? And the sponsorship deal meant for each goal you scored you received a sheep? What would you say to that?

Well, if you were Ivica Supe of Zagora FC, you might say, "I am expecting to score more by the end of the season."

Let me get this straight...the first thing you say when you see your new sheep is you expect to score? Way to go, soccer dude.

Heads I win

The Simpsons the other night approached the growth of soccer as Lisa started to play, and several famous soccer incidents were referenced...such as the headbutt the French dude layed on the Italian dude. Homer got that one off, it was hilarious.

But Lisa complains about Homer not knowing the rules so he watches a great "documentary" involving a 20 year soccer riot. He later excitedly tells Lisa, "I watched a hundred hours of soccer and almost saw a goal!"

It is a classic Simpsons line that embodies one of the greatest objections many U.S. sports fans have to soccer...60 minutes and 2 goals is considered a HUGE scoring game.

Which makes it even funnier when someone scores a goal from beyond mid-field....with a header.

Sadly, even this moment has to be ruined by their wish to have Guiness check it for being a world record. Then again, what else can you expect from a sport with a 19 year old star being on a team called the Holker Old Boys?

Jimmy Hoffa ain't got nothin' on soccer fan

It is a long held belief by many people that former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa was "buried" in the cement under Giants Stadium or somewhere under the turf. So well known is this story that in one Simpsons episode the Springfield Mafia buries a guy under the turf of their local stadium...and the outline of the body sticks high enough above the turf that it trips a player. We all "got" the joke.

Soccer fan studies his history. So when Scottish soccerfan was working on Englands famous Wembley they decided to do their own Hoffa. So they buried Scottish gear under various portions of the stadium. Because, you know, having your scarve under the goalposts will make your players more talented and less Beckham-like...

The dark and seamy side of sports

The NFL got in trouble a few years ago when it came to light certain players had drilled holes in the walls so they could watch the cheerleaders dress. Hmm...over-stimulated males in close proximity to scantily clad hip and chest shaking hotties wanted to see more? I am shocked...i did not see that one coming.

In the NBA there have been numerous such incidents..Kobe Bryant helping the help over a chair (cause butt-rape is always fun), the Jailblazers and their repeated incidents going back to the infamous Utah case...

Baseball has the ever classy steroid issues to go with people slamming fans with folding chairs...

Soccer of course has the penis tattoos, hooligans, and so forth.

But all of these pale in comparison to that most violent and intense of sports...cricket.

Just look at some of these quotes:

Death to Woolmer . . . death to Pakistan," shouted irate Pakistani spectators...

"Death threats," he used to say, "I have had a million of them. They don't faze me. It's part of the job."

In the crazy world of Pakistani cricket, players may have their houses stoned, their names rubbished, their reputations torn down . . .

Shields was recruited from Scotland Yard in 2005 to help curb Jamaica's epidemic of gang violence.
Now he finds himself dealing with a cricketing world where the stakes are just as high.

In the classic words of the Kingfish, "Excuse me for protrudin'..." but did I read that right? The cricketing world is being compared unfavorably in terms of danger to gang violence? I hate to think what it is like in the world of grasshoppers...

Now, I enjoy sports a great deal. I like watching them, I like playing them, talking about them...but heaven help me if I ever reach levels of involvement where I am willing to kill or maim for them or over a result