He’s comin! He’s comin!
Posted on January 11th, 2007 – 10:15 AMBy Michael Rand
Yes, that was the full text of a breathless e-mail just received from Twins beat writer/soccer aficionado La Velle E. Neal III (E-3 if you please). Those of you who thought life couldn’t get much better than marrying a Spice Girl need to think again. Because soccer star David Beckham is coming to America for the chance to play in our very own MLS.
22 Responses to "He’s comin! He’s comin!"
Oh come on, be nice to LEN3. If that’s all the substance to his email, no wonder there’s nothing in his writings.
(ooooh, did I just say that out loud?)
Forgive me, LEN3, for I have poked fun at you. You are becoming a better writer with age. 
Smithers, what is this so-called “M-L-S”?
How is it possible that a MLS team can afford to pay $50 million a year for a player?
What are their attendance figures like? Does MLS have a TV package? Seriously — where is all this cash coming from?
Great! Now all MLS needs is about a hundred other world-class players, a league structure that looks something like the rest of the world’s, and a youth system of any kind, and it might just be watchable!
Seriously, unless you’re a citizen of Columbus or Boston or another city with an MLS team, what would make you watch MLS soccer instead of one of the better, readily-available European leagues?
You could pony-up $16 dollars to watch the Thunder at Griffin Stadium in St. Paul. But, only stoooopid people with money would do that.
I agree with Jon. Give me a cheap quality product….him perhaps we should create a new sport where everyone has mallets.
The only way I watch Beckham in the USA is live so I can stare at his wife the whole game.
Like Holden Caulfield ranting at the wind, I feel I must stand up and offer my likely futile resistance to having Proud American boys and girls besieged by “World Cup Soccer”. Thus, these my humble words of dissent…
Despite the mysterious yet enormous interest in “World Cup Soccer”, I must admit I just don’t get it, really never have. I know (since every tv announcer repeats this same tired line) that soccer is the number one sport in the world. Yet, even overlooking (though we shouldn’t) that few countries have anything like the NBA, NFL or even MLB to drain away their most gifted athletes, I still don’t understand why this sport is popular even in America as well.
But, I do remember years back in grade school that I and everyone else first came across what we called kickball when it suddenly appeared one semester in the gym class rotation with the far more fun sports of football, baseball etc. When I asked gruff Coach Johnson what was going on, he said he was being told by the p.c. administration (not his words) that more kids needed to be involved in games like soccer and synchronized walking since baseball, basketball and the rest of our games meant fewer kids were actually on the field playing while the slower and lamer kids were left sitting on the bench.
Voila, so even as a kid I could see that this meant the talent pool of really good athletes was going to be stretched thin and mediocrity would soon appear on our grassy fields, and that’s exactly what did happen with a dozen shin guarded kids running north then south like a crazed windshield wiper switching between slow and off before expertly kicking the ball out of bounds.
But what got me most, then and now, is that American kids are used to swinging for the fences, making the impossible diving catch, in short, using their HANDS and then along comes a sport which, for some completely unknown, nonsensical and fabricated English reason, makes those hands now poison ! But, kickball is fun, don’t get me wrong, but the number one sport in the world ? Please, only if your arms are broken…
Paul - if you must use your hands, play goalie. This might be why American keepers are the best in the world - we spend so much of our time playing other hand-related sports.
And I fail to see how you can argue with soccer being the number one sport in the world, since that’s a fact, not an opinion….
Jon,
Number one sport maybe if you count the heads, but is numbers alone the measure of athletic skill ? Put another way, saying soccer is the number one sport is equivalent to saying “Eat some sh.t. A million flies can’t be wrong”
To me, the sport is still deadly dull..run 10 yards North…kick the ball out of bounds, run south 15 yards..do the same..first score over O wins !!
Gag me, it’s a game for bandy legged men in faggy short shorts…but if you like it, that’s cool. Some people eat carp. To each, their own
Paul,
You could say the same thing about any popular American sport, especially football if you watched the Vikings this year:
1. Hand the ball to some guy, he runs for 2 yards as everyone mushes into a giant pile.
2. Repeat step 1.
3. Throw to some other guy, who gets pasted and drops the ball.
4. Kick to the other team. Go back to step 1.
Who eats carp?
MR,
Football has strategy. Soccer has dump and run. Football has many players with
incredible speed. Soccer has mainly (with some exceptions) European guys who could have made their country teams with few of them making any sprint relay, most of them having white boy speed (no racism in that. Just common truth. Watch the Olympics)
Basically, soccer is OK if you want to watch a random haphazard game ending in very low scores…too slow and boring for me. If you want it, watch it. There’s a reason it’s not covered much on tv. Cable carries some, but they carry everything. I’ve disliked it since THEY (the infamous amorphous they) made us play it during school as a subsitute activity to football etc. Like I wrote above, it was nice to get everyone involved but it set in place the memory that you can’t have 10
million players running randomly toward a weird colored ball with no offense that ever seems to work without ending up with a patently absurd game with guys running around like their hands are poison. Take the game, I guess. A million flies can’t be wrong. HardeHar
Paul, I’m not going to take the bait. Let it be said that I love soccer and I love American football and I don’t see a reason that I can’t love both.
Paul,
Both games look absurd to someone who doesn’t know anything about them. Really, football just looks like people running into a pile for no good reason, if you don’t understand the specifics of the strategy.
Soccer also looks pretty ridiculous–like you said, a bunch of people running around chasing a ball with no semblance of organization or purpose. I enjoy watching it quite a bit because, like football, after you get past the basics, it’s a fascinating game to watch.
Soccer players tend to be phenomenal athletes as well. Only 3 subs are allowed in a game, so that’s 7 field players (at least) running for about 90 minutes straight. A football game has an hour of actual playing, and another hour and a half (at least) of standing around and there are probably what, 30 or so players used in a game?
They’re different types of athletes, but great athletes nonetheless.
I second what Jon says–I love watching both, though I nearly stabbed my eyes out trying to watch the Vikings this year.
I’ve played both…and liked football better as can be deduced, mainly since soccer seemed to lack any easily evident offensive strategy since the D could easily, it seemed, break up any breakaway by kicking the ball out of bounds. Oopsie ! I think the game could be much more exciting if every cheapo out of bounds defensive kick like that would end up in a penalty kick.
I ran cross country and also sprints so I know these guys are good athletes but it’s like watching marathoners run up and down the field. Having endurance is alright, but something is missing from this game.
I know !…let them use their hands…but actually Google the histories (there are various versions) of modern day soccer. It was an offshoot of rugby which DID allow carrying the ball, the current version of soccer then is a relatively recent, near the turn of century offshoot.
But, watching these superb athletes run around like their hair is on fire holding their hands behind them is weird. You gotta admit that ! Why not arbitrarily say one team can use their right hand while the other their left. After all, the distiction was simply arbitrary to begin with.
By the way Jon, go to the Mississippi if you want to see people who eat Carp. The concept of “Mercury” doesn’t translate well and PCBs are only letters…sad but true
Whoa…this whole topic got too wrapped up in why soccer is better or worse than football. Let’s all just think and imagine Beckham’s Spicy Wife sitting in the stands tanning herself in that hot sun in the late summer….
Childress,
Never said much about “better or worse” just exciting or boring…To me watching soccer is like watching fishing shows on tv …. good for a snooze, nowhere near as involving as NFL playoffs …that’s all …for now :
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