Home-field advantage
Writing by treason on Saturday, 24 of June , 2006 at 11:43 am
T and I watched a little of the game between Sweden and Germany today. When I mentioned that the U.S. was out because they lost to somebody…Ghana, was it?…he shrugged. One of those if-I-really-gave-a-crap-that-might-be-some-interesting-information-but-since-I-don’t-
thanks-for-sharing-but-please-don’t-feel-like-you-have-to-share-anymore” kind of shrugs. I have spent most of my life trying to develop an interest in soccer. I know one thing: if I can’t find it in my soul to appreciate football, I’m never going to appreciate soccer.
Baseball has become athletic theater: the sport is in its death throes and has already been replaced by football. I told T today - as we were watching the sinewy, tattooed kickers chasing the ball across the grass - that I felt America would never (in my lifetime at least) embrace soccer.
“I disagree. Kids play soccer. That’s where it starts. They’ll grow up, be fans, and it’ll just happen. Soccer will be an American sport.”
Um, kids play in Little League, too, but that’s not going to save baseball. Wondering if T was on to something, I went online to find proof that soccer would become the next national pastime. Instead I ran across an article in The Weekly Standard from Jonathan V. Last. Here’s an excerpt:
“…But there is one obstacle to soccer acceptance that seems insurmountable: the flop-’n'-bawl. Turn on a World Cup game, and within 15 minutes you’ll see a grown man fall to the ground, clutch his leg and writhe in agony after being tapped on the shoulder by an opposing player. Soccer players do this routinely in an attempt to get the referees to call foul. If the ref doesn’t immediately bite, the player gets up and moves along.
Making a show of your physical vulnerability runs counter to every impulse in American sports. And pretending to be hurt simply compounds the outrage. Basketball has floppers, but the players who do it - like Bill Laimbeer, whose flopping skills helped the Detroit Pistons win two NBA championships - are widely vilified and, in any case, they’re pretending to be fouled; they never pretend to be injured. When baseball players are hit by a pitch, the code of conduct dictates that they can walk it off, if they must, but by no means may they rub the point of impact. And pretending you’re hurt? There’s not even a rule against that - every red-blooded American baseball cheater knows nobody would ever do that.
In football, players make demonstrations of their toughness, jumping up after the most vicious hits. In 2002, Donovan McNabb suffered a broken ankle during a game against Arizona. He barely flinched. And he played the rest of the game, too.
For Americans, a sport in which pretending you’re injured is a good thing doesn’t make sense. Our greatest sports moments come from athletes who are really hurt, but hide their pain: Willis Reed playing Game 7 of the 1970 NBA finals with a torn leg muscle; Curt Schilling’s bloody sock in the 2004 ALCS and World Series; Kerri Strug sticking the gold-medal vault with ruptured ligaments in her ankle during the 1996 Olympic Games; Michael Jordan’s 38 points in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA finals, when he was so sick he could barely stand upright.
That’s the American ideal. You play tough, you gain no advantage from being down, and you never, ever let the other guy see that you’re hurt.”
It’s clear to me, then, that America won two World Wars and saved the world precisely because we are not soccer fans. Mothers should immediately pull their children out of soccer camps and petition school officials to drop soccer from the athletic programs. One can already feel the influence of this vile sport on our foreign policy and how we are fighting the current war. It’s obvious that the staff of The New York Times are all fans of this fowl game.
I predict the question of 2008 will not be “Boxers or briefs?,” but instead will be “What is your favorite sport?” We already have a baseball president; perhaps the parties should start examining high school and college yearbooks for old team photos.
If America intends to win the War on Terror, we need a wartime consigliere. A man - or woman - who knows how to compete, crush the competition, and be victorious in any weather. Blitz, block, bomb, hail Mary, and a two-minute warning to you, too. Condi Rice and George Allen know pigskin.
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