From The History of Soccer: The Beautiful Game, which Brien and I have been attempting to watch for the past few weeks (999 minutes is a lot of soccer). Perhaps this explains the lack of interest in the World's sport on the part of Floridians (and Americans):
"Americans have great difficulty understanding the attraction of soccer because American games can be segmented into individaul acation and individual statistics. Soccer has continual fluid action. American games are fairly high scoring, and nothing to nothing games are something you cannot sell in America." - Henry Kissinger
"They didn't undstand it. I mean I don't undstand baseball or basketball. The Americans were the same. They didn't undstand the offside law. They didn't understand most of the stuff they were watching. The only time they made noise was when there was a goal. That's as much as they knew about football." - George Best on the now defunct North American Soccer League.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
FREAK!!!!!!!
Maybe. Best has a bead on it - Kissinger's a little off. "Nothing to nothing games" abound in baseball, America's pasttime.
Beep Beep,
I was going to say how baseball is no longer THE national sport, as football and maybe even basketball have passed it in national interest. But then I saw a couple of the "Baseball is..." posts from the last month and remembered where I was. ;)
( Has America's national pastime switched from the rawhide to the pigskin? )
Beep Beep,
There is no such thing as a Nothing Nothing game in baseball; baseball games are played until a tie is broken (i.e. extra innings) so a 0-0 game is impossible.
However, while lowscoring games do exist in baseball (as in soccer), I think Kissinger has a point - baseball is still uniquely individualistic. This appeals to the spirit of American individualism, and helps solidify it's spot as the national pasttime. e.g. The only individual stats that anyone really cares about in soccer is goals scored (or allowed if you are a defender/keeper) and maybe international caps, while a baseball card contains a picture and a host of statistics from on base percentage to batting percentage to ERA, etc. A true soccer fan will love a good game, even if there is no score, because the game itself is fluid piece of art. And if what Best said is true, that most americans only get excited about soccer when a goal is scored, then it's safe to say that most Americans don't appreciate soccer for what it is - the beautiful game.
Brad,
College football is hands down the national pastime of the South. Florida is not the south, therefore baseball continues to maintain its top status, although no one can deny that Florida produces some damn good football... A wierd place, this Florida.
As for basketball, it never ceases to amaze me. Any game whose power base is both the inner city (street ball) and the corn fields of the midwest (cf Hoosier) is something special. And the NBA remains a league dominated by black players, coached/sponsored/paid for by wealthy whites, and the dream place for both high school dropouts and college graduates. That's wierder than Florida.
I don't deny that Florida is weird. However, UF/FSU/UMiami football combines for a much bigger fanbase and more media attention than all the college, minor league, and MLB baseball games combined. (Coral Springs Christian Academy respectfully excluded.) Throw in the Jags/Bucs/Phins of the NFL and it tips the scales further in favor of football in this state, imo.
As for basketball, it is an odd mix, but I love it.
Where does golf fit into this equation? It's a game of solely individual achievements and stats, but has a much different following in the US. Fans don't have a strong association with individual golfers like they do with a university or even a pro franchise. Do fans of Tiger Woods, for instance, give each other high fives in the street and yell "Go Tiger!" when he wins a Major?
I think the bottom line is that Americans have short attention spans. Soccer, "The Beautiful Game", is a slower, low-scoring game, and it's not one most Americans grew up with. Even baseball takes an appreciation of the subtleties of each pitch in order to want to sit and watch a whole game. (I don't have this appreciation.)
Baseball is individualistic? 'Sif. If you've got a team where you have one good hitter--just one like, say, A-Rod--but the pitchers can't pitch and the fielders can't field, you're still screwed. Contrarywise, if you've got a mega-awesome pitcher like, say, Randy Johnson, but no one can hit or field, you're still screwed. And, similarly, if you have one person who has moves on the field like an exceptionally graceful cat--take Nomar Garciaparra, for example--but no one on the team can hit or pitch, you're still screwed.
I mean, look at where these guys came from. I don't know where A-Rod was before the Yankees (largely because hey, his team wasn't making any big dents in the Red Sox' post-season dreams). Arizona had one stellar season, but the next season, they stank. And Nomar? Well, you're not seeing the Cubs making the playoffs recently, are you?
Point being that individual stats in baseball only matter if they are good for the entire team. A team with a great batting average is stunk without a great ERA. A game with no errors is great, but not if the other team is earning runs left and right. Teams don't win the World Series by being individualistic. They win by working together.
Case in point: the 2004 Red Sox. There were no heroes. Sure, we all cheered for Curt Schilling's ankle, and he was a real trooper, but if he'd pitched that nice clean game and no one had ever scored, his bloody ankle wouldn't have mattered. Manny and Papi? Well, great, but without Schilling's clean game, who cares?
I mean, the same argument could be made for football and, to a lesser extent, basketball (I say "to a lesser extent" because it's certainly not true in America...basketball players here are so individualistic that even though we invented the bloody sport, we couldn't place higher than third in the Olympics last time). Contrarywise, I could argue that soccer *is* individualistic, as you do have those individual scores, and people hail individual players as heroes as much as they do teams.
...
Damn, that was a lot of diatribe.
~Abby~
Post a Comment