A Surfeit of Soccer

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world cup games in dupont circle by cristinabe on flickr.com via a Creative Commons Attribution LicenceFinally, blissfully, we near the Quarterfinal stage of the 2010 World Cup—not because the quality of play increases (mostly) as the teams are winnowed down, not because the stakes are higher and teams play for wins (usually) instead of group stage points, but because we’ll get a break for a few days.

Whew. It’s been soccer day in and day out for nearly three weeks. We get two days off before Friday’s matches.

I’ve watched a ton of soccer this World Cup, as I’ve tried to with every World Cup since 1986 (anyone remember the bright red Budweiser border around the match action on American TV for the Final that year, to deal with the lack of commercial time-outs?), but with online streaming, I’m watching more than I thought I could. Not just the marquee matches, either, but games like Cameroon/Denmark and Slovakia/New Zealand.

Why? Because I live in fear of missing that transcendent goal, that last-ditch equalizer, that stud-perfect tackle or fingertip, round-the-post save. The outcomes of the games are, largely, irrelevant to me as a neutral in those matches, but watching an after-the-fact replay just doesn’t cut it. There’s something quite unsatisfying in seeing a soccer highlight stripped of its game context.

To watch soccer, to spectate, requires experiencing the whole match. Tension is built into soccer, almost symphonically; a goal against the run of play has a much different flavor when you’ve watched the other side dominate, a quick shriek of woodwinds breaking a long melody by strings (assuming woodwinds can shriek, of course). A replay is soccer shorn of that context, and however much I glory at a far post cross met by a header, if I didn’t see that same towering center back almost give up a goal earlier by getting nutmegged, it lacks the nuance that makes soccer such a wonderful sport. It’s just a goal, and not a moment.

And I need a break. It’s exhausting.

(Image courtesy of Cristina Bejarano via a Creative Commons Attribution License)

Explaining the Beautiful Game

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A comment over on Goal, the New York Times‘ fine soccer blog (though I’ve always found it silly that newspapers insist on calling their non-printed commentary “blogs”) got me thinking about the extent to which Americans don’t understand soccer—not from a cultural standpoint, which is a separate topic entirely, but from a technical standpoint.

DSC_9982 by edtrigger on flickr.com via a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives license

Commenter DMacM131 writes, in response to Jeffrey Marcus’ post, “Green Faces the Music; Chaochi Repeats His Mistake”:

As a quadrennial soccer fan, I was in the dark about many actions […] I hope the US team gets a better draw next game… Not the competition, but the commentators. I wouldn’t be offended if a commentator explained some of the baseball rules during the World Series or hockey rules and strategy during the Stanley Cup.

Several other commenters chimed in on this point, arguing back and forth about whether a World Cup broadcast is truly the time and place to explain offsides or the implications of receiving a yellow card. It’s an interesting question, one that gets to the heart of soccer’s struggle to capture America’s interest as a major component of our sporting life (as opposed to being primarily a children’s sport).

Some people are “in the know,” aware of the predominant stylistic differences between the Premier League and Serie A, aware of what a 451 formation looks like and why a team might employ such a structure, and are watching all of the World Cup group games that they can. And some people tune in once every four years to watch the US National Team play on a national free-to-air television network, much as they might have tuned in to “Wide World of Sports” two decades ago to see rugby or motorcycle racing. To whom do you cater? The existing fan, or the potential fan?

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Reflections on the Run

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The Stanley Cup has been lifted once more, and once more, it has been lifted in a city other than Philadelphia. The Chicago Blackhawks quenched a 49-year drought with their four games to two Stanley Cup Finals win over the Flyers, and I must say that they are worthy champions. The ‘Hawks earned the Cup this year.

Let's Go Flyers!

Yet the Flyers aren’t just also-rans in this contest. Their improbable run to the Cup Finals has been well documented, from the last-day-of-the-season qualification for the playoffs (in a shoot-out, no less) through to their resurgence after being down three games to none against the Boston Bruins in the Semifinals. It was a playoff run for the ages.

This year, like most, we believed in the men in Orange and Black, believed on a visceral, almost unconscious level. Didn’t matter that they went down 3-0 in Game 7 of the Semifinals. They’ll find a way. When Scott Hartnell tied up Game 6 of the Cup Finals, we believed. The Flyers find ways.

They lost that game in overtime, and Chicago got the Cup, but really, and not to take anything away from the ‘Hawks, that’s almost beside the point.

This year’s team gave its fans, if not the Stanley Cup, then something worth almost as much: they reminded us why we are Flyers fans. More than any Flyers team since the mid-1980s, this group played with heart and passion, grit and drive. They played smart, disciplined, hard hockey. They played Flyers’ hockey. They just didn’t quit.

If the Flyers had won the Cup, it would have been glorious, make no mistake, but not just because they would have won, but because of how they would have won. Their play might not have always been pretty, but it was beautiful, beautiful in the purity of its intention.

The Flyers played with style. Style matters, and heart is style at its most elemental.

Still More Pop Peanuts

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Pop culture, broadly speaking, refers to the trends, the names, the events that define a particular time and place for the people who live then and there—the zeitgeist, if you will, though focused on particulars rather than the abstract. So it’s no surprise that Charles Schulz’s Peanuts captures much of the culture of its time, even as it transcends its time and becomes “classic” in every sense of the word.

The most recent entry in Fantagraphics’ Complete Peanuts series, 1975 to 1976, ratchets up the popular culture quotient, with references to once-current events and figures appearing with greater frequency than in our earlier examinations of the series. Billie Jean King extends her reign as the most frequent referent (playing, in Sally’s imagination, mixed doubles alongside Harry Truman against George Washington and Betsy Ross, on December 26, 1975), while Elton John, Olivia Newton John, Uri Geller, and the wacky Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes also make cameos (the latter on a television set watched by Snoopy’s brother, Spike, who shows up for the first time in 1975).

The first appearance of a soccer ball in Peanuts occurs in this collection (March 23, 1975, hitting Linus in the head), accompanied by an explanation of just what soccer is, needed for an America that was just getting used to the beautiful game. Towards the end of 1976 (a year with surprisingly few Bicentennial references), Marcie and Peppermint Patty have a nice riff on authors with long names (Katherine Anne Porter, Joyce Carol Oates, and Pamela Hansford Johnson, on December 29, 1976). And when Spike is rebuffed in his quest to hitchhike back to his desert home, he hopes that the family that wouldn’t pick him up gets reduced gas milage from their smog control device. That’s vintage ’70s right there.

But our focus here is to examine the references that haven’t aged quite so well, starting with Spike’s putative job at a Harvey House (August 11, 1975):

The Man From Needles

A Harvey House is a railroad station dining establishment associated primarily with the Santa Fe Railroad (and hence, the American West, whence Spike hails). Noted for their efficiency in feeding diners in strict adherence to the railroad timetable, the Harvey Houses (and associated Fred Harvey Hotels) would have been well known to most adults in 1975, particularly given their spread to interstate rest stops and airports as rail passenger numbers dwindled, leaving a Harvey House as shorthand for any restaurant dedicated to serving travelers.

Of note, Spike’s Needles, California, Harvey House is on the National Register of Historic Places and, as of 2008, was undergoing renovations.

And who, pray tell, is Mr. Frick?

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Bill Lyon on Lappy

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With the NHL playoffs into their second round, Philadelphia’s Bill Lyon returns to the pages of the Inquirer to reflect upon heart, and blood, and the Flyers:

The on-rushing gunner has cranked up a warp-speed slap shot and the puck, a frozen rubber bullet, is zeroed in and dead on, with nothing but ice between it and the goal. So Ian Laperriere, a right winger whose specialty is killing off penalties, follows his instincts without a second thought: He drops and offers up his body as a sacrifice.

He blocks the puck…

…with his mouth.

Ian Lapperriere (14) in DSCF1869 by Dinur via a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives License

Winning Lord Stanley’s Cup takes a special kind of dedication, a peculiar willingness (that is not so peculiar amongst the men who don NHL uniforms) to suffer and bleed for the team, for the prize, for the Cup. Bill Lyon, in one of his rare returns to print, captures this willingness in the person of Ian Laperriere, a grinder, a role player for the Flyers, who only made the playoffs on the last day of the season, in overtime.

What awaits the Flyers now? Elimination, if you believe the popular sentiment.

But do not be so quick to dismiss lightly a team that has a man willing to catch frozen rubber bullets. With his face.

Repeatedly.

Like Bill Lyon, the Flyers hold a special place in the hearts of Philadelphians, both native and expatriate like myself. It’s good to see them both working their trade in May.

(Image courtesy of Dinur via a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives License.)

Skilcraft Still Kicking

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Growing up in a military family, I just took for granted the ubiquitous Skilcraft ball-point pen. They were practically the only pens in the house. They’re what I wrote (and wrote and wrote) with as a student. They wouldn’t quit and they took the beating of the backpack in stride. Only when I branched out on my own did I realize that these pens weren’t everywhere.

Skilcraft Pen image from https://www.abilityonecatalog.com/home

So I greeted the Washington Post‘s appreciation of the Skilcraft pen (“Low-tech Skilcraft pens endure in a high-tech world“, Ylan Q. Mui, Sunday, April 18, 2010, A1) with delight:

For more than 40 years, standard black pens have cluttered the desks of thousands of federal employees, hung on a chain at post offices across the country and slipped into the pockets of countless military personnel. Yet few have realized that this government-issue pen has a history to rival that of any monument.

I might need to order some of these. While I’m very much a thin-point plastic tip user (Pilot Razor Point for life!), sometimes you need a ball point pen, and these are the best around: a classic design paired with legendary writing endurance.

(Image from the AbilityOne Catalog).