Frank Deford, USA-Today and others sound off about soccer

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

What a game, my friend. What a game.

My buddy has a tape of that, and every time I visit him, we watch it. Smoltz the rookie vs. Morris the ol' grisled, championship vet.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

That's much better. And what's up with Hanks' neck? Longest neck, ever.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

And for most of the world, baseball is boring.

Boring as batshit. Like watching paint dry. Or worse.

Three and a half hour games. Guys who stand around and do nothing for 75% of the time.

At-bats which are longer than a filibuster.

But yet, you'd say, "They don't understand the game"

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Nope. If they don't like it, it's not going to take the maple syrup off my pancakes.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

This has to be the most original thread I've ever read.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Oh, come on. This is about a great journalist saying incredibly . . . interesting . . . things about a certain sport.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

No, not the writing in the link by Frank. The thread itself I mean.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Keep in mind that this isn't a piece that Mr. Deford wrote. Rather, he's being quoted by a reporter. It's notoriously hard to be funny in print, secondhand. Perhaps you misread the piece.

"Soccer in America has had every chance. We reject soccer, that’s
fair to say,” [this is emphatically true for the vast majority of the
American population, as regards soccer as a spectactor sport.]
says sports pundit Frank Deford, who is happy to lay
out the reasons soccer causes him to hold his nose.
“There’s not enough scoring, and ties make no sense,” Deford
says. [Also true in the eyes of many millions of Americans.]
But Deford isn’t finished. “There’s really a lack of proficiency
in the game. God didn’t intend for us to use our feet and our
heads. [For the humor-impaired, Deford is exaggerating for comic effect here.]
Though what soccer players do with their feet and their
heads is extraordinary, it is in the same way that spinning plates
is extraordinary.” [And here again.]
And don’t get him started on soccer’s offside rule, which prevents
attacking players from standing any closer to the opposing goal
than the other team’s last defender.
“That’s simply un-American,” Deford says. [Again, he's being facetious, using a rhetorical
exaggeration, while at the same time trying to illuminate some traits of the American character.]
“We’re all about forward, forward, forward, in sports and in our society. From the
19th century onward, we have not taken to soccer. It’s almost as
if it’s not in our DNA to like it.” [This is demonstrably and historically true.]
“Kids in this country may grow up playing soccer, but most seem to
stop playing it fairly early in life because they lose interest,”
Deford says. “In the end, that proves that it’s a game that’s not
to the taste of our top athletes.” [As is this. Also demonstrably and
historically true.]

While I have no interest in the fight over soccer's success or failure in the US, I have a deep and abiding interest in the nuances of humor - and in trying to riddle out certain young readers' smug disrespect, and near-Herculean capacity for misunderstanding what they see on the page.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Ah, I see. Since I asserted that Mr. Deford's statements were funny to me, and that he has seen better days, you feel compelled to defend him. Regardless of how many people share his opinion, I saw some of his statements as being yes, amusing.

You choose to read it and say "I happen to like Deford's work! Therefore, he's being FUNNY!" I choose to read it without goggles that allow my respect for his work to cloud my opinion, and say, "Wow, just another basher with little of note to add to an old discussion. Other than, of course, repeating some jokes that were funny during the Nixon Administration." 

To each his own. I do not question his opinion, I merely take issue with the expression of it. You found a way to bash me for pointing out the curmudgeonly way he expresses himself in what again is a very interesting article. Fact is, he might be trying to be funny, but the jokes are all old as hell and stopped being funny a long time ago.

And argue it all you want, but to me his comments about soccer being "un-American!" with no support other than a simple dislike of the sport sound like something Hank Hill and the boys would say as the world passes them by.

Perhaps that's the joke he's making? Perhaps his statement, his attitude are a brilliant satire of people who used to say such things and actually believe them?

If so, then bravo, Mr. Deford, bravo.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

"That boy's as sharp as a pound of wet leather." [/Hank Hill]

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

One of these days, I'll get a just explanation on why 1-0 baseball games are labeled "gems" and considered pieces of greatness, while a 1-0 soccer match is just boring. I've yet for a seamhead to offer a just reason for this lack of consistency.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Not every 1-0 game is a gem.

That 1991 Game 7 of the World Series was a gem.