This Time Commissioner’s Just There for Show

Long before the sellout crowd had parked its cars and revved its verbal engines Tuesday at the Sports Arena, the media was introduced to The Invisible Man.

He was Francis Lykins Dale, no candidate for mayor of San Diego but already gainfully employed as the commissioner of the Major Indoor Soccer League.

It might be recalled that his first significant decision greatly riled the multitudes hereabouts, since it turned a Socker victory into a Minnesota victory in the MISL semifinal series.

Two nights later, it might also be recalled, the Sockers took both Minnesota--and the commissioner--out of the game with a 7-0 whitewash.

The Sockers would, after all, be a party to the championship series, even if they had to “win” four games out of five to do it. The Sockers have become accustomed to firsts, but this was one they would have gladly avoided.

It has been noted since that the commissioner himself had not surfaced in San Diego, and also suggested that he was perhaps a bit intimidated by the possibility of confronting the “wronged” fans.

“I’m not uptight about it,” he said Tuesday night. “I can take criticism.”

The first question was about The Decision, and its aftermath. It seemed that he had angered the Sockers, and done their opponents no favors.

“You said it, I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t do it for that reason. I’m convinced the decision was correct. It happened, and it’s over. That’s the end of it.”

Of course, the poor commissioner had done nothing to perturb the Sockers last week in Baltimore. If anything, the Blast did it itself. It had the audacity to beat the Sockers, 10-6, in Game 3.

Given that embarrassment in Game 3 and the further incentive of a national television audience, the Sockers went out and dismantled the Blast, 14-2, Saturday. That was roughly the equivalent of a 70-7 score in football. It was that bad.

If they needed any further inspiration, they had only to look in the stands. Francis Dale was there, if they knew where to look and what he looked like. They could be excused for not wanting to chance a close game with the commissioner in attendance.

And Dale himself would have preferred a much closer game, but not because he was displeased that the Sockers had won. The national television audience concerned him.

“It was an unfortunate blowout from television’s point of view,” he said. “It was perhaps a classic school for the sport the way the Socker team played, but it was almost too easy. From my point of view and the league’s point of view, I would have been much more pleased with a 3-2--or make that 8-7--game.”

In other words, pour the goals into the nets--but make it plural. Nets.

The Sockers like high-scoring games, but they are not much for sharing the wealth. If 16 goals are going to be scored, they believe 14 is their fair share. Twelve goals? They’ll take nine. We have already established that they figure they should get all of them if a mere seven are scored.

Baltimore went into Tuesday night’s game unaware of the commissioner’s observation that an 8-7 game is nice. The Blast did not want a high-scoring game. It did not want a knockout, because it knew who would be knocked out.

Getting into a frenzied end-to-end game with the Sockers is a little bit like trading bites with a cobra. It’s not way to win, or even have a chance. And Baltimore knew it.

Kenny Cooper, the Blast coach, chose to orchestrate the game. He wanted his team to boot the ball around the backcourt and look for an opening for an occasional thrust.

As might be expected, the crowd was not thrilled with Cooper’s strategy. That was fine with him. He wouldn’t have minded if the whole affair turned into the world’s largest slumber party.

The Blast, in fact, became a mirror-image of the Sockers, who also like to bump the ball around the back and wait for open spaces to manifest themselves. That is the way the Sockers have played, and that is the way the Sockers had won three successive indoor championships in two different leagues.

When the fans saw the Sockers playing conservatively, they started to get antsy--and that too was fine with the Blast. Maybe the Sockers would also get antsy, and forget themselves.

It stayed that way, punch and jab and parry throughout a 1-1 first half. The fans weren’t getting what they wanted and the Sockers weren’t getting what they wanted and maybe the commissioner wasn’t getting exactly what he wanted. However, Baltimore was.

And it was tied, 3-3, after three periods. Except something critical happened near the end of that third period.

Steve Zungul was embarrassed, and maybe a little angry. You know by now how the Sockers react to such emotion.

What’s more, Zungul had embarrassed himself. He had inadvertently passed to Baltimore’s Stan Stamenkovic to set up the tying goal.

Zungul came out for fourth period with the look in his eyes as wild as his hair. It was bad enough losing to (a) the commissioner or (b) Baltimore, but Zungul did not want to lose to himself.

He scored 40 seconds into the period and again 3:24 into the period. The Sockers were finally on top by more than a goal, 5-3.

It was not high-scoring, but it was enough. And the Sockers themselves were finally to meet Francis Dale. They were delighted. He handed them their trophy.