Ruth Didn’t Have Aaron, but Zungul Does Have Segota

To appreciate the presence of Steve Zungul and Branko Segota in the same lineup, consider a baseball lineup with Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron.

That happens, of course, in table and computer games, but Zungul and Segota are flesh-and-blood legends.

Both play for the Sockers.

Segota is the 24-year-old wunderkind who plays Aaron to Zungul’s Ruth. Zungul, at 31, will establish the records Segota will stick around and someday break.

Indeed, Zungul’s 48 points made him the leading scorer in the Major Indoor Soccer League going into Friday night’s game against Tacoma at the Sports Arena. Segota was third, five points behind.

Understand that this fellow Segota is not exactly a rookie. The fact that he started playing indoor soccer professionally at the age of 17 gives him a head start. Aaron, for example, did not hit his first home run until he was 20.

As boyish as Segota looks at 24, it would be hard to image him as a downy-cheeked teen-ager beginning a professional career with the New York Arrows. He had to look more like a runaway than a professional athlete. The old “What’s My Line?” panel would have figured him for a bus boy--or hall monitor.

Fortunately for Segota, he did not have long to aimlessly wander at the mercy of the literal and figurative cutthroats who populate the concrete jungle. A teammate quickly befriended him.

Steve Zungul.

“I came to New York from Toronto,” Segota explained, “but it was still a big change. I had heard of him in Yugoslavia, but I met him for the first time when I came to New York. I’ve learned a lot from Steve, and he’s my best friend.”

For one thing, they share the Yugoslavian language. Both were born in Yugoslavia, Segota moving to Canada with his family when he was 7. Though he was essentially raised in Canada, he never lost his love for the Yugoslavian national sport.

“Everybody played soccer,” he said. “They talked of it in town and they had it in the newspapers. It’s like football and baseball here. I came to Canada and I still loved the sport. I’d play it in the snow with a tennis ball.”

Of course, Canada does have one other national sport. That would be hockey, and Segota played that as well. He probably thought he had to learn to skate to get his Canadian citizenship--which he got.

However, Segota’s career--and the sport of soccer--were to undergo a transformation on the North American continent. That traditional game of his Yugoslavian youth, outdoor soccer, was to wither and die of apathy.

And that new game--indoor soccer--would be born. This was a game which blended the skills of outdoor soccer with the quickness of hockey. Segota could play both of those sports, and he was to take to indoors like an orchid in a hot house.

Segota was fourth in scoring at 17, third at 18 and second at 19. These were times when outdoor was still alive, though in the midst of a death rattle, and Segota left the MISL for three years to play the more traditional game. He came back to indoor last year with the Sockers, and finished third in scoring.

“I think indoor is a great game, but outdoors is the mother sport,” he said. “I was brought up with it and it’s more in my heart. There’s nothing available in outdoor, so I put my mind in this game.”

Indoor soccer’s hat trick is the same as hockey’s hat trick--three goals in a game--and Segota has already done that four times this year. He scored four goals and had an assist against St. Louis last Saturday.

He is on a tear, and only one thing can seemingly stop him. That would be his love for outdoor soccer.

You see, Canada has qualified for the World Cup competition, and it would like the services of its adopted son. With the blessing of management, he will miss five Socker games while competing for the Canadian National Team.

“Every kid’s dream is to play in the World Cup,” he said. “The World Cup is bigger than the Super Bowl. Soccer is the national sport of 30 to 40 countries. How many places is football played? The Super Bowl and World Series aren’t even close.”

Not too many American youngsters aspire to play in the World Cup, but Segota has to be excused if he dreams those dreams from his not-too-distant younger days.

And the World Cup competition will merely interrupt his indoor career, not end it.

“Playing in the World Cup will fulfill one of my dreams,” he said, “and then I’ll come back to indoor and try to fulfill more of my dreams. I’d like to win a couple of scoring titles and a couple more championships.”

Scoring titles will come. Segota kicks the ball with such velocity that it hardly seems safe to sit behind the glass near the enemy goal. Shots leave his feet like a golf ball leaving the face of a two-iron.

Championships will come too. These Sockers win championships as routinely as the Yankees of many years past, when Babe Ruth did not even have the benefit of playing with Hank Aaron in the same lineup.