Strikers Have Sockers, History Against Them

Two constants are meeting in a best-of-seven series for the Major Indoor Soccer League championship.

One of these constants is the San Diego Sockers, who always win the big ones, and most of the little ones as well. This team is a dynasty in an age when most team champions have reigns about as long as Miss America.

The other constant is that teams from Minnesota never win the big ones. Minnesota teams have played for four Super Bowls, a World Series and a Stanley Cup, and have come away with bouquets but no rings.

Hubert Humphrey lost and this state thought it appropriate to name a stadium in his honor.

This is the legacy the Strikers inherited as they opened the series against the Sockers Friday night in the Sports Arena.

In fact, when folks back home in the Twin Cities are not pondering what Kirby Puckett puts in his cereal, they are skeptically wondering if maybe this time one of their teams can do more than just play in a championship series.

They would like to win one of the dang things.

Indeed, one of the ironies of the world of sports is that teams that consistently lose championships are labeled as losers, whereas teams that never make it to the postseason are protected by mediocrity.

However, that is the way it is. And the Strikers are talking like maybe they just might be the team to succeed where the Vikings, Twins and North Stars failed. Maybe they can make the state forget it even lost its football coach to Notre Dame.

No easy chore confronts these guys.

The Sports Arena does not have the mystique of Yankee Stadium or Boston Garden, but there are those four championship banners hanging from the rafters. Bob Bell probably has the 1985-86 banner mothballed in his cedar chest.

And the Sockers are not winning all these championships with a static cast of characters. Gone now are people named Donnelly, Hilkes, Gross, Mayer, Geyer, Rohmann, Wieczorkowski and, of course, Zungul.

Minnesota is likely drawing some hope from the fact that it won all three regular-season games from the defending champions. It should remember that the Sockers do occasionally lose little games.

Last year, in fact, the Sockers entered the championship season with a regular-season record of 0-3 against Baltimore. This was projected as a classic series, perhaps the first time the Sockers would really be challenged.

It might have been, except Baltimore had the audacity to beat the Sockers, 10-6, in Game 3. This was a bit like sticking out your tongue at Andre the Giant. The Sockers won Game 4 on national television, 14-2, and wrapped it up in Game 5.

Minnesota understands the consequences of playing the Sockers when they are riled by what they perceive to be an injustice. These teams met in the semifinals last year, and the Sockers thought they had wrapped it up in four games.

This was when the fabled Dale Decision reversed the outcome of Game 4 and forced a fifth and deciding game. The Sockers won, 7-0.

It would seem, thus, that Minnesota’s best chance will be niceness. The Strikers should send flowers and candy to the Sockers’ locker room and offer to carry their bags and maybe come by and weed the garden.

The Strikers should also hope that Commissioner Francis Dale makes no bizarre decisions that cause their adversaries to feel maligned.

In truth, the Strikers have little control over what might get the Sockers perturbed. The Sockers can be motivated by fights with their owner, their coach, their wives, their neighbors and even each other.

Indeed, they likely entered this series with lingering anger from the semifinal series with Tacoma. They lost Game 3 amid taunts from the Tacoma fans and a bit of hot-dogging from Tacoma’s players. This was no way to treat a dozing rattlesnake.

And so it was that the Strikers came to town, bringing with them the unfair but very real losing legacy of an entire state.

Their coach, Alan Merrick, said all the right things, which is to say he oozed with praise for the Sockers. What nice fellows they are and how skilled they are and do any of them need their cars washed?

What’s more, the Strikers arrived at the Sports Arena to learn that Branko Segota, the Sockers’ best player, was out with an injury. This was like losing the cleanup hitter or the quarterback.

These Sockers had won 25 consecutive home playoff games, but maybe--just maybe--they would be vulnerable in Game 1. Maybe these Strikers could break service.

Not exactly. Not by a long shot.

Branko Who? Was someone named Branko missing?

It didn’t look like the Sockers were missing anyone of consequence. Was Segota really in the lineup dressed to look like Hugo Perez? Or Fernando Clavijo? Or Jean Willrich?

He didn’t have to be. Those guys don’t need any help playing themselves.

In the game itself, the Sockers did not play with much emotion. Not at all. This was not an effort borne of anger or embarrassment or frustration. They simply put on a clinic on how the indoor game is played.

One game does not a series make, of course, but maybe Minnesota better start thinking about betting the farm on Kirby Puckett.