Sockers Sing Rooster Song, Want Title to Crow About
In the song, the cow can’t produce milk, the chicken can’t lay eggs, and the elephant has no tusks.
Before too long, a wise old rooster comes along and helps them all solve their problems. Wondrous what can happen in an old Irish proverb, isn’t it?
The Sockers’ rooster is midfielder Brian Quinn, who, by the way, is Irish. With boosts from both his vocal leadership and his MISL-leading 17 playoff points, the Sockers are back where they were a year ago, playing the Baltimore Blast in the best-of-seven MISL championship series starting at 4:35 tonight in Baltimore Arena.
Quinn brought the rooster song to this country from the pubs of Ireland. He only sings it when the Sockers accomplish something significant. An important victory, or a championship. Nothing else.
“It’s not just like a number-one single that gets sung every day,” Quinn says. “There’s more to it than that.
“It’s a story of trials and tribulations, when your team has an uphill struggle and then you win and it’s a relief. The rooster comes through again.”
How appropriate. A more troubled team there may never have been than this year’s version of the Sockers. For a while, it looked as if they wouldn’t even make the playoffs, a rather amazing thought considering they have won seven championships in eight seasons and haven’t missed the playoffs since their first indoor year in 1980-81.
“I think a lot of people counted the Sockers out this year,” said defender Kevin Crow. “You can’t blame them. But we never lost faith. We knew what we were capable of doing.
“This season definitely shows we know what it takes to get there. The experience of the past years has helped.”
The Sockers didn’t dwell on their 25-27 regular-season record. In spite of six months of mishaps, they entered the playoffs with the attitude that they were once again the team to beat. Consequently, St. Louis fell, 3-1, in the Western Division semifinals and Dallas fell, 4-2, in the division finals.
Now Baltimore.
The Blast had the best record in the MISL during the regular season at 32-20. And they have a score to settle with the Sockers after losing to them in three previous championship series. Who can forget last year’s dramatics?
A flashback:
In Game 1, the Sockers watched their two-goal lead fade in the final minutes and wound up losing in overtime. Game 2 was won by the Sockers on a crazy goal in overtime by veteran forward Steve Zungul.
The Sockers won Games 3 and 4 at home and had a chance to wrap up the series in San Diego. But they lost Game 5.
Back to Baltimore. The Blast, down 3-2 in the series, stomped on the Sockers, 7-0, in Game 6. Two days later, the Sockers won the championship, 6-5, in a classic game in which Baltimore came back from a 6-1 deficit in the fourth quarter.
The celebration included drinks at the bar and you-know-who singing the rooster song.
What are the chances for an encore?
Quite good, if you listen to St. Louis Coach Don Popovic, who said a few weeks ago that the Sockers would win the title if they could get passed Dallas. The Sidekicks tested the Sockers’ ability to endure bumps, kicks and elbows and they survived. This series should be decided by finesse.
The Blast is an interesting study. At a glance, they appear to have slid downhill since last season. Part of their original nucleus departed when David Byrne was traded to Wichita, and Kai Haaskivi and Mike Sweeney were chosen by Cleveland in the expansion draft.
Still, what Baltimore has that Dallas was missing is diversity. Stop Tatu and you stop the Sidekicks. The Blast doesn’t have anyone with his ability, but they chip away with a handful of pesky, scrappy players, including midfielders Billy Ronson, Paul Dougherty and Mike Stankovic, defender Tim Wittman and forward Domenic Mobilio.
Mobilio, a second-year player, typifies the Blast as much as anyone. He finds ways to score goals but rarely does it spectacularly.
“It’s very difficult to understand Mobilio,” Socker Coach Ron Newman said. “He scores a lot of goals, and yet you don’t feel threatened by him. Every time Tatu got the ball everybody would focus on him. Sometimes you don’t do that with other players. I think Mobilio is one of those.”
Newman would like to exploit Baltimore’s youth, though he says they are a team with few weaknesses. The Sockers are perhaps a bit less versatile than the Blast, who call on their players to fill a variety of roles. Baltimore will often score with defenders and defend with forwards.
The Sockers are still looking for more from midfielder Branko Segota, who wasn’t much of a factor in the Dallas series until the final game, when he had a goal and an assist. Another player who could lift the Sockers is forward Damir Haramina, who has still only shown glimpses of the shot that made him such a threat two years ago in Kansas City.
As for the entertainment value of this series, who knows? Without high-profile players such as Zungul, out with arthritic hips, Byrne and Haaskivi, interest will have to come from the performances of the teams.
It has been said that each time the Sockers win a championship the MISL loses a bit of credibility. Maybe, but the Sockers will think about that later.
“As a player, you can’t worry about what’s good for the league,” Crow said. “If your league isn’t going to make it because of a certain team winning the championship then, the way I look at it, it doesn’t belong anyway.”
Socker Notes
The Sockers have a lot of nicks but are all scheduled to play. On the injury list: Defender Kevin Crow (abdominal strain), midfielder Branko Segota (left hip bursitis), defender Cacho (right ankle strain), defender George Fernandez (right knee bursitis), forward Rod Castro (left hip flexor) and defender Ralph Black (shoulder strain). . . . Rookie defender Don Cogsville was not brought on the trip.