A Stitch, Title in Time for Sockers

OK, Betsy, get the needle and thread.

It’s time to knit another banner for those Sockers.

I know, they could have saved a lot of money ordering them by the dozen, but they can only win ‘em one at a time.

I don’t imagine you’ve lost the pattern. You’ve made nine of them already. The guy who really has the problem is the guy who has to haul ‘em down from the rafters and take ‘em to the cleaners.

San Diego needs a new arena just to hold the Sockers’ championship banners.

Dennis Conner could sew them together and make a spinnaker.

And there’s the matter of rings.

Championship rings.

One constant has been there through all those championship years, Ron Newman, the coach. He ran out of fingers and thumbs when the Sockers defeated the Dallas Sidekicks, 8-2, Tuesday night to secure that 10th championship in the last 11 years . . . and fifth in a row.

The Sockers win one more of these and what’s Newman going to do with the ring?

Coach barefooted?

Zsa Zsa would be jealous.

In truth, all of the Major Soccer League is jealous of these guys, even though these guys have been a constantly changing cast of characters through this dynastic period. You leave a lot of tears behind when you win 10 championships in 11 years.

Take, for example, the Sidekicks.

Jan Goossens, one of the better indoor players for years, was knocked out of the playoffs by the Sockers six times before last night. Scott Manning, the goalkeeper, had been snuffed by the Sockers four times. The list continues with Tatu, Wes McLeod and Richard Chinapoo three each. All told, 13 Dallas players had been knocked out of the playoffs by the Sockers at some point in their careers.

Thompson Usiyan had to be feeling some of that frustration, too. He had been knocked from the playoffs four times by the Sockers. One of those times was in the 1985-86 championship series, when he played for a Minnesota team with a 3-1 lead . . . and lost.

Tomo, as his teammates call him, was on the other end Tuesday night because his teammates are now the Sockers.

To get Usiyan in the off-season, the Sockers traded away Branko Segota, their oft-injured and always moody superstar. He went to St. Louis, where he wouldn’t be out of place singing the blues.

Usiyan, a Nigerian who set an NCAA record for career goals at a soccer hotbed called Appalachian State in North Carolina, might have had his finest hour Tuesday night. Or at least his finest 15 minutes.

This series was getting a little scary as the game commenced. The Sockers had won the first three games, but Dallas came back to win Games 4 and 5. It was dreaming of a miracle, of becoming the first team since the 1941-42 Toronto Maple Leafs to come from a 3-0 deficit to win a championship in a major sport, meaning basketball, hockey, baseball . . . or indoor soccer.

And, of course, Dallas was dreaming of beating those dastardly Sockers.

Usiyan made this one game a microcosm of the entire series for the Sidekicks. He turned it into an uphill climb. He made the need for a miracle very immediate and real.

In that first quarter, Usiyan came out like he was placing Shenandoah Tech, or whatever team might have decorated the Appalachian State schedule. He assisted on a goal by Paul Wright a mere 2:26 into the game and then scored twice himself as the Sockers built a 4-1 lead. The second goal was a 9.8 on the acrobatics scale of 10, coming airborne with his right foot after he had left two defenders in Del Mar.

Dallas would not climb this mountain. And Usiyan, who added a third goal late in the game, would be the most valuable player of the first series he finally won.

“It feels great,” he said. “It’s just unfortunate somebody’s got to lose.”

Frankly, he has been there and done that. This tasted so much better he could hardly speak.

Ironically, Dallas won this championship in 1987, the one year the Sockers didn’t. And even then it didn’t get the satisfaction of beating the Sockers to win that championship. Tacoma accomplished that in the Western Division finals.

And so the Sockers pack up another trophy as perhaps the most anonymous champions in sports.

They are, in fact, the first MSL team to win five consecutive championships. This is the definition of a dynasty. Forget a baseball team that manages three straight division championships or a football team that gets to the Super Bowl a couple years in a row or a basketball team that three-peats. The only other professional teams to win as many as five straight championships are the New York Yankees, Montreal Canadiens and Boston Celtics.

Good company, huh?

You know that because you have heard of them.

If the MSL ever kicks it into gear and spreads beyond a few communities and into America’s psyche, these Socker teams will finally get the recognition they deserve. It’s kind of like having to be dead to sell a painting.