World Cup Games
I take great exception to your article (“Soccer, Schmoccer,” June 26) in which your reporter pokes fun at Americans who find soccer boring. What’s so great about a bunch of men in short pants running up and down a field kicking a ball?
Give me American sports any day. Is there anything more exciting than watching a bowling match, with announcers who whisper and spectators whose exuberance reaches a murmur? Does your reporter actually think that the sound of 70,000 soccer fans screaming is more exciting than hearing 10 bowling pins falling over?
And what sport is more thrilling than golf? I would rather spend two hours watching someone in knickers chase a tiny ball around a park than waste a minute watching the World Cup. As for suspense, my heart almost stops when I see a golfer getting ready to putt, especially when he crouches to count the blades of grass between his ball and the hole. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.
And, of course, nothing can match the excitement of the greatest game ever devised by the human mind: baseball. Where else can one experience the thrill of watching eight of nine offensive players sitting in a dugout? Or the incredible suspense of pitcher, catcher and manager having a conference on the mound? Indeed, the most breathtaking event in all of sports is a pitchers’ duel because it gives fans the chance to spend three hours watching a center fielder scratch himself. Baseball is so exciting it has been adopted by the Japanese, Cubans and little boys in Taiwan. Can soccer match that?
Soccer is also un-American because it is a threat to the free-enterprise system. With no timeouts, concessionaires will be forced out of business. If soccer becomes a major sport in the United States it will signal the return of communism.
F. G. WOOD
Bakersfield
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Congratulations on your Page 1 photo of June 23, showing the U.S. soccer team’s victory against Colombia, rather than Houston winning the NBA championship. It made this country seem a member of the world for once, rather than a special case. How refreshing!
DAVID FEIN
La Jolla
