Murray’s Cup Fever Turns Out to Be Only a Big Headache to Fans

The headline “The Game Has Tied Him Over” and the first paragraph of Jim Murray’s column in Sunday’s sports section were promising. It sounded like Jim had been caught up, like so many of us, in World Cup fever and in the game that excites fans worldwide. I did not have to read much further, however, to realize that the column was to be a sendup of the anomalies of the world’s most popular sport as they would appear to any football, baseball, golf, boxing, fishing and Indy car-loving American sports fan.

Just what the doctor ordered, another dose of parochial tunnel vision.

MIKE MOORE

Encino

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I love sportswriters who pontificate from a position of ignorance. Take Jim Murray. Please. In his July 10 column, he gripes about soccer officials apologizing for bad calls. What’s wrong with publicly admitting a mistake? Oh, I forgot. In America, we hire defense lawyers and make you prove it.

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Brazil will win. There’s nothing like having the home-hemisphere advantage.

MICHAEL JAMESON

Valencia

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Am I excited that the World Cup final will be played Sunday at the Rose Bowl? Noooooooo. Noooooooo. Noooooooo.

JIM KARLOCK

Hawthorne

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Four years ago you published my letter:

I’ve never seen a soccer game, I never hope to see one, But I can tell you here and now I’d rather watch a rerun. After publication, two executives of soccer organizations called and castigated me severely for panning their programs. But my position is still the same: Boring!

E. HILL

Sherman Oaks

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Allan Malamud is wrong in calling the World Cup third-place game pointless. Your soccer team is only the third best on the planet, so what? You won the bronze medal at the Olympics, big deal?

This kind of thinking reminds me of Ralph Kramden of “The Honeymooners” fame, when he continually told Alice, “I’m the king and you’re nothing!” We must guard against the “Kramdenization” of sports, for as we know, Ralph always got his comeuppance, and so too will backers of this all-or-nothing philosophy.

FRANK WALSH

Santa Monica

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Want to know the three reasons why I now pick up the Times sports section last? Soccer, soccer and soccer.

LLOYD PEYTON

Silver Lake