Watching Soccer Is Like Being in Heaven

Outside Seattle’s Seahawks Stadium as Manchester United opened a four-game American tour Tuesday, a young Baptist minister held a sign that read, “Soccer nuts -- Fornicators -- Repent!” reported David Willis, a BBC correspondent.

Someone asked the minister what that meant, exactly.

“It’s all about worshipping false gods,” he said.

The fan supposedly had a quick retort, with almost 67,000 gathered to see the world’s most famous soccer club:

“Well, you’re whistling in the wind here, pal.”

Good story -- if it’s true and not some of that British humor that sometimes gets past us.

The tour continues Sunday at the Coliseum against Club America, with the final stops at East Rutherford, N.J., and Philadelphia.

Trivia time: The Pacific 10 Conference led the nation with eight NCAA titles during the past academic year, just ahead of the Southeastern Conference’s seven. Name the four won by UCLA and the two by USC. (Stanford won in men’s cross-country and men’s water polo.)

Final frontier: Soccer is the perpetual next big thing in this country, but even the run to the World Cup quarterfinals by the U.S. men last year hasn’t given players much of a profile.

“No one knows what MLS is,” Carlos Bocanegra told the Miami Herald. “ESPN has a contract with MLS, and they don’t even put us on ‘SportsCenter.’ Even NASCAR is bigger than us, which is weird.”

Not so weird: NASCAR has proved a television ratings bonanza. NBC’s broadcast of the Pepsi 400 last month drew a 6.0 rating and a 13 share, ranking fourth among the 18-49 demographic for prime-time programming that week behind only the movie “Independence Day” on Fox and NBC’s “For Love or Money” and “Law and Order.”

Couch slouch: Televised golf doesn’t do much for syndicated columnist Norman Chad.

“If golf is a good walk spoiled, golf on TV is a good nap spoiled,” Chad wrote. “I’d rather watch Craig Kilborn host a Friars Club roast for Tom Arnold than watch Davis Love III address a ball....

“I mean, you look at what the religious fundamentalists are saying about us and then you look at how we create entire cable channels devoted to cleaning club heads, and frankly, I’m starting to think the fundamentalists have a decent point about our culture.”

Bake sale: Kevin McHale, Minnesota Timberwolf general manager, said a fifth team temporarily complicated matters in the four-team deal that sent Latrell Sprewell to Minnesota.

“I’ve found out one thing,” McHale said. “Five general managers can’t make a cake, but four can.”

Trivia answer: UCLA won in women’s gymnastics, softball, women’s water polo and men’s soccer; USC in women’s golf and women’s volleyball.

And finally: No, soccer clearly has not arrived in this country, even as Manchester United tours the nation.

Consider the story on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Web site about David Beckham -- sent from Manchester United to Real Madrid for about $40 million last month -- as he joined his new teammates.

The headline called the team “Read Madrid.”