Apparently the head of America’s leading dog-fighting organization says he’s “ashamed and embarrassed” his sport has been tarnished by association with the NFL. Badum-TISH!
Has anyone made this joke yet? Probably not; we’re too busy sniggering about the Beckhams.
Americans aren’t used to being around internationally famous team-sports players, and it’s great fun watching half the county pretend not to be interested while the other half screams its head off with excitement. There’s a new spot on The Soup. It’s about the Beckhams, and it’s titled “Somebody Call Immigration.” Which is funny.
Last week’s gag was that—after watching Beckham’s debut for the LA Galaxy—we learnt that “soccer is played by people over 10 years old. Who knew?” Um, just about everybody.
I don’t mean to carp. Posh ’n’ Bex are legitimate targets. But “Americans don’t get soccer” gags? In 2007? What’s next, gags about TV dinners?
Around 25 million Americans play soccer. More female Americans play soccer than in the rest of the world combined. Youth soccer dwarfs Little League and Pop Warner football. Many more U.S. TV viewers watched the final of the soccer Gold Cup than watched the final of the Stanley Cup. The Marine Corps has a team. When the Pilgrims arrived, the natives not only spoke English, but they were also already playing soccer.
Which makes soccer more American than all the supposedly American sports combined.
And while we’re on the subject: What sport did George Washington personally play at Valley Forge? Was it a) slippery pig wrestling; b) NASCAR; or c) cricket?
Yes, cricket—the most American of sports; you heard that right. And why was America in revolt? Because Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II, died from injuries caused by being hit in the head with a cricket ball, clearing the way for mad, colony-losing George III to ascend the British throne. In short, no cricket, no America.
And please don’t give me any guff about cricket and soccer being boring. How would you know? If you stripped all the ad breaks, time-outs, dancing girls, hot-dog cannons, Frisbee-catching dogs, fireworks, mascots in fat-suits sumo wrestling, and all the other mind-numbing, intelligence-insulting, attention-span-wrecking, wacky, tacky, plastic, prepackaged razzmatazz out of baseball, basketball and football, what would you have left? Who knows? Can anyone remember?
It’s no coincidence that cricket, rugby and soccer crowds are renowned for their singing, chanting and boisterous culture. While crowds for U.S. pro sports sip weak beer, waiting to be entertained, sending up the occasional feeble cheer when so instructed by the electronic scoreboard.
You know what’s really funny? Many Major League Soccer crowds contain organized groups of fans determined to put back into American sports some of the carnivalesque, bottom-up, noisy fun that’s been driven out by canned music and the atmosphere-destroying demands of TV and commercialization.
Meanwhile, sports fans in Europe and South America protest the introduction of dancing girls, canned noise and commercialization.
They call it “Americanization.”
I have no punchline.