Why can't baseball make up its mind?

Just when you think you’re out, they pull you right back in. And this time it’s the veritable Mafioso of whiners and complainers out there finger wagging and indignation that seems almost unnatural given the subject matter.

That’s until we see that it’s July and the roster for next week’s All-Star Game had just been announced.

On the scale of injustices occurring these days, it appears as if All-Star “snubs” to guys like Joey Votto and Heath Bell rank right up there with racial intolerance, economic malfeasance and the BP disaster. Of course I’m basing this all off the acrimony and dissent put out on social media outlets, which I’m sure is an accurate representation of all trenchant discourse.

So at the risk of sounding like the PR department for BP, let me put it out there for all the outraged and disenchanted out there…

Get over it!

There, I said it.

OK, I’ll agree with the argument that Joey Votto, Josh Willingham, Billy Wagner, Miguel Olivo and Colby Rasmus should be All-Stars. I also understand that Omar Infante should not be an All-Star if not for any other reason than he doesn’t qualify for the league leadership in most offensive categories. But I also know that in this instance we should, to borrow a phrase, hate the game and not the player.

See, the All-Star Game and the process for which players are chosen is ridiculously flawed. If there is any injustice here it’s not that certain deserving players get left off, but the argument occurs as all. Major League Baseball wants to have it both ways with its broken and, dare we say, stupid system. It wants a showcase where fans can celebrate the game, yet also wants a meaningful contest where something is at stake. That’s not a case of making a cake and eating it, too, that’s pure intellectual dishonesty.

With its All-Star Game set up the way it is, Major League Baseball clearly thinks everyone is dumb… and that’s just mean.

In no other major sport do they pretend that an exhibition is truly meaningful and then hamstring the teams by forcing them to take players that may not be worthy. Just think how Charlie Manuel feels about trying to win a game that is being marketed with the slogan, “It counts!”yet being told that his starters will be a bunch of guys that won a popularity contest on the Internet. If that isn’t enough, he has to select a utility player, a non-closer reliever, and any starting pitcher to play in the Sunday game before the break is not eligible for the All-Star Game.

But you know, it counts.

If baseball wants to have a show, have a show. Do what the NBA does with its All-Star Game where it’s a weekend of parties, dunks and fancy, environmentally deficient cars, lots of showing off, Shakira, and at the end, two minutes of basketball played by the best athletes on the planet. The NBA makes no apologies, either. Instead it touts that it has the best All-Star Game out there and they might even be correct if only for the fact that it doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

The NFL does pretty much the same thing, only most players bag out of it since it seems silly to play an exhibition football game after a long season. Maybe the best way to improve the NFL Pro Bowl is to make it a flag football game, or a “Battle of the Network Stars.”

That is if such a thing as network stars even exist anymore.

I’m not even sure if the NHL has an All-Star Game, but if it did, even the hopelessly disorganized NHL wouldn’t put on an All-Star Game the way MLB does. It just doesn’t make any sense and everyone can see that. Think about it… you have probably been in fantasy football leagues better organized than the NHL and if that league sees the folly of the baseball All-Star Game, then it’s really quite obvious.

What Major League Baseball should do is make a decision whether it wants to have a showcase for its fans or a real game with its best players. Truth be told, there is no way to do both and even the most rational fan would argue that the best way to showcase a sport is to have the best players and teams in meaningful games. That’s what happens in Europe with soccer’s Premier leagues and Champions League. Understanding the simple fact that sports fans — the core audience for baseball, by the way — want their games with no frills, bells or whistles, soccer is perfect. There are no commercials, no fluff and no extraneous goofing off. For no more than two hours you are going to get the sport and nothing else even if it has to go extra time.

It’s so simple that it’s genius. If anyone wants to know why soccer is the most popular sport on earth it’s because they don’t get mixed up in all the sideshows or waste anyone’s time. Instead, they allow the fans to make that choice.

In the meantime, Charlie Manuel is going to Anaheim with a compromised club. Worse, he’s being told he has to win or his side won’t get home-field advantage in the World Series. Maybe if he truly was able to select his players it wouldn’t be so bad, but y’know, it’s a show…

Only it’s not. They say it counts, except it doesn’t.

Confused? So is Major League Baseball.

USA for Africa

Bob Bradley is a smart man. As the coach of the U.S.World Cup team headed for South Africa on Monday, Bradley has to be pretty sharp. So when listening to the coach speak after games it’s best to listen to the words he’s not saying as opposed to what is said.

Now this isn’t to say that Bradley is performing avant jazz by bebopping and scatting confusing and cryptic phrases on our ears. No, far from it. However, following the 2-1 victory over the national team from Turkey on Saturday afternoon at the Linc, it was evident that the coach believes his team has some more work to do before its first match against England on June 12.

Again, Bradley wasn’t hiding anything, but then again he really didn’t have to. There was no conspiratorial tone from Bradley whatsoever. Still, it seemed as if Bradley was trying to sell the notion that everything was going to be OK.

Certainly that’s a relative term when it comes to U.S. soccer in international competition. Still, based on the team’s painful 0-3 showing in the last World Cup and the experience of the players on the current roster, Team USA has to be a little better than OK. It’s the round of 16 or bust in South Africa for the U.S.

Still, Bradley touched on a few themes after Saturday’s game against Turkey. Call them buzzwords for a lack of a better term. Based off a first half where Turkey clearly outplayed the U.S. and took a 1-0 lead into the locker room and a second half where Bradley’s team dominated the action, those terms were reaction, transition, response and most importantly, understanding.

In other words, Bradley is still doing a lot of team building and teaching with his team with the World Cup to begin in 11 days.

“The type of game we were in pushed the team very hard and that’s what you want from a game like today,” Bradley said. “The response, especially in the second half, was a strong one. We did a good job pushing through the second goal, we had a couple of chances to get the third goal, but when you consider everything that’s gone on the last few weeks it puts us in a good position and I think now we’re ready to move on to South Africa.”

See, he thinks the team is ready. Bradley knows there are still plenty of question marks with his team, and though the game against Turkey ended well, it should be noted that it is not a team that will be competing in the World Cup and is currently rated 29^th in the latest FIFA world rankings. So when Bradley talks about the team pacing itself during the first half it raises an eyebrow considering goalie Tim Howard exploded out of the penalty area to bark at a teammate for some perceived lackadaisical defense.

If the U.S. team was pacing itself, someone forgot to tell Howard.

“We were a little all over the place,” Howard said. “I’ve been saying that’s been something we have to try to get better at, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it.”

Of course there is the notion that the U.S. team was still trying to figure out some things. During the first half the team looked slow and disorganized—reaction and response as Bradley pointed out—but when the coach subbed in Jose Torres and Robbie Findlay and paired them with star midfielders Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, everything clicked.

In that regard, yes, there was an understanding of what the team can do and who can do it. That will be valuable when the team gets going in South Africa—especially considering the team has a favorable draw in its group. Sure, England is No. 8 in the FIFA rankings (the U.S. is 14^th), but there are two winnable games against Slovenia (23^rd) on June 18 and Algeria (31^st) on June 23. Potential opponents in the round of 16 are Australia (20^th), Ghana (32^nd), Serbia (16^th) and the always tough Germany (6^th).

No, the U.S. is not going to win the World Cup. At least not until the next Kobe Bryant and LeBron James opt for soccer instead of other sports.In other words, this could be a very good year for U.S. Soccer… that is if it can take care of a few issues before the games start. That means no more repeats of the first half of the game against Turkey in Philadelphia.

“It was a slap in the face what happened in the first half and they hit us hard,” Howard said. “They were getting too many chances, too many good opportunities and good looks that we had to tighten up. …”

Like Howard said, there isn’t a lot of time to iron it out, but Bradley remains positive. He has to.

“There’s a lot of things on the field to build on, a real good push when we got behind and in the end a good heartfelt win against a good team so, in that regard, we accomplished a lot,” the coach said.

Now they have to accomplish something in South Africa.

Union help prove soccer's viability in U.S.

It’s not something anyone would expect to hear about the sports fans in Philadelphia, but coming from Danny Califf, it’s a high compliment. After all, Califf, the captain of the Philadelphia Union, was not talking about the city’s football or baseball fans, which have a long and infamous reputation. 

No, this was deep. This was significant.

“It was very European,” Califf said, dropping the ultimate compliment of respect on his new hometown fans.

"It's passion," he added. "Passion for the game. It's all about passion."

Indeed, just two games into their existence and following the hometown debut in a “rented” stadium, the Philadelphia Union made such an impression on Califf and his teammates that it was if the home of the football Eagles had been transformed into Nou Camp in Spain or Stamford Bridge in England. With the Sons of Ben leading the charge in the north end stands, nearly 35,000 soccer fans were in full voice for more than 90 minutes.

Yeah, that’s right. Soccer fans. In Philadelphia.

Say what you want about the sport, its fans or its popularity in the United States. Go ahead and say it. Now prepared to be wrong, because you are. Soccer is very much a popular sport in America and in Philadelphia. In fact, MLS commissioner Don Garber told reporters just that at Lincoln Financial Field during the debut home match for the Union. Better yet, Garber said, Philadelphia had exceeded the expectations the league had for the first-year expansion team already.

Just two games into its existence.

“Without the Sons of Ben this team doesn’t get launched,” Garber said.

That’s a pretty significant statement, too, because no one ever hears Bud Selig or Roger Goodell say a team was placed in a city because its fans were really into the sport and the team. Instead, those guys talk about bottom-line type things, market share and economic development. The MLS understands its niche and its fans. More importantly, the league isn’t about to insult the intelligence of the fans.

So don’t expect the MLS to attempt to wedge its way into the American sports gumbo with football, baseball, basketball and NASCAR. That’s just not going to happen. Don’t expect it to fight with other sports to get a piece of the cash flowing from TV deals either with weekly broadcast games of the week in order to be successful. That’s because American soccer has something much more important than anything that can be storyboarded into a flashy gimmick like the major four sports have…

Soccer chooses to go small. It’s just smarter that way.

Sure, they could have sold more tickets for the Union’s opener at the Linc on Saturday, but 35,000 was where it was capped. The new stadium expected to open next month in Chester will hold just 18,500 fans for soccer built with the sport in mind. That’s the best way to build to strength of the league, the commissioner says, by focusing on its base.

“We think you need a soccer-specific stadium,” Garber said, citing the desire to create an intimate atmosphere at the games with a scarcity of tickets, too. Perhaps if there aren’t as many tickets to be found, more people will want them?

More importantly, soccer has the really small ones—the kids.

Yes, the sport that is ignored by the American viewing public could very well be the most popular sport there is. Better yet, since the 1970s, when Pele, the great Brazilian soccer star came to America to play for the New York Cosmos in the old NASL, kids have been swarming to the fields only to leave the game behind for baseball, football and basketball when they reached adolescence.

But that’s not likely to be the case in the future. With fewer athletic scholarships trickling around, and the physical requirements that other sports carry to simply get a kid noticed, more and more specialization is the rage. Kids are finding their niche at an earlier age and painstakingly honing their craft.

Of course they burn out quicker, and the single-minded focus on one thing isn’t exactly mentally or physically healthy or even the best way to go about getting little Johnny that big scholarship to State U., but that’s a different argument for another day. The point is kids aren’t giving up on soccer for the glamour sports anymore.

Here’s a simple experiment to try out:

Drive by any suburban (and maybe even urban) playground, school athletic complex or grassy field. Once you get there, look for the kids and note what sport they’re playing. Nope, it isn’t hockey or football or even the great American Pastime. It’s soccer.

And it just isn’t at one school or the one little field around the corner. It’s everywhere. And they have sponsorships, too, from the giants like Nike and adidas as well as the local restaurants and car dealerships. Hey, that’s where the kids are. Get ‘em while they’re young.

Certainly, this isn’t anything new. Soccer has always been one of the first participatory sports that kids play just because it’s such a simple sport to learn. All you need is a ball, a net at both ends of a field and some kids to run around. That’s it. In fact, ask anyone from the age of 40 or younger what the first team sport they played as a child was and chances is it was soccer. If it wasn’t the first sport then it was definitely the second one.

Oh, but there’s more. Where I live, within spitting distance from Franklin & Marshall College’s athletic fields, soccer rules. Those fields, which are approximately a mile-and-a-half wide and a half-mile deep, and tucked between a residential neighborhood and a copse of woods, could be the most popular spot on campus. Or at least, the most well visited spot for the community-minded college.

A few years ago, those fields used to hold five soccer pitches, seven baseball diamonds, and a rugby field. There was always a flurry of activity on the weekends with kids and the parents filling up the neighborhood waiting for the chance that team after team could jump on one of the fields for soccer game.

But over time, it seemed as if the fields had become too quaint or maybe it was time to cut down a few trees to expand the grass back to the Conestoga Creek that winds its way through the neighborhood. There were just too many teams and too many kids standing around and not playing. Frustration grew and people started going elsewhere to play.

That is until Franklin & Marshall came up with a better plan.

It got rid of most of the baseball fields.

Now the kids play soccer all year round. Even in the summertime, camps of boys and girls teem from morning to dusk, tearing through the grass doing drill after drill while the summer days just wile away.

Somewhere else they’re playing baseball.

America's Past Time

As the World Cup of soccer heads in to its third week, the inevitable cry from the American press regarding the sports’ popularity in the states seems to have flaked out like spores from a dandelion in a wind tunnel. As always it was the same tired, old self-aggrandizing meant to do nothing more than belittle “the world’s most popular sport” ugly American style. But this time around, the questions about whether soccer can remain ingrained in the public eye after the World Cup passes on until four years from now flickered and faded. No, not because the sport is going to be mixed into the American sports gumbo with football, baseball, basketball and NASCAR. That’s just not going to happen.

Soccer in America doesn’t need the marketing arm of NBC, ABC/ESPN or FOX with weekly broadcast games of the week in order to be successful. That’s because American soccer has something much more important than anything that can be storyboarded into a flashy gimmick like the major four sports have…

Soccer has the kids.

Yes, the sport that is ignored by the American viewing public could very well be the most popular sport there is. Better yet, since the 1970s, when Pele, the great Brazilian soccer star came to America to play for the New York Cosmos in the old NASL, kids have been swarming to the fields only to leave the game behind for baseball, football and basketball when they reached adolescence.

But that’s not likely to be the case in the future. With fewer athletic scholarships trickling around, and the physical requirements that other sports carry to simply get a kid noticed, more and more specialization is the rage. Kids are finding their niche at an earlier age and painstakingly honing their craft.

Of course they burn out quicker, and the single-minded focus on one thing isn’t exactly mentally or physically healthy or even the best way to go about getting little Johnny that big scholarship to State U., but that’s a different argument for another day. The point is kids aren’t giving up on soccer for the glamour sports anymore.

Here’s a simple experiment to try out:

Drive by any suburban (and maybe even urban) playground, school athletic complex or grassy field. Once you get there, look for the kids and note what sport they’re playing. Nope, it isn’t hockey or football or even the great American Pastime. It’s soccer.

And it just isn’t at one school or the one little field around the corner. It’s everywhere. And they have sponsorships, too, from the giants like Nike and adidas as well as the local restaurants and car dealerships. Hey, that’s where the kids are. Get ‘em while they’re young.

Certainly, this isn’t anything new. Soccer has always been one of the first participatory sports that kids play just because it’s such a simple sport to learn. All you need is a ball, a net at both ends of a field and some kids to run around. That’s it. In fact, ask anyone from the age of 40 or younger what the first team sport they played as a child was and chances is it was soccer. If it wasn’t the first sport then it was definitely the second one.

Oh, but there’s more. Where I live, within spitting distance from Franklin & Marshall College’s athletic fields, soccer rules. Those fields, which are approximately a mile-and-a-half wide and a half-mile deep, and tucked between a residential neighborhood and a copse of woods, could be the most popular spot on campus. Or at least, the most well visited spot for the community-minded college.

A few years ago, those fields used to hold five soccer pitches, seven baseball diamonds, and a rugby field. There was always a flurry of activity on the weekends with kids and the parents filling up the neighborhood waiting for the chance that team after team could jump on one of the fields for soccer game.

But over time, it seemed as if the fields had become too quaint or maybe it was time to cut down a few trees to expand the grass back to the Conestoga Creek that winds its way through the neighborhood. There were just too many teams and too many kids standing around and not playing. Frustration grew and people started going elsewhere to play.

That is until Franklin & Marshall came up with a better plan.

It got rid of most of the baseball fields.

Now the kids play soccer all year round. Even in the summertime, camps of boys and girls teem from morning to dusk, tearing through the grass doing drill after drill while the summer days just wile away.

Somewhere else they’re playing baseball.