When Californians Root For Earthquakes

The crowd began stamping and shouting, "Earthquakes."

"Where?" I might have asked, turning my head quickly in alarm. You never know with California.

But in this case, they were not announcing seismic activity; they were urging the local Major League Soccer team on to greater action. San Jose stuck by the motif that you should name your sports team after something fearsome, possibly what you fear most: hence "Earthquakes." By this same logic, the Seattle baseball team fears invasion by sailors--Mariners--and the Chicago American football team fears being devoured by bears.

Some of you might argue with this premise, but I would point out that I have a blog, and as far as I know, you do not, so I win.

The point is, on Saturday I went to see a live professional soccer game for the first timein my life, a fact which appalled Marina, considering I spent a semester in Wales. She had seen DC United in action out in Washington, D.C., and took in el classico while studying in Spain--Barcelona versus Real Madrid.

San Jose plays on the campus of Santa Clara University at Buck Shaw Stadium. Wembley Stadium, it is not, but I'll take it:





The atmosphere differed from a baseball game in that it was much more low-key, and yet the crowd was happy and enthusiastic, draped in Earthquakes gear. It had something of a grass-roots festival feel, with little mini-activities for kids before the game, as well as good beer, food carts, and the usual concession suspects: hot dogs, garlic fries, candy, hot chocolate, beer, etc. Marina had a close encounter with the mascot, as well.




At 7:30, the game commenced. San Jose was hosting Toronto FC, who recently traded their star Dwayne De Rosario--a former Earthquake--to New York. It was fascinating compared to watching it on TV. It was at once faster and more compact than I realized from seeing games on the screen.

It was a hard-fought game, with a lot of possession exchanged in the midfield, a lot of fouls, a lot of tempers flaring. Three players stood out for me for San Jose: Bobby Convey, Simon Dawkins, and Ryan Johnson.

Bobby Convey I've watched since he was a teenager playing for D.C. United and the national team. He went to England for a while, and then returned to MLS. He made several deft runs and quick cuts, looing dangerous down the right flank.

Simon Dawkins is a young Tottenham Hotspur player on loan with the Earthquakes, and he looked skilled and strong in the center of play, holding possession and fighting off challenges, distributing the ball well, and driving past two defenders to score San Jose's only goal of the game. I liked the idea that he could well play in the Premier League in a few years, and I would be able to say I saw him play.

Ryan Johnson is a tall and fast forward. He brought the ball under control and burst past the Toronto defense down the left flank on several occasions.

Toronto had several good players as well, including a Swiss midfielder named Alen Stevanovic, who had good speed and good moves, but earned the ire of the home crowd for going down and writhing in pain and then returning quickly to the field, and Alan Gordon, a striker who capitalized on a defensive blunder to give Toronto an early lead.

Some fan behind us must have not been able to say a word this morning, because he was yelling in rage for most of the game. Two highlights, which I couldn't quite interpret:

(to Stevanovic when the Toronto player was on the ground): "This ain't La Liga!"

(to both teams when the Earthquakes were passing the ball around among their back line: "You aren't Fulham and Arsenal!"

I can assume that in the first example, he was implying that players in Spain tend to simulate injury, and that he shouldn't do that here, because the MLS is better than that. As for the second quote, I'm baffled.

In the end, it was a 1-1 draw, which was fair. San Jose looked far more tired than Toronto in the second half, their defense looked fragile at times, and Chris Wondolowski and Khari Stephenson wasted two clear chances to score. It was a disappointing result but an exciting match for my first live MLS game. Plus, we had hot chocolate.

Perspective On Trial: Chronicles of A Recovering Bad Loser

So, the universe tested my resolve fairly quickly. No sooner did I sit down with a cookie than I saw Buster Posey take a called strike three on a full count, while the Giants trailed the Padres 3-1, a deficit they would not close. The pitch looked, shall we say, just a bit wide, in the same sense that the Pacific Ocean is just a bit damp.

Keep in mind that I was alone in the house. So, I'm pleased with myself that all I said was: "Huh. Interesting." The Giants' play-by-play announcers, who are totally more objective than most other announcers I've seen, were dubious that it crossed the plate, but said it was probably too close to take, so we'll leave it at that.

Oh, well. We'll get the Padres tomorrow, or not.

I've decided, also, that the key to keeping cool is to not read Internet chat rooms. There are plenty of insightful, articulate comments, but there are a lot of people who use the anonymity of the Internet to let fly with vitriol, abuse, smack talk, horrific grammar, and all-around misery. And those are some of the so-called Giants fans. I'm not even talking about the people who spend a lot of time commenting on soccer articles with remarks about how boring and what a waste of time they find soccer.

Tim Lincecum forbid that I act in real life like the trolls do online.

I should watch the Ken Burns documentary again, or re-read Summer Of '49. That's the way to swaddle myself in historical context and the greater poetry of the game, and think about last fall, and dream about tomorrow.

Bread And Circuses

Enough with the doom and gloom over perspective on sports. Back to the fun, with random sports thoughts and observations while watching the Giants-Dodgers on Sunday night:

1) We're finally going to a Major League Soccer game. Marina kept asking me why we haven't gone to an Earthquakes game, and I realized that I don't have a good answer. I love professional soccer. The Earthquakes are a professional soccer team. Logic dictates that I would love to see them play live. One could say that logic has no place in the emotion-driven world of sports fanaticism, but that wouldn't make sense. And so we bought tickets for next Saturday's match against Toronto FC.

2) I love Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff. I love the fact that they are both back on the team and in the lineup, and I love the fact that Brandon Belt is here and has already hit his first home run--and stole a base, too. I do not love the fact that our corner outfielders are Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff. That scares me from a defensive standpoint. The range will be limited. I'm looking forward for Cody Ross' return, although that could create a logjam of bats. Where do you put everybody to keep them in the lineup? This is why the designated hitter is such a luxury for the American League.

3) Barry Zito gave up three runs in the first inning, after recovering from an auto accident--a taxi ran a red light and crashed into him, fortunately leaving him apparently unscathed. After that first inning, the Sunday Night Baseball crew went on and on how he does not have good stuff anymore and how he will just have to try to keep the Giants as close as possible for as long as possible. The announcers have not mentioned that he is pitching much better after three innings. It's like the world has Zitophobia.

4) I'm excited that the Giants extended the contract of Freddy Sanchez through 2012. He was injured for the beginning of last year, but ever since, his defensive prowess has been a joy to watch, and he has been hitting. He knocked in three runs, including a home run, in yesterday's win, by way of giving instant reward for the Giants' investment.

5) Pablo Sandoval could be back to his 2009 form. He lost forty pounds over the summer, looks good, and smoked a home run in his first at-bat tonight.

6) Kuroda is looking good on the mound for the Dodgers. He hit Torres leading off, but Torres was stranded at second--a well-executed sacrifice by Sanchez was wasted when Huff and Posey did not come through. Other than that, Sandoval's home run has been our only hit through four innings. We need to make him work and get more hits.

7) Matt Kemp hit a home run in the first inning. Zito just made him look bad on a swing in the bottom of the fourth, and eventually got him to weakly fly out to center. Just goes to show how every at-bat and every game is different.

8) I think it's awesome that there is so much coverage for the West Coast to start the season. Normally, through the first four games, ESPN and Fox would have shown the Red Sox-Yankees play six times.

9) I used to like the Seattle Sounders in the MLS until I saw their two central defenders tag-team Chris Wondolowski in the box last night, denying him a chance to get to a cross. The referee really should have been in a spot to see it, but he seemed to have a difficult time of it last night. The game got ugly, and a rivalry was born. The West Coast of MLS could become interesting.

Also, Seattle-based Starbucks wants to buy Berkeley-based Peet's. That would be annoying.

10) There is a leisurely pace to baseball games. Not as leisurely as cricket, mind you--few things this side of snails are as leisurely as cricket--but still, if you can get past the need to live or die with every pitch of every single game, watching baseball can be quite relaxing. That's my goal for this year.

11) A friend of mine just got engaged to a sports fan from Ireland. By way of congratulating them, I will once more mention that Thierry Henry should be ashamed of himself, and the French collapse in the World Cup was an argument in favor of the existence of karma.

A Matter Of Perspective

Two Dodgers fans beat up a Giants fan and put him in a coma.

There is so much wrong with that, I don't know where to start. For the sake of this essay, though, let's start with the fact that that I felt the need to point out that the assailants were Dodgers fans, and the victim a Giants fan. That shouldn't matter; it should be an irrelevant detail in the story of vicious and imperfect humanity. Except that it appears that the victim's allegiance to a baseball team was the motivation for the attack.

It's just a game. It's easy to forget sometimes, but it is just a game.

I'm guilty of, well, being petulant and whiny when the Giants aren't doing well. I shut off the game on Friday night after the seventh inning, when Buster Posey struck out with the bases loaded. I shut it off rather emphatically.

"Don't be a baby!" Marina teased.

"I'm NOT being a baby," I insisted. "Now let's watch Toy Story 3."

Other than that bit of comedy at the end, this followed the formula of previous overreactions whenever things haven't go entirely the Giants' way. Now that they have won the World Series, I can see even more clearly how ungracious this is.

It isn't that this is how I inherently relate to sports. For instance, with Newcastle United's 4-1 win today over Wolves, taking another step towards ensuring safety and a comfortable mid-table finish in the Premier League, I felt a cozy sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. They aren't going to qualify for the Champions League or the Europa League. Nevertheless, I felt good about today's step towards a finish in the middle of the standings, whereas on Thursday, after the Giants lost the season opener to the Dodgers, I was depressed, as if 1/162 of the season would be indicative of expected results for the entire season.

Sports are weird that way. There are pros and cons to the way sports divides us into groups.

Pro: Sports are a sublimation of our instincts for war.

1) Our instincts for dominance can be channeled into games, entertainment, arbitrary challenges for testing our individual skills against those of another without actually trying to kill or be killed.

Con: Sports are a sublimation of our instincts for war.

2) That channeling doesn't always work.


Sports should be first and foremost entertainment, a game. While it's okay to be disappointed with a disappointing result, there are limits to how much it actually means. The Giants' win-loss record doesn't indicate anything about my worth, nor does their status as my favorite team indicate anything other than my great good taste.

It is, of course, easier to be philosophical about this AFTER the Giants beat the Dodgers yesterday 10-0. Which makes it all the more important to keep a sense of perspective about it.

I am able to get such satisfaction from Newcastle's battle for survival because I am less attached to them by geographical roots. I can view it as a story, because the reason why I chose to follow them in the first place was because of the story of Alan Shearer, the first player I enjoyed watching on TV, who went home to Newcastle, carrying goals. With the Giants, I always felt a deeper investment, because I grew up in Santa Rosa until I was nine.

It's all about finding a balance, especially since I have nothing personally at stake, not until I learn to throw a baseball at 100 mph or blossom into an athletic phenomenon at 31. It could totally happen. What? It could! But until then, I will be embarrassed to be invested in sports rivalries to even a fraction of the degree reached by the two men who beat up the fan of a rival team.

Spring In The Ukraine, and A New Season of Soccer Tales

Quick. Shakhtar Donetsk. What country is the team from? More to the point, which part of the name is the name of the city? How many of you know?

I thought so.

The other night, I watched the Roma--Shakhtar Donetsk Champions League match on DVR from a couple weeks ago. It was not a pretty sight for someone who grew up fascinated by the glamour of Italian soccer names: Serie A, Roberto Baggio, Juventus, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Paolo Maldini. Names are a big thing in soccer. In all sports, really. Sports are about mythology. The Italian mythology was dragged through the mud once more in the game against the Ukrainian champions from Donetsk.

Daniele De Rossi of Roma, who elbowed Brian McBride in the face in the 2006 World Cup, got away with another such elbow against Darijo Srna. De Rossi is now my candidate for dirtiest player in Italian soccer. Then again, Gennaro Gattuso head-butted an assistant coach for Tottenham. So it's a tight race, which is appropriate wording, since Italian fans give us some of the worst problems with racism in the game.

It's a sad thing when one's sports illusions are tarnished. Baseball has felt the brush of steroids mar the legacy of the last two decades. Soccer is not immune to that humanizing touch of corruption.

When I was younger, I would invent soccer tournaments. I would go through World Soccer magazines and pick random teams from leagues around the world, sometimes by blindly opening the magazine and pointing my finger at an article or a list of standings for a country, sometimes with the roll of a die. I had rules, such as no more than three teams from one particular country. I had these teams organized into groups, with different rounds, set up just like the World Cup or the Champions League.

Matches were settled by a roll of a die for each team to determine how many goals were scored. For national teams, I went so far as to assign goals to players, by picking players from the box scores of international matches. Points were earned or lost with wins, losses, draws. There were consequences for poor performances: if a team went through a tournament and earned zero points, falling at the group stage, they were not allowed to be selected for a tournament for two or three iterations.

I took my soccer rather seriously, yes. Also, I lived in a small town.

My point is that I loved the big names of soccer, that seemed mysterious, evocative of powerful story lines, and Italian teams and players were among my favorites. With my quarter-Italian heritage, I've always followed this hierarchy for determining which teams to root for: 1) USA; 2) England; 3) Italy.

A few years after the height of my die-rolling soccer tournament heyday, I read The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro, which was an entertaining book, despite the smarmy self-righteousness of the American author. However, the indications of a lack of integrity in Italian soccer were disturbing, with reports of teams paying other teams for points to ensure safety from relegation or to ensure promotion. Then I read the absolutely outstanding A Season With Verona, which was engaging, but which pointed out some racist incidents with Italian fans, underscoring the rumors and reports I had heard elsewhere. These reports have only increased over the last years.

Then there was the match-fixing scandal of a couple years ago, which saw the might Juventus, the famous "Old Lady" of Italian soccer, relegated to Serie B as a punishment for malfeasance.

Sports are a business. I'm not sure whether I should be grateful or angry at Italian soccer for exposing the corrupt motivations to such a blatant degree.

But enough of the darkness.

Roma are guilty of hubris. When they were paired with Shakhtar Donetsk for this second round tie--a tie is a set of two games, one home game for each team--a Roma executive said that he was not going to lie; Roma were pleased with this draw.

Objectively, one appreciates the honesty, and one wouldn't have been surprised. There were other potential opponents with stronger pedigrees than that of the team from the Ukraine. But still, this is why we have cliches. The Roma team could have said that they had great respect for their opponents, that it would be a tough match. We might not have believed them, but the veneer of humility would have reduced the David versus Goliath factor for impartial fans.

As it was, I think it is great that Shakhtar Donetsk thrashed Roma quite thoroughly over the two legs, and is advancing to the quarterfinals. Underdog stories are the best part of sports, and it comes at a great time: the Ukraine is co-hosting the European Championships next year, and any publicity or momentum would surely be welcome.

I'll be interested to see how they do in the next round.

Speaking of names, the new season of Major League Soccer kicked off tonight, and I'm interested to see if David Beckham can win a title in what is likely to be his last season playing with the LA Galaxy. I think it could be a good year for Major League Soccer, with new teams in Vancouver and Portland, adding weight to the west coast balance. The three teams I'm most interested in this year are the San Jose Earthquakes for obvious reasons--and I will try to get to a live game this year--the Seattle Sounders, and the Galaxy. So many potential storylines. Let's kick it off.

Mexican Football: Crossing The Desert, Or; You Say Futbol, I Say Football. Let's Call The Whole Thing Offsides.

In the Chronicle, the sports on TV section doesn't even list the Mexican football games, even though there seem to be at least three or four games every weekend. That seems odd, given the Latino influence in San Francisco, but I guess it is at least artistically appropriate, given the difficulties I've had in finding traction as a wannabe fan of Mexican football, which will lend an air of profundity to this blog.

It just makes sense that I should follow Mexican football, aka soccer. I love soccer. Major League Soccer can be okay, but the quality of play in the Mexican games I've seen has always felt a step above in terms of fluidity and overall skill of the games. Plus, Mexico is a heck of a lot closer than Europe, and I've now been to the country.

Still, the challenges are several. For one thing, I have only a rudimentary understanding of Spanish. I can get the gist of some of what the soccer announcers are saying, helped by the fact that I understand the context, knowing soccer as a game. And in my week in Mexico, I managed to follow some of Marina's conversations with Mexicans. But still, the announcers talk so damn fast.

Also, I'm not familiar with where the teams are, so I have no sense for the identity of the clubs, and no sense of connection, even with my recent trip--an Internet search indicates there were no major teams near where we traveled to Baja California Sur, which is not surprising, as remote as it was. So I don't have any club to feel any particular allegiance to, although Chivas de Guadelajara at least is connected with Major League Soccer, serving as a parent club for Chivas USA. But Chivas USA is in Los Angeles. Ick.

But there are some points of possible connections that I can pursue. With so many games being shown, I could watch the same teams over and over, which would give me the chance to cultivate an appreciation for how a certain team plays. And there are some Americans who play in Mexico; Jonathan Bornstein, for instance, recently moved from MLS to a Mexican team. Or there is a team from Monterrey, whose name reminds me of Monterey in Alto California (California for the gringos)--I love Monterey, so maybe I would like Monterrey. Or there are the comments of the staff at a restaurant we ate at in Loreto, who were watching a game and saying that Club America was a good team. Maybe I should take their advice, except that my stumbling efforts to talk to them about soccer were kind of embarrassing. "Chicharito Hernandez!" (thumbs up).

Some teams are sponsored by Corona, which tastes great with fish tacos, although based on my own experience, if there were a team sponsored by Pacifico, I might have to go with them. Pacifico is refreshing. (Back to the Internet: Pacifico and Corona are from the same large brewery.)

In any case, I have finally found a section of soccernet.com, and another website, goal.com, that seem to have more coverage of Mexican football, so I'll start trying to follow it more. Heck, with American football having just gone into a lockout, committing a potential corporate-sports suicide like baseball did in 1994, I need another source of football, it seems. Might as well be the beautiful version from Mexico.

Where Have You Gone, Andy Carroll?

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. However, I will pointedly not write at length about the NFL. For god's sake, the pre-game coverage on Fox started 4 1/2 hours before kickoff. That doesn't take into account the weeks of hype on all sports channels. Nothing in sports is interesting enough to merit that much coverage, except for the World Cup and the San Francisco Giants.

I say this as a football fan, but I cannot bring myself to be interested in the hours and hours of announcers hyping the game. Today's pre-game coverage is likely to be longer than the actual time of play, and almost as long as the halftime show. The last few years, the Super Bowl pre-game coverage has felt like nothing more than an extended commercial for chips, beer, and other stereotypically American-male pursuits.

So instead, I will write about the other football.

Newcastle United sit mid-table in the Premier League, 5 points above the teams in the relegation zone but with a game in hand--which means they have played one game fewer so far, which means they have an extra chance to earn points to pull further away from danger. That's a decent position to be in, but to ensure safety, they need goals, and they just sold their leading goalscorer, Andy Carroll. Not only is he a Newcastle native--which means that he should have stayed to lead the line for Newcastle, despite some rougher aspects to his personality--but his sale seriously depletes Newcastle's offensive capabilities

True, they sold him for a ridiculous amount: 35 million pounds to Liverpool--although to be fair to Liverpool, they basically used the 50 million pound sale of Fernando Torres to Chelsea to buy Carroll and Luis Suarez, turning one talented striker into two. (By the way, I love the fact that Chelsea just lost to Liverpool, 1-0, at home at Stamford Bridge, in Torres' first start for his new team.)

35 million pounds is a hefty sum of money for reinforcing a team. The problem is, with the sale of Carroll happening on the last day of the January transfer window, Newcastle had no time to buy a replacement player. Yes, they have funds now to make a considered purchase or two in the summer, but now there is a deepening injury crisis. Shola Ameobi, the natural replacement for Carroll, broke his cheekbone in the first game after the sale and is out for months. The young and encouragingly-named Leon Best has scored a few goals, but just picked up a hamstring injury. Since the transfer window is now closed, Newcastle's only options are emergency loans of players from other clubs or signing a player who is currently out of contract. As a general rule, you would have to think there would be a reason why a player would be out of contract at this time.

Where will the goals come from to keep Newcastle in the Premier League? And more importantly, how can I find a good Newcastle player to represent my fantasy team? While Carroll has been out injured, there has been no one. I wanted to change that, but to whom? I want to pick someone who is likely to earn points. It's not just about waving the flag, you know. I ruthlessly changed the captaincy of my team from Andrei Arshavin to Carlos Tevez, who promptly scored a hat trick to earn me 38 points on his own. And that is what sports is really all about, fulfilling my sense of self-worth and cunning.

Yes, even with a depleted arsenal, Newcastle managed to rally for four goals to draw with Arsenal--yes, the pun was intended--but can that continue? I'll be interested to see who they can find to score goals. At this point, I want them to scrape enough points to stay up, and then buy some strong replacement players in the summer. That would feel like a great accomplishment.

And yes, I'm aware of the irony of complaining about boredom over the commercialization of the NFL, only to write about the implications of buying and selling players in soccer. What can I say? I care about Newcastle United. I emphatically don't care about cheap, watery beer and men who care passionately about chips.