Doug Glanville

After I wrote my long-winded diatribe yesterday, I was thinking more about sports, and the universality of competition as entertainment. I didn't mean to call soccer stupid; it's a way of life for billions, just as avidly following the Red Sox is a way of life for people with roots in New England, all over the world (I wear a Red Sox cap around Cairo, and strangers start conversations with me every day). Then, this morning I read a New York Times column by op-extra columnist and former Phillies, Cubs, and Rangers outfielder Doug Glanville (it's terrific, give it a read). It got me thinking even more.

Sports and culture will always be intertwined. I can't think that the rest of the world is weird for following soccer any more than I can think that Islam is weirder than Christianity. Just because many many people worship the gods of soccer and I don't, doesn't mean we aren't all at the altar of sport. 

My point was more about the reasons why, even in America, the vast "Melting Pot" of tastes and cultures, soccer will never take hold on a level even close to Latin, European, or African countries. I felt bad because, maybe a little bit, I sort of belittled soccer and the people that love it, and that's not what I meant to do. A lot of what this blog is are my comments on the remarkable cultural differences between here and where I know, and the capacity to live and breathe soccer is one of them. Sports bring people together, and that, I believe (and I think Doug Glanville would agree), is what is important.