The one that's up today is quite charming, but I have learned my lesson. I will resist caving to curiosity until I'm sure the World Cup is over. I'm not just uninterested in soccer. I am actively hostile to the notion that I should be interested.
Sorry, World!
June 15, 2014
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When does the World Cup start?
"Why I'm not clicking on Google doodles for a while."
Try that with Drudge,...
Well said, Ms. Althouse. I couldn't agree more.
Did Google do a doodle for Mother's Day?
Well we're a Day late, but you could celebrate the Birthday of the Army. June 14th.
Or Flag Day
There is a world cup this year?
I am not much of a sports fan except for NASCAR and then only for the pit stops.
But soccer seems even sillier than most other team sports. People have been trying to shove it down our throats since the early 70s.
Soccer just seems unAmerican to me. Perhaps that is why very few Americans like to watch it.
John Henry
Oops, guess I am a minority here with respect to soccer. Always having to put up with denigration, but it is getting better. Once the old fogies are gone . . .
Only in America would someone blog that they are NOT doing something because of soccer. I highly doubt Ann would post to her blog if Google did the same thing for the Rugby or Cricket world cups.
"I am actively hostile to the notion that I should be interested."
Exactly my sentiment!
I was snarking about that very thing yesterday on Twitter. Couldn't wait for my baseball game to come on, #Angels at #Braves --- a phenomenal game that went 13 innings, and the Angels winning finally 11-6!
Agree. Soccer can be fun to watch but even while sitting among the most amped-up Seattle Sounder fans, I can't help feeling there's something received and forced about American professional soccer. The songs and scarves are someone else's tradition and it may make you feel like an urbane citizen-of-world but it has all the authenticity of a Japanese Santa Claus. Terribly provincial of me, I know.
I had the same reaction. I think Google is out of touch.
"Did Google do a doodle for Mother's Day?"
I guess it works as a Father's Day doodle… until you click on it.
We finally agree on something!!!!
Now I wonder if Google forgot to change the link from yesterday... which was a World Cup doodle.
Never mind- it's supposed to be World Cup AND Father's Day... two things that have nothing to do with each other.
I love soccer. And just like the hundreds of millions/billions who love the game worldwide, I'm not troubled in the slightest by the fact that you don't. Please do continue to enjoy watching your various teams compete for "world" championships in sports the rest of the world doesn't play.
The "world champion" Boston Red Sox. The "world champion" Miami Heat. The "world champion" Seattle Seahawks. Hee hee!
"The "world champion" Boston Red Sox. The "world champion" Miami Heat. The "world champion" Seattle Seahawks. Hee hee!"
Name one foreign national or professional team that could beat any of the above teams in their respective sports.
It would be an absolute slaughterhouse and no foreign team would expose themselves to the humiliation. So, yeah, world champion seems to fit.
"I am actively hostile to the notion that I should be interested."
That's not emotional at all.
Holidays proliferate in mid-June. Juneteenth is coming right up. Bloomsday is tomorrow. Meanwhile today, besides being Fathers' Day (and the first day of quarterly payment of estimated tax), is my tenth wedding anniversary.
(Would you believe that the traditional material for a 10th-anniversary gift is tin? Seriously. But, hey, I complied :-))
On to more serious things. It's true that soccer and cricket are the only two seriously international team sports, and our various "world championship" titles look pretty silly when we don't so much as allow non-US teams to compete in them. But as a specimen of self-puffery, I'd call that a minor infraction. No one is in the least deceived. (John Constantinus, it's not that no one else plays these sports so much as that no foreign teams are invited to compete. There's a robust tradition of baseball in the Americas and Japan, for example. But only Canada actually competes in the World Series, outside the US.)
Donald Douglas, my husband tuned into that game at the bottom of the 12th, and I can only imagine the 13th if the final score was as you say. Wow. Alas, I went to bead earlyish.
"Try that[don't click] with Drudge,..." - Crack
Whatever you do, limit your intake of information to those sources that are approved. That is what deep thinkers do so well. It simplifies the process of forming an opinion immeasurably.
" It's true that soccer and cricket are the only two seriously international team sports,"
Cricket? Cricket? Maybe in the former British Empire, less Canada and the US. Name the country that wasn't part of the British Empire that is serious about cricket.
As far as soccer goes, I don't like it. If I want to watch a sport that is heavily oriented toward defense, where the greatest excitement is a nil all tie, I can watch baseball.
And if I wan't to watch a version of baseball that is complete biased towards offense, so that there are no out of bounds hits, and the defenders aren't even allowed to wear gloves, like Cricket, I will go with the NBA.
I just can't seem to care if the rest of the world is unimpressed or not, and securing the approval of the rest of the world, or of those Americans who are so insecure that they worry about what the rest of the world thinks about our sports culture, is not high on my list either. I am not saying there is nothing in the rest of the world that is worth attention, far from it, I am just saying that I am cool with not liking the same sports they do in France, Columbia, Ghana, and Ireland, and the rest.
I'll be watching the NBA finals tonight. I've watched a little of the World Cup but since the best soccer players aren't half the athlete of a LeBron James, I just can't get into it.
The best athletes in the US don't play soccer. Which is why the last three World Cup winners are Spain, Italy and France. What a joke.
"I'm not just uninterested in soccer. I am actively hostile to the notion that I should be interested."
Why? I am curious to the back story.
As someone who grew up (born in 1979) following MLB, NFL and NBA in that order, I found myself losing interest in baseball over time. Soccer, via the WC then the Euros then the CL and EPL (not yet MLS for me), gradually surpassed basketball and baseball for me (though I still watch baskeball).
I didn't intend for this to happen and the only thing I can come up with is the concept of "compelling you to watch".
Football compels you to watch the action throughout each game. By this I mean, the game is full of moments that force you to look up from your phone/PC/screen, pause your conversation with whoever is the room with you, and watch what happens on, say 2nd and 5 or 3rd and 1.
Soccer comes in 2nd of the major sports. Whenever the ball gets near the box, the game compels you to take notice to see of a goal is scored. This happens throughout the course of each game.
In basketball this happens in the latter part of the 4Q of a close game.
In baseball this almost never happens. Maybe in the 9th inning of a game in October. But even then, there will just be another game the next day so who really cares.
So back to my original question, why? Why do you feel this way about soccer? I understand someone feeling this way about all sports, but not one (in my non-expert opinion) that offers a better viewer experience than those that you've commented on in the past, e.g. MLB and NCAA b-ball.
Just curious.
The list of things wrong with soccer is long, so long. I have coached kid soccer for years now because it's fun to play and my son loves it. But it's an idiotic game. No clock, no fast break, constant lying about fouls and injury...incredibly stupid game.
Finally Althouse gets something right. One of the few remaining reasons to be proud of being an American is that we are the only people who realize that soccer is shit. It's the only sport that bans the use of the hands, and using our hands is what makes us human. Thus, by definition, soccer is a game for sub-humans, and, boy, do the fans show it. To be fair to them, though, the games themselves are so boring that the only way to stay awake is to start a riot or a war, or at least turn to the guy next to you and head-butt his face in.
what does it mean to be "hostile to a notion"?
mccullough, regardless of his tremendous physique and size(=athlete?), LeBron James would not be a good soccer player. Most of America's so-called "best athletes" i.e. football and basketball players would not be good soccer players. Soccer tests a human being's skill, speed, agility, and endurance, as opposed to testing whether a human being is unbelievably big & muscular (American football) or extraordinarily tall (basketball).
One of the things I like so much about soccer is that you don't have to be a genetic freak to be good at it -- and in fact, being a genetic freak typically limits your ability. LeBron might (might) have made an okay goalie at the semi-pro level if he started early in life and practiced hard. Goalies tend to be pretty big and tall.
I'd be interested if they'd get rid of those damned vuvuzuelas.
I find it endlessly fascinating that otherwise intelligent inquisitive people are willing to turn their backs on a sport that two billion people actively follow. It seems to have no connection to race, class or political leaning. The only link I can find is that they all have enhanced opinions of themselves.
If I say "ick sushi" or "heh, I could paint that" I am a closed-minded boor. But someone says, "I choose to remain ignorant of 'the beautiful game'" and people come out of the woodwork to support them.
Bob Ellison, Dear God please stop coaching. Why would you coach a game that you know nothing about and are actively hostile towards? The kids you coach would be much better off if you threw the ball in the middle of the field and then went off to read the newspaper.
Jason said...
I'd be interested if they'd get rid of those damned vuvuzuelas.
The vuvuzuelas are a South African tradition. Haven't heard a single one in Brazil. Lots of bikini tops though.
Ditto to WC doodles. Yes, it does stand for Water Closet. Xp
Google won't do the same for baseball, basketball American or Canadian football.
Sick of the doodles.
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