Category Archives: sports

Emil Guillermo on the coincidence of the U.S/England World Cup match and Philippine Independence Day: A good day for beating back the colonizer!

What a coincidence the U.S. tied its former colonizer at the world’s game 1-1. Or as the NYTimes’ Nick Kristoff tweeted,  the U.S. “beat” England, 1-1….

Of course, the U.S. didn’t. But it’s acceptable underdog-speak. Reminiscent of the famous headline “Harvard beats Yale, 29-29,”  when the improbable tie must be acknowledged with something more than an “attaboy.”  

But I was with Alexi Lalas, the former MLS star, who was unwilling to be diplomatic and on the pregame on ABC forecasted a 2-1 victory.

Why not?

The U.S. can play now.  It’s not like the day of Kyle Rote Jr. and the old NASL.  U.S. players play with the top English clubs now.  Our independence from soccer inferiority  has already been declared.  

So U.S. ”beats” England didn’t come to mind immediately. In fact, the U.S. was lucky the Brit keeper had Teflon mits. Good for pols, bad for goaltenders.  The goal was like a gift from the soccer gods, as if some invisible foot (like Adam Smith’s hand?) nudged the ball to the net, an equalizer by providence.

But that’s it for karmic justice.

 On the day the U.S. faced its colonizer, the U.S. has some other significant imperial baggage of its own.

On June 12, 1898, the Philippines proclaimed its independence from Spain after the Spanish-American War’s battle of Manila Bay.

But the proclamation wasn’t recognized by Spain or the U.S.  

The Spanish took advantage of the communications  lag and before the announcement had ceded the Philippines to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris 1898.  The U.S. had its own imperial designs and made Philippines its first colony. That was all news to the victorious Filipinos and General Emil Aguinaldo.  And with that, the U.S. -Philippine war was begun, and hundreds of thousands of lives, both American and Filipino,were lost.

So you can see how all these years later,  on this day, karma could only carry the U.S. so far.

But now that we’ve tied the Brits, maybe we can all feel better about bankrupting BP and destroying the English pension system!

USA, USA, USA!!!

Emil Guillermo on how non-soccer fans can appreciate World Cup action: The blare of the vuvuzelas makes WC2010 sound like a gastric event. Enough with the tooting. I know you love futbol, but will someone take down the “Honk if you’re horny” sign so we can enjoy “the beautiful game”?

The World Cup is here again. And in the case of West Coast fans, the early bird gets the worm. This morning you got 70 minutes of boredom and about 20 minutes of great soccer. Mexico should have won by at least 3 goals (will give the poster to SA), but instead we ended up with the perfect diplomatic result.

A tie.

Who wears ties anymore?

Ties are good for the kids’ rec and travelling teams, which I used to coach. It caters to the “winning isn’t everything” school of parenting.  But in the World Cup, where soccer zealotry is pumped to extreme levels, a tie is so unsatisfying.  Winning is everything, dadgummit. (A soccer phrase from the Netherlands, I believe).

Still, if you’re a soccer fan, you delighted in little things like when a Mexican wing passed the ball into an empty space behind a South African defender, then outran the defender to the ball. Essentially, Aguilar the Mexican forward passed it to himself. That was like a “wow” move. Too bad his cross to the goal wasn’t converted. 

But the game isn’t about scoring. It’s about the journey, and the displays of brilliant ball handling along the way.

Here’s how to watch the matches: Pray they keep the camera wide enough so you can see as much of the  field as possible. The close ups are good for the sweat. But the way to appreciate the game is to look away from the ball. Don’t follow the ball, follow the empty spaces, and then look to see how the players without the ball suddenly appear to meet a pass into space.

In basketball, a good  guard and a center can play pick and roll all day. In soccer, you can see series of “give and gos” all the way down field. When the passes are direct and literal you won’t see the magic. But when players exploit space and send the ball into the open to a teammate in full run, then you see the beauty and the fluidity of the game. That’s when the magic happens. Like when the South Africans scored the first goal of the cup, the ball was sent into space when Siphwe Tshabalala, #8, found it on a dead run to strike it into the net. 

Text-book use of exploiting speed and space.  Joe Montana to Jerry Rice on a post pattern. Same thing.

Now that’s when when you should blow those darn horns.

Emil Guillermo on Armando Galarraga’s “Perfect” game: In face of the facts, why insist on Jim Joyce’s imperfection? Bring on “Truth in Baseball”

In real life, fighting for justice is hard. You don’t get to be the Brown as in Board of Education on a lark. Or Plessy. Or Wong Kim Ark.

That’s why too often we give up the fight. Life’s too short. 

What’s baseball’s excuse?

Baseball is a game. Just a game.  Umpire Jim Joyce’s admission is one thing. But the video is the truth. The Tigers’ Armando Galarraga beat the runner to the bag.  In view of the facts, why do the purists insist on “tradition” and the “way things always have been done”?  The human way, the wrong way.

Slavery was hard for some folks to give up too. But we got over that.  Innocents have died before DNA was used.

There is life, death, and then there’s baseball.

Bud Selig, go with the truth. Change the call. This isn’t like a steroids policy call. This is just what it is, an easily corrected error.

At least asterisk it as a blown call.  But it will designate the turning point when truth really mattered in baseball.

Demonizing Tiger: Woods’ villification has racial overtones

People talk about Nike using Earl Woods’ voice out of context in an ad prior to the Masters. But is anyone grousing about the full-page family values ads now appearing in the major dailies featuring Phil Mickelson and his cancer-suffering  wife Amy? 

Talk about exploitation. Even better that Mickelson is white, the better to offset and polarize the whole situation in a way America can understand. i.e., Mickelson good, Tiger bad.

Bad Tiger! This is your punishment from the culture at large for being a selfish, amoral, pleasure seeking human being.

If you had been a bank, you could have received a bailout. But now it’s everyone’s turn to dis and dish.

This is one bandwagon I’m not hopping on.

Now they’re even commenting on how Tiger swears on the golf course (no secret).  Suddently golf and sport has gotten all puritanical and proper.  Does anyone get on baseball players for spitting? Howabout how basketball players handle their mouthguards, then high five each other. How unsanitary. Oh, and about that vigorous ass patting…

All of that is nothing compared to jumping on Tiger, the devil himself.

I hope Tiger recovers soon.

Consider the sexual proclivities of other public figures and how they’ve bounced back. After Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton is a revered world crisis solver. After biting women in secret hotel trysts, Marv Albert is back doing the NBA playoffs. (“YES!!”). After dumping his longtime wife in favor of a scandalous affair with a younger woman, newly divorced golf anchor Jim Nantz was there at the Masters with the call. 

Even David Letterman gets a light lashing after his intern trysts. Always good to have an extortionist come in and trump your bad hand. 

So comebacks do happen. But is there extra joy in dumping Tiger because Woods happens to be of mixed race?

He is at once the greatest black and Asian American golfer to ever play. He may be the greatest golfer period.  When he was good he was treated like royalty. But his indiscretions find him being treated with a whole let less compassion. He’s not a pariah yet. His golf game is too good. But the culture seems to be turning against him more so now that Mickelson can be the public face for the new Victorian era of golf.

Never mind Mickelson’s gambling habits. That’s an allowable vice, I guess.

But just ask yourself if Tiger would  be treated differently if he were white?