The problem with soccer

Rick Reilly wrote an amazing article on the World Cup last week. I'm a huge fan of his (as is probably obvious from my emulating him in this blog), and think he articulated perfectly the frustrations of a non-soccer-fan attempting to watch these games.

I didn't even watch the World Cup until the final game (and even that was not by choice). I respect soccer, and the athletic ability of the players, and the international unity that it brings. But man, the games are boring to watch. 106 minutes of scoreless play? The most exciting thing we got in the first two hours of the final was a "kung-fu kick to the chest," which, last time I checked, was a martial arts move and not a soccer play.

Still, I'll sit through 106 minutes of nil-nil for the sake of friends and international unity. What I can't tolerate is when soccer starts interfering with what really matters to me... and that's baseball.

I'm talking about the vuvuzelas.

I went to 3 baseball games last week, and each one featured at least 1 vuvuzela. You can hear them all the way across the stadium. At first it's funny, then it's kind of funny, then it's plain annoying.

Especially when it's an Oakland A's game, and nothing exciting is happening (since nothing exciting ever happens at A's games, except the occasional perfect game, which I missed because I decided to stay home and watch the Cavs lose instead).

And you're sitting in your $2 nosebleed seat, freezing your tail off because you forgot that evenings in the Bay Area get cold and you didn't bring a jacket for the 4th straight game, and it's already 7-0 Yankees, and all you want is for the game to end so you can go home and defrost, and Javier Vasquez is taking 5 minutes and 15 pickoff attempts before each pitch.

And then someone blows a vuvuzela, and you blame it all on soccer.