Great game. 55,000 in the stands. Did Pauley come up through the sox system?

Pauley:

www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2006/06/07/rookie_had_winning_form_but_wound_up_a_tough_luck_loser?mode=PF

A billion people would disagree with you.

A billion people can still be wrong.

The game had everything, even a perfect bunt. You gotta wish this kid Pauley well. He didn't pitch like a 2nd game rookie in his first Yankee Stadium game. Lot of good baseball being played in NY this year.

A billion people will be watching a game that actually takes drug abuse seriously:

"Major League Baseball and the Players Association reached agreement on a new drug program that includes year-round testing for steroid use and stricter penalties for those players who initially test positive -- a 10-day suspension without pay for the first offense."

"FIFA is finally set to embrace a two-year ban on players found guilty of a serious drugs offence, as is commonplace in other sports.

Beginning with the World Cup, players found guilty of serious doping, such as taking anabolic steroids, face being out of football for two years."

Enjoy the steroidball.

Ali
Why would a soccer player take steroids exactly? Bigger butt for falling down purposes?

A billion people thought Mao was a great guy.

Great game last night.

But they'll be plenty of great games at the world cup too.

Many however, won't be good games. What nativists like OJ forget however, is that the WC is played by a collection of all-star teams, whose players are scattered amongst European, mostly, club sides, and who might train together for a few days here and there during the year and play maybe 6 or 7 matches together during that time.

If you want to see true football being played at the highest level by the best players who train and play together 6 of 7 days for 10 + months a year watch the Champions League in Europe or the Copa Libertadores in S.America.

"A billion people thought Mao was a great guy."

More like a billion people would have been fed to the ovens if they publicly disagreed about his alleged awesomeness.

"Why would a soccer player take steroids exactly? Bigger butt for falling down purposes?"

They cut recovery time for injuries.

As a parent spectator, give me soccer. Baseball takes forever and by the time the baseball game is half over the non-playing siblings make it impossible to watch anyway. It would take a serious chunk of cash to watch either sport if I didn't have a close, personal relationship with at least one of the players.

All stars? No one's ever heard of any of them and they all throw like girls.

Here's a 1986 essay by Henry Kissinger which argues that National teams in the World Cup play in a manner consistent with their national character. I know nothing about soccer, but I wonder if there is any truth to it.

Well, they may throw like girls, but most soccer players could probably pitch better than 4/5 of the Red Sawx rotation at this point in the season.

They can't even pitch as well as Cy Young.

Ali Choudhury:

Totalitarians are usually popular in their own countries. Everybody gets the idealized portrait and assumes the guy at the top is unfortunately unaware of what is going on. The idea that one's society is actually an orchestrated sinkhole is tough to take.