I have often thought that I would rather listen to a symphony of vuvuzellas than watch an actual soccer game. I got both on Sunday. I confess: I only watched the last thirty minutes. But that's okay. Nothing happened during the previous hour and a half. With a few minutes left, Spain scored on a shorthanded Holland (there will be none of that "Netherlands" around here!). Something about yellow and red cards put Holland in their undermanned situation. I am glad that someone put the ball in the net. Had the match lasted a few more minutes, the teams would have resorted to penalty kicks--which is like cancelling extra innings for a game-deciding home-run derby. Congratulations to Spain for winning the Euro-South America quadriennial soccer tournament. Some people call it the World Cup, but I don't since only nine teams--all from Western Europe or South America--out of almost 200 countries have actually won the contest. Like art aficianados, soccer fanatics are always telling Americans that they just don't get soccer. When we finally figure it out, they assure us, it will be bigger than baseballfootballbasketballhockeynascarwwe combined. After being forcefed this line since Pele's arrrival on our shores in the 1970s, I am at the point where I believe that soccer supremacy, should it ever occur, will only come about as one of the unhapper legacies of World War IX.

Now you're just being mean spirited. Only 17 States and Canadian territories are represented among MLB champions, yet you call them 'World champions'.

I think we refer to baseball teams as world champions only here. I would never explain to a German how such-and-such a team is the "world champion" baseball team. It'd be laughable. I don't think the German would hesitate to describe Spain as world champion, though I could be underestimating the hypothetical German.

Interesting that two of Europe's most diminished coutries play for the 'World' trophy in soccer.

Go figure.

For S's and G's, (and general boredom with borderline drunkeness) watched the whole thing.

Still don't get it. But I thought myself enlightened and one with the third world and countries that soon will be.

Is that wrong?

I couldn't care less about soccer or the world cup, but you know, I'm not sure I'd mind that home run derby idea for painfully long baseball games.

Baseball is exciting as painting. Soccer is as exciting as watching aforementioned paint dry.

Now Hockey...!

I too used to hold baseball in relatively low esteem (with comparison to football and hockey, in particular), but I've come to enjoy a good game now and again and appreciate what a grind a 162 game season is.

My only gripe these days is the coverage. ESPN in particular. Which leads me to how their synchophantic, hero worshiping slobbering at the home run derby followed by coverage of the All Star game is really boring and something akin to the world soccer All Star game.

There's a world soccer all-star game? Do the teams score more in that game?