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Frustrating isn’t it Mr. Lipton?

Yesterday was one of the slowest sports days of the American calendar. Yesterday had three quality, and two meaningful soccer games on TV. Yesterday should have been a day for soccer. It was not, not anymore than any other. Why does soccer continue to rest at the fence unnoticed while everyone cranes to glimpse the media darling? Click HERE for the full story…

An audio clip from Luis Bueno of his SuperLiga interview with Pachuca’s Jose Francisco Torres reminded me that I need to get back on the trail of Michael Orozco. Like Torres, Orozco is an American-born soccer player plying his trade in Mexico. Unlike Torres, Orozco has been wearing the national shirt of the U.S.

I haven’t been able to make that happen just yet, but I did in my search come across a gentleman named Hugo Salcedo, a name I remembered from a New York Times article from the 90’s—which I found heading into my early TIAS feature on Martin Luther King Jr. high school.

Hugo has been around the block. He works for FIFA; he worked for the U.S. Olympic Committee (and played soccer in the Olympics), for MLS in development, received the 2008 Jerry Yeagley Award from NSCAA (Coaches Association), and has a son who played and now coaches at UCLA. And it turns out he helped young Orozco find his way. He continues to do so for other players.

I spoke to Salcedo this past April and saved the transcript in case I was able to get a hold of Orozco. That hasn’t happened. But the SuperLiga over the weekend got me thinking about the growing Mexican-American contingent again. And after hearing the Bueno-Torres interview, I revisited my talk with Salcedo. The torn-apart/love-hate feelings of having American youngsters play in Mexico and FOR Mexico, rushed right back into me. Love it or hate it, it’s a situation worth following, even if SuperLiga can’t get past Telefutura broadcasts and disgruntled press releases. Click HERE for the full story…

I wasn’t sure Frank Dell’apa would want to talk to me. Like most I presume, I heard via du Nord that he was being moved at the Boston Globe, where he has been a sports reporter since 1989, from covering his preferred beat (Revolution and international soccer) to the Celtics. To be moved from soccer to basketball would be a promotion to most, but not to Frank, not to his loyal readership. It would be understandable if he just didn’t want to talk about it for a number of easy to deduce reasons.

But he said yes. And as with his decades of reporting, we are all the more lucky because of it. And for the digital time capsule of this here site, it kind of comes with perfect timing (sorry Frank). It is just that for a man who has spent his life in sports journalism chasing soccer this unexpected career tangent elicits perspective, which begs to be gathered up, marked down, and reconsidered as we determine the future—-journalism and soccer, observers and participants. Our conversation is after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

Welcome to the Designated Players.

I know you have been holding your breath.

What’s that?

After those-half-ass-viral-campaign-teaser-banners? What, a few new prominent links?

Please. Lame.

That is one way to look at it. Click HERE for the full story…

I think there was more media there than any soccer event I have ever been to. And throughout all the coverage you’re gonna see the only thing I can say I got that they don’t is this photo. It’s a keeper.

I’m gonna go with the annotated photo story for this one, because that’s sort of the hand I was dealt. Seated on the ground behind a goal isn’t the best place to watch the game, but it gets you some good camera angles. And from the looks of it–I mean people I knew from glossy magazines were there–you’re going to be hearing plenty about it. I’m hoping someone writes it up as a real game story. That would be fun to read. So on to the Steve Nash Foundation Charity Classic presented by (I didn’t recognize the logo on the t-shirt)…

(UPDATED WITH BEST VIDEO YOU WILL SEE OF THE EVENT)

—- Click HERE for the full story…

GET IN LINE EDITION

On Sunday I chose to watch the US MNT World Cup Qualifier live and follow it up with Spain-Italy from the European Championships on DVR-delay. Wild guess: I made the rare selection. The rest of the day’s decisions, unfortunately, were less unusual. Click HERE for the full story…

For those who know me, it is no secret I love soccer and love jazz. For those who follow the two art forms, it is no surprise that neither are popular in the United States.

I recently wrote an essay for GOOD magazine–one of the better magazine launches in the last few years that I’m psyched to be even a small part of–on the state of jazz in the U.S.

On top of my own experience chasing jazz across the country I interviewed several musicians to get their thoughts. One of those I spoke to was pianist Jason Moran. At the end of of our interview I couldn’t help but inquire about what I saw as the existence soccer and jazz share in our country.

As JVC Jazz Fest begins in New York, after the jump we talk about a comparison you may not have thought about. Click HERE for the full story…

Sooner or later the party ends up in their room. Join the fun later this month.

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For how small the soccer writing community is here in the United States, there is quite a lot of them. The creation of the Soccer Reporters spelled that out for me crystal clear. Goes to show just how big the United States is. Also goes to show once you start talking to some of them how incredibly few work exclusively on soccer.

Varied careers involving an international sport often creates a unique experience–Hey even Wilbon wants to be one. Now say your other job focusing largely on covering the next biggest international stage after the World Cup. You might have something to say about why sport is special and what we’ve lost along the way.

After speaking with USA Today’s Beau Dure, I found out he is just such a man… Click HERE for the full story…

I don’t care for the comedy of Ray Ramano. It’s just not my thing. I’m more of a David Cross/Patton Oswalt kind of guy. I can watch the same Seinfeld episode a thousand times, but new episodes of The Simpsons can’t hold my attention.

Comedy might be the most subjective medium of all the creative arts. Because looking at the award tally, not to mention the pop culture award du jour that is a Simpsons guest appearance, it appears everybody indeed loves Raymond. I’m just not one of them.

Sports broadcasting isn’t that much different. He’s got one of the plum jobs in broadcasting for FOX, but I can’t stand Tim McCarver (re: thanks Deion Sanders). I love the measured intelligence of Joe Simpson. I really don’t care for Dick Vitale. Lots of people seem to love him (and he’s got a pretty good gig himself) but I’m just not one of them. And I don’t like the comparisons between him and GolTV’s Ray Hudson. Sure, they are both, um, individuals to say the least, and share a radical emotion for the sport they love, but Vitale paints the most mundane statistics not with a brush, but with a paint grenade of hyperbolic emotion. It can be a source of comedy, but you won’t find yourself laughing with (or at) him.

Hudson’s commentary, unlike his opinion, is harder to pin down, though he’s not afraid of pulling the pin on a grenade or two . You of course have the metaphor bombs, but watching an entire game with GolTV’s team delivers the give-and-take that finds moments of brotherly bickering in an Abbott and Cosetello frame that sets it apart like the best local baseball broadcasts over the course of that lengthy season. You’re not just waiting for the next explosion, you’re smiling, getting argumentative, and yes laughing, sometimes all at once, as if you’re watching the games with your crazy uncles. At its worst GolTV’s broadcasts with Ray Hudson are silly, over the top nonsense. At their best, it’s a soccer sitcom as the team captures the essence of the beautiful game in the broadcast booth. Click HERE for the full story…