2021 in Review - the Quiz

Introduction

As I close out 2021, I thought I’d give my readers a little quiz. You can consider this open-book (because after all, how could I police this anyway)? Or, for an extra challenge, try it without peeking. 

(Don’t worry, you don’t have to wait until next week for the answers … they’re right down at the bottom of the post.)

2021 in Review – the Quiz

1. The movie Wonder Woman 1984 sucked because:

a) Diana (Gal Godot) got all soft and mushy as soon the love interest, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) arrived; she stopped being badass and was mainly clingy and needy, pining for him (I know, bad pun, I couldn’t resist), which was distracting and annoying

b) Diana stubbornly refused to give up Steve, though this was necessary in order to save the world (according to the absurd logic of the so-called plot) and wasn’t until Steve sternly mansplained the whole thing to her that she fell in line, as if it takes a man to save the world, even when he’s not a superhero

c) It’s totally unrealistic that a woman as gorgeous as Diana would wait for forty years for her sweetheart to reappear rather than moving on, and it’d have been so much cooler if Steve had shown up suddenly in 1984 only for Diana to say, “Uh, sorry Steve … I’m actually in a relationship”

d) The female villain in the movie was meek, nice, and nerdy until she gained her powers, which consisted of being charming, beautiful, and strong, at which point she instantly became evil as well, as if the natural consequence of empowering women is that they become total bitches

2. Why is a low-sodium diet not necessarily for everyone?

a) Modern life has people working too much, exercising too little, eating a lot of crap, and then trying to undo the damage by eating less salt … nice try
b) When I surveyed my bike team, 17 of 23 responded that they don’t worry about limiting their salt intake, and yet we’re all very healthy
c) Added salt is not a major contributor to hypertension; the salt in processed foods is more often the culprit, and these are the foods we should all be avoiding anyway due to their trans fats, nitrates, refined flour, etc.
d) Sometimes a little salt goes a long way, like regular peanut butter that has only 6% of the recommended daily value, whereas low-sodium peanut butter is so disgusting I’d rather eat my scabs … and in fact I’d almost rather eat your scabs

3. Knowing what we now know about football, and looking back at the NFL’s lawsuit against M.I.A. for flipping off the camera during the halftime show, their lawsuit is absurd because…

a) These halftime shows are so lame, the scandals (like this one or Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”) are really the only even slightly dramatic or exciting things fans ever get to see
b) Innocuous gestures like the flipping the bird are nothing compared to the domestic violence committed by football players, which the NFL happily tolerates as detailed here
c) The NFL has a long history of turning a blind eye to the rampant concussions suffered by their players and took great pains to block research into the problem, so they cannot claim any moral high ground
d) Football fans, being remarkably tolerant of all this, should totally be able to handle being flipped off

4. Primoz Roglic’s come-from-behind victory in Stage 7 of the Paris-Nice cycling stage race was actually kind of lame because…

a) Despite having already totally stomped all over his rivals for the GC, Roglic needlessly passed up Gino Mäder, a young pro who had launched a very brave breakaway and would have achieved his first-ever WorldTour victory if Roglic hadn’t cruelly nipped him at the line, thus crushing his dream
b) Roglic did this great big alpha-male victory salute as if this were the most impressive victory of his career when really it didn’t matter much, this being such a minor stage race for a rider like him
c) The way he punched the sky, it was just so tone-deaf, bringing to mind the smarty-pants kid in the classroom who’s constantly putting his hand up and, when the teacher ignores him, raises it higher, higher, higher, so his shoulder is raised, half his butt is lifting off the chair, and he’s going “Ooh, ooh, ooh” and can’t figure out why the teacher won’t call at him yet again

d) We’re all kind of tired of Roglic anyway

5. As of April, 2021 (i.e., pre-Delta) variant) what generally had to be true for COVID-19 to be transmitted from one person to another?

a) The two people had to be in fairly close proximity to each other (within about six feet)
b) There had to be a lack of good air flow (e.g., the two had to be indoors without much ventilation)
c) The exposure had to be fairly prolonged (e.g., more than just a few minutes)
d) The people had to not be wearing masks

6. Which of the following is a totally legit Tom Swifty?

a) “Nice boobs!” Tom tittered
b) “Lousy dog doesn’t even have a pedigree,” Tom muttered
c) “Denmark is full of assholes,” Tom said disdainfully
d) “Oh dear, I can’t get it up,” Tom said softly

7. What was interesting about the post-race interviews at Stage 9 of the 2021 Giro d’Italia?

a) The ever-stoic stage winner Egan Bernal said, “It may look like I’m crying right now but those are just raindrops, or maybe snot”
b) Geoffrey Bouchard, who had gotten passed with only 400 meters to go after a daring solo breakaway, said, “I hear Bernal has been sleeping with my girl as well”
c) Bouchard said, “My dad just texted me, ‘You’ve always been a loser, son,’ so my disappointment is absolute and my pride irrevocably shattered”
d) Both interviews were embellished if not outright fabricated by a playful blogger

8. What was interesting about the post-race interview at Stage 9 of the 2021 Tour de France?

a) The interviewer said to winner Ben O’Connor, “You’re a little glassy-eyed … are you gonna start crying now, like a QuickStep guy?” and O’Connor replied, “I think I can avoid that … I’m able to control myself better [than when I crossed the line] and I’m not yelling ‘yay’ anymore”
b) When the interviewer said, “Walk us through that victory salute, where you clapped your hands like a little girl at a birthday party,” O’Connor replied, “I went into that victory salute completely unprepared—I wasn’t meant to be in the break, I screwed up, I didn’t know what to do, then I heard we had three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, one fish two fish red fish blue fish, it was a mad stage, conditions were atrocious”
c) O’Connor said, “At the end there, I had to not panic, and when you think you’re gonna win a stage you can freeze up, and … look at me, dammit, I am starting to cry”
d) It’s possible the entire transcript of the interview was fabricated out of thin air

9. It can be argued that the metric system is not actually superior to the imperial, aka US customary, system of measurement. How?

a) Celsius is inferior because the units are too large, and because its scale goes beyond the temperatures generally experienced by humans, such that part of the scale (38 to 100) is wasted, and to express very cold temperatures you have to go into negative numbers, which is awkward
b) There’s no arguing that 60 mph—that is, a mile a minute—is a really handy mnemonic, since it’s roughly the speed we drive on the highway, so a destination 300 miles away will take 300 minutes to reach; no such mnemonic exists in the metric system
c) The metric units of weight, kilograms, are too large to be precise, and since a majority of Americans would like to lose weight, the units are demoralizing because who wants to forgo snacks for a whole week and only get to say, “I boy, I lost a whole half-kilo!”?
d) Base-10 is overrated because it lacks sub-multiples, so it’s poorly suited to calculating quickly in your head via fractions, which is why we don’t have a base-10 system for measuring time

10. What is the key to making good guacamole?

a) Don’t put sour cream in it
b) Don’t mix it in a blender—just roughly hack it up so it’s nice and chunky
c) Don’t use inferior ingredients—the whole idea is that Mother Nature makes the guac great so long as you don’t screw it up
d) Don’t add peyote, even if the characters in Oscar Zeta Acosta’s Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo spiked their guacamole with it (and note that Acosta himself just said no)

11. This year’s Paris-Roubaix bike race was particularly fun to watch because…

a) It was raining so with all the wet cobblestones and the dirt turning to mud, it was slicker than snot and there were tons of crashes
b) Gianni Moscon, who is a total scumbag who’d been in the news a number of times for misbehavior ranging from racial slurs to deliberately crashing a rider to getting a tow from the team car to punching a rival to throwing a bike at another rider, was off the front solo for a good while before falling on his ass, which made the race feel like a morality play
c) Sonny Cobrelli celebrated his victory with the most over-the-top hysterics in the history of the sport, shaking his bike at the sky as if daring the gods to defy him, throwing himself on the ground and howling like an animal, “BAAAAAA-HOO-HOO-HOO! BAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA!” and generally carrying on like he’d completely lost his mind
d) Cobrelli, when chided by the post-race interviewer for having mud on his face, replied, “No, you’re mistaken, this is an oatmeal facial mask; you see, it’s important to rehydrate your skin after a tough race like that, and oatmeal is a humectant, which means it helps the skin retain any moisture added to it, and meanwhile, oatmeal has naturally occurring glycolic acid, which effectively exfoliates dead skin cells and speeds up cell turnover, so you’re left with softer skin, less visible pores, and a more glowing and dewy appearance”

12. Which of the below products, promoted as a gift during the 2021 holiday season, is mind-bogglingly lame?

a) The aromatherapy candle, “poured [by] skilled artisans in the USA using only premium and cleanest soy wax available,” and “ideal as an aromatherapy candle or relaxing candle for yoga, meditation, and stress relief” and, best of all, “decorated with a cute, fun, adorable, and always heart-warming message of assurance,” which says in giant bold letters on the label, “I’D SHANK A BITCH FOR YOU RIGHT IN THE KIDNEY”
b) The smartphone-controlled coffee mug that enables you to set the temperature of your coffee remotely and even to set up alerts in case your coffee is in another room, since it’s simply not practical to just throw your coffee in the microwave for 20 seconds if it cools off too much
c) The clock that shows the hours and minutes as math problems you have to solve, so that you have to stop, shift gears, waste valuable time calculating the hour and minute, and then spend more time trying to calm back down because you’re pissed off now about having had to do all this
d) The $995 Gucci shoe/slipper that is a leather dress shoe in the front and a fur-lined slipper in the back, like what Chewbacca would wear if he went to prom

The answers

Great job, you made it to the end! Let’s see how you did.

Guess what: all answers are correct, thus I congratulate you on a perfect quiz! You are clearly a very astute reader of albertnet, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog for the last twelve months. Come back next year and pay close attention, because some of my upcoming posts are gonna be on the test!

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Super Bowl FAQ - A Guide for Foreigners

Vlog

I have had mixed reactions to my vlogs. One reader indicated that I disparage the vlog format so much that he feels too self-conscious to view a vlog, even mine. Another said that he liked my last post, but didn’t want to watch the vlog version because he would find that embarrassing—as in, he would be embarrassed for me if he watched it. Look, here’s the thing. A friend of mine who’s a successful blogger recommended that I always provide a vlog option, and I trust his advice, hence the vlog below. If you think he’s right, well then, click Play and enjoy. Otherwise, please don’t be embarrassed. Just scroll down for the text. (Or hit Play, close your eyes, and pretend it’s a podcast.)

Introduction

I am no expert about American football. That might make me seem like a poor authority to consult about the Super Bowl. But most Americans are far too steeped in football lore to be of much help to a foreigner. Ask almost any football fan what a “down” is, and you’ll get an answer like, “You know, a down. Like, third down and six, that kind of thing.”

Since albertnet is a truly global blog, with 11% of my pageviews from Russia and 7% from Hong Kong, I thought I’d help the rest of the world understand the whole Super Bowl phenomenon. (I know, I should have posted this well ahead of the game … I just got busy. At least this will help you process what just happened.)

Super Bowl XLIV Frequently Asked Questions

Is this year’s game really Super Bowl XLIV?

Ooh, you caught me. I didn’t know so I just guessed. I was kind of hoping nobody would try to convert the roman numerals. The Super Bowl started in, like, the ‘60s? So we’re at, like, number 55? I don’t actually know. Sorry.

Is Super Bowl one word or two?

It’s two, but most football fans probably aren’t very particular on the spelling (of this term or any other). Just don’t call it the Super Bowel. They might think you’re a wise guy or something.

Has football significantly contributed to the study of linguistics?

Somewhat. It has given us a couple of new heteronyms: offense and defense. In normal usage, these are pronounced “uh-FENCE” and “de-FENCE.” In football, it’s “OFF-ence” and “DEE-fence.” More on heteronyms here.

Does the whole country watch the Super Bowl, or just the states with teams in the game?

The whole country watches, because regional differences aside, the game is just plain American so we’re all emotionally invested in it. I supposed it’s kind of like how France follows the Tour de France even though a Frenchman hasn’t won it since 1985.

What’s the best thing about the Super Bowl?

This is a tough question. Most of the anecdotal evidence I’ve accrued points to the tasty snacks fans get at Super Bowl parties, but lots of people do also love the commercials. I think everyone agrees the game itself doesn’t rank very high because, oddly enough, it’s usually a blowout.

Can everyday fans watch the Super Bowl in person?

Heavens no, you have to be practically royalty to afford a ticket, and that’s during a normal year. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you have to a) be a healthcare worker or b) have naked pictures of God. The promoters have greatly reduced the number of fans they’ll allow in the stadium.

Will this game be a COVID superspreader event?

Oh, very likely when you consider all the Super Bowl parties obstinate fans will insist on hosting across the country. But nobody will know for sure for a couple more weeks.

Is the Super Bowl halftime show totally amazing?

The halftime shows are designed to be amazing spectacles, but just like big-budget superhero movies they’re almost never any good. About the most this show ever accomplishes is some overwrought scandal, such as when Janet Jackson’s boob popped out of her outfit, or when M.I.A. flipped off the audience and was subsequently sued for $16.6 million for “tarnishing the [National Football] League’s goodwill and reputation.” I guess that’s pretty amazing.

Regarding this M.I.A. lawsuit: did the NFL have a valid point?

The NFL doesn’t exactly have a squeaky-clean track record. For one thing, they have come under fire for tolerating domestic violence by their players, as described here. They also have a long history of turning a blind eye to rampant concussions, and as detailed here took great pains to block research on the topic. Their fans, being remarkably tolerant of all this, should be able to handle getting flipped off, and as far as I’m concerned the NFL has tarnished its own goodwill and reputation. M.I.A., in her defense, rightly mocked the NFL for claiming to be wholesome.

Is the football itself really made out of pigskin?

Not anymore, but in the early days it was made from a pig’s bladder.  Details here.

Who is playing in the Super Bowl this year?

I recently learned that it’s the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

What is a buccaneer?

Buccaneers were basically French pirates, except that they were licensed by the British government, who, according to Wikipedia, “legalized their operations in return for a share of their profits.” In some cases the Royal Navy actually assisted them. Wikipedia goes on to say, “Among the leaders of the buccaneers were two Frenchmen, Jean-David Nau, better known as François l’Ollonais, and Daniel Montbars, who destroyed so many Spanish ships and killed so many Spaniards that he was called ‘the Exterminator.’”

Is that a fitting image for a sports team?

Perhaps not, but then, there has been controversy about the name “Chiefs” as well.

When’s the last time your local team made it to the Super Bowl, and were you excited?

Honestly, I can’t recall.

Dude, your San Franciso 49ers were in the Super Bowl just last year! Pull your head out!

Wait, seriously? I must have known that. But really, this kind of thing barely registers with me. Not all Americans are rabid fans. Where popular ball sports are involved, I always root for the opposing team, ever since the San Francisco Giants won the 2012 World Series and fans ran amok, even setting a city bus on fire. Especially given the pandemic this year, I’m relieved that neither the 49ers nor the Raiders are in the Super Bowl.

You are aware that the Raiders are no longer in Oakland … right?

Wait, what? Oh, yeah … I guess I remember something about them moving to … Vegas, was it?

Originally the readers asking you these questions seemed to be from Europe, but those last few were apparently from testy locals. What’s up with that?

I’ll take questions from anybody, or nobody.

How many Americans typically watch the Super Bowl?

According to Statista, around 100 million Americans watch the big game on TV. Last year it was 99.9 million, and viewership peaked at 114.4 million in 2015. Here’s a graph.

How can you be so uninterested in a championship game that’s this popular?

To be honest, I’m a little bit disturbed by any sporting event that relies heavily upon tribal impulses for its excitement. (This is not limited to football or to America; consider soccer hooliganism in England, which according to this study is “thought to reflect expressions of strong emotional ties to a [soccer] team, which may help to reinforce a supporter’s sense of identity.”) I air my misgivings not as an outsider, but as somebody who has not only tasted but deeply quaffed the thrilling feeling of team identification.

In 1986, for some reason my brother Bryan and I, both still living in our hometown of Boulder, Colorado, decided to watch our home team, the Denver Broncos, in the AFC Championship Game against the Cleveland Browns. As described here, “Broncos quarterback John Elway, in a span of 5 minutes and 2 seconds, led his team 98 yards in 15 plays to tie the game with 37 seconds left in regulation. Denver won the game in overtime by making a 33-yard field goal.” Bryan and I were elated. We jumped to our feet and did dual high-fives in the air (no small feat for two non-gymnastic cyclists). Then, as the aerial camera pulled back to show the frankly ugly Cleveland Municipal Stadium on a dull winter day, the announcer said something dramatic like, “With this devastating loss, the fans in Cleveland will head home to bleak, meaningless lives, with nothing left to live for.” I shook my head and in a very self-satisfied way reflected on the abysmal, low state of the Clevelanders, and was relieved at knowing myself to be so obviously superior to them.

Then I thought, wait a second! I don’t even like football! I’ve never even been to Cleveland! It was a real wake-up call, and I thought about it again five years later when I read St. Augustine’s Confessions (in the original Latin, if you must know), particularly this passage concerning a young man who, dragged against his will to the gladiatorial games, is determined not to be caught up in them:

A great roar from the entire crowd struck him with such vehemence that he was overcome by curiosity. Supposing himself strong enough to despise whatever he saw and to conquer it, he opened his eyes... As soon as he saw the blood, he at once drank in savagery and did not turn away. His eyes were riveted. He imbibed madness. Without any awareness of what was happening to him, he found delight in the murderous contest and was inebriated by bloodthirsty pleasure. He was not now the person who had come in, but just one of the crowd which he had joined, and a true member of the group which had brought him… He looked, he yelled, he was on fire, he took the madness home with him so that it urged him to return … taking others with him.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not actually afraid of becoming the kind of rabid fan who gets so worked up he celebrates “his” team’s victory by torching a city bus. But any temptation to submit to this hardwired tribal instinct gives me pause.

Is it true that there is a spike in domestic violence every year during the Super Bowl?

I am relieved to be able to say, after some light research, that this is an urban myth. As reported here, a “2006 study published in the Handbook of Sports and Media that examined over 1.3 million domestic violence police reports from every day of the year in 15 NFL cities found only a very small rise in domestic violence dispatches on (or just after) Super Bowl Sunday, but nearly a quintupling of domestic violence police dispatch reports around major holidays such as Christmas.”

What’s the deal with cheerleaders?

Unlike European sports, American sports feature skimpily clad women dancing around to celebrate their team. I suppose this simply provides a welcome spectacle for anybody who has lost interest in the game.

Do bloggers ever feature cheerleaders, for similar reasons?

Look, here are some now!

Is it true concussions are a serious problem among high school cheerleaders?

Yes, as detailed here.

Boy, you really are a buzzkill, aren’t you?

Why, yes. Yes I am.

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - Sitting Out Super Bowl XXIII

Introduction

About this time of year it dawns on me that the Super Bowl is coming up. Often I’m ignorant of who is even playing; I haven’t been invited to a Super Bowl party since the mid-‘90s. But this year my brother Bryan, who lives near Seattle, offered his condolences for “his” Seahawks beating “my” 49ers in the, uh, NFC conference championship game, I think it was. I didn’t know what to say, because at first I didn’t know what he was talking about.

Anyway, I have to confess I’m glad the 49ers didn’t make it to the Super Bowl, because the last time San Francisco won a championship of that magnitude (the 2012 World Series), there was rioting in the streets and some dumbasses celebrated by torching a city bus. Whatever pride I might feel in a sports team affiliated with my geographical area is completely eclipsed by such shameful acts.

In honor of this week’s big game, I invite you to read this piece from my archives, about being a UC Santa Barbara student caught up in the fanfare of Super Bowl XXIII.

Sitting Out Super Bowl XXIII - January 23, 1989

Guess what I didn’t do yesterday? Believe it or not, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. Instead I studied for a test and wrote a paper. Perhaps what’s more surprising is that even if duty hadn’t called, I think I could have found something better to do than to watch two football teams throw the old pigskin around amid incredible hype.

“What’s that? You blasphemous pinko commie scumbag! Hey, pal, if you don’t like America, you can just leave!” That’s what at least some of you are probably thinking. Let me qualify my statement by saying that this isn’t a matter of principle. I have nothing explicitly against football or the Super Bowl. If I were bored out of my mind in a stranger’s home with no books around, no homework to do, and no cats to play with, I would probably turn on the TV and watch the game. What’s more, I would probably enjoy watching it to a certain degree.

I’ve been known to occasionally get excited about football; after all, my brother Bryan and I [back when we lived in Colorado] did exchange dual‑in‑the‑air‑high‑fives when the Denver Broncos made “the drive” to win the AFC Championship game a couple years back. (Some of our enthusiasm was about the dual-in-the-air-high-fives themselves, and our finally having an excuse to do them.) But I’ve never watched the San Francisco 49ers play, nor the Cincinnati Bengals. I suppose I could feel an affinity for the 49ers since they’re from California, but they’re not, really. I mean, they aren’t local boys or anything; the NFL draft makes sure that players don’t get to choose where they play. So why should I feel a tribal bond with any team at all?

Moreover, since I almost never watch football to begin with, why should that suddenly change just because this is the biggest game of the year? I know, I know … the pageantry, the spectacle, blah blah blah. I must admit, there’s a certain novelty to everything getting blown completely out of proportion, but that wears off pretty fast.

For a solid week before The Game, the newspaper covered every aspect of this sporting event, which was presented as being glorious even before the fact. The media even gave non-game-related news a game-related spin; for example, an outbreak of racial violence in Miami was reported in terms of how it could affect the Super Bowl. (They even mentioned later that the rioting stopped right at kickoff.) I found out what Joe Montana ate for breakfast the day before leaving for Miami. Dr. Ruth Westheimer predicted that the Bengals would lose because they were forced to stay in different hotels from their wives.

The published schedule for the game took up more than a few pages in the newspaper: the first pre‑game special would start at about 10:00 a.m., and various programs about The Game would run until the first kickoff at 2:30 p.m. Then, the supposedly hour‑long game was scheduled to run clean through the 5:00 news, and would eventually dominate the entire day’s programming.

Notwithstanding the fact that the 49ers’ home is hundreds of miles from Isla Vista, several local businesses took advantage of everybody’s enthusiasm (i.e., the Super Bowl’s ability to create wealth). Dave’s Market issued a special Super Bowl coupon book, and car dealerships had sales commemorating the event. But perhaps more incredible was the hype about the advertising that would run during The Game. I have never seen advertisements for advertisements before. In the L.A. Times, AT&T had a full‑page ad for their halftime commercial. Coca‑Cola had a promotion in stores everywhere: you could get a free pair of 3‑D glasses with the purchase of a six‑pack, for watching the 3‑D Coke commercial during the game. For the cost of one 30‑second spot at halftime, a company could sponsor a three‑week bicycle race!

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the Super Bowl is the crazed following it has around here (that is, among those who ought to be all glum about our local Los Angeles Raiders missing out). An hour before the game even started, people in apartments all across town were leaning out of windows and yelling, “Yeah, 49ers!” Twenty minutes before kickoff, what passes for our downtown was a zoo of people rushing around, getting one more six‑pack of beer, one more bag of pretzels, or visiting one more apartment to share Super Bowl vows, prayers, or bets. But twenty minutes after kickoff, it was a ghost town. You’d swear a plague had hit the streets.

Even after I buried my nose in a book, I knew exactly what it was people were seeing on their TVs. With every cheer I heard from the adjacent apartment, I knew another player had trotted onto the field. Ooh, there’s an extra loud cheer—must be Joe Montana! Great job, Joe, you made it out of the locker room! Then, the din died down during the inevitable ten‑minute commercial break, except for the occasional random “Yeah 49ers!” coming from an apartment window. And then when the game finally got going, whooping and yelling would burst forth from all around my apartment, so often that I often thought the score must be well into the three digits for San Francisco.

A new twist on these old traditions was the screaming and yelling of girls. Yes, actual girls watching football. You can call me a chauvinist, but I simply refuse to believe that any female could actually enjoy watching football. I mean, it’s a very masculine game. The standard football fan is supposed to be fat man wearing a filthy white tank‑top, slouching in his overstuffed armchair with a beer resting on his belly, with all kinds of snack foods and a nagging wife nearby. Having somebody to ignore is part of the pleasure for these men, or at least used to be.

But I guess these women call themselves “liberated.” By being “liberated”, they’re subjecting themselves to a game they loathe, pretending to enjoy it, so that their boyfriends will respect them. “Yeah, my woman loves football! She even knows the rules!” they can brag to their friends. You may wonder, why do I even care? Well, it’s just that the female contingent adds an annoying new aspect to the game: shrieking. My ears were ringing with every big play.

I can well remember when the Denver Broncos were in the Super Bowl for the first time. This was back in the late ‘70s. Our Boulder fans were pretty rabid. My elementary school practically declared a holiday the Friday before. Instead of the normal lessons, we did Broncos-themed activities all day long. For example, we all gathered for a sing-along with songs apparently written specifically for this game. I only remember one chorus: “Ya gotta …. make those miracles happen!” There was also a crossword puzzle; one clue was “What the Cowboys’ offense will be after the Broncos get through with them,” and the answer was “CRUSHED.” That was based on the nickname for the Broncos’ defense: “Orange Crush.” There was a product tie-in with the artificially flavored, artificially colored orange soft drink. I wasn’t a very sophisticated kid, but still, I was pretty disgusted by the opportunism involved and how successful it was, with giant pyramids of extra Orange Crush throughout the grocery stores.

I finally got so sick of all the Broncos mania, I (very stupidly) lashed out at everybody and said, “I hate the Broncos! I hope they lose!” This utterly ruined me socially. I was a pariah from that day forward. Sometimes I think my social life still hasn’t recovered.

But the crazy thing was, during that Super Bowl, the Coloradans were fairly mild-mannered; I didn’t hear a peep from the neighbors. (Perhaps this was because the Broncos got completely slaughtered.) But this past Sunday, among the UC Santa Barbara student community, the yelling was over the top. Was it my sour imagination, or did the cheering seem fake and forced out here? It almost seemed like a competition between people to see who could yell the loudest and most often. An extra creative cheer could win bonus points: “Yeah 49er’s baby whooooh!”

Of course I’ve cheered at bike races and swim meets, but that was to spur on friends whose progress I had been watching for years, and who were actually teammates of mine. They could hear me cheering and would know my voice. As loud as the fans were here, I hardly think the 49ers could hear them all the way in Miami.

One thing that really didn’t amuse me about this Super Bowl was the big news of the player who broke his leg in two places. He refused to leave the field for hospitalization because he wanted to “be there” for his team. Naturally, his stupidity was applauded by the spectators. I guess none of them realize that when that player is condemned to a wheelchair, the game won’t seem that important anymore. Fortunately, the team doctor finally made him go to the hospital. (There’s probably a lawsuit pending on that one now, with the player claiming the doctor damaged his career.)

So. Do you think we can expect that kind of enthusiasm during this year’s bicycle racing season?

The Problem with Soccer

Introduction

This is a post about soccer, kind of. I will start by saying I’m no expert on soccer. When forced to play it in gym class I was completely incompetent, and other than occasionally watching “Soccer Made In Germany” on PBS as a kid, I’ve never been much of a fan. Most of the games I’ve seen have been those of my daughters—hardly representative of the professional sport. (I’m not one of the rabid soccer parents. Though I’ve been tempted to offer an occasional suggestion to the coaches, I’ve never had the nerve. My main idea for improvement was linguistic: the post-game cheer “2-4-6-8 who do we appreciate?” should be “2-4-6-8 whom do we appreciate?”)

That said, I feel I can offer a legitimate perspective on what’s it’s like to be a newcomer to watching the World Cup. Since seeing the second half of the final game a week ago Sunday, I’ve pondered the experience at length, and think I can offer a couple of insights into why this can be a tough game for a non-aficionado to watch. I’ve even done a little research so I won’t be commenting from a position of complete ignorance. If I’m way off base, you can savor the pleasure of silently excoriating me, and/or giving me a piece of your mind via the comments feature below or e-mail.

Disclaimer: in this post I’m going to talk about men’s soccer, because I’m basing my opinions on the last game I saw, which was the men’s World Cup event, and because I can’t be bothered with the clunky “he or she” construction. Rest assured that what I have to say here would apply equally to men’s and women’s sport (so far as I know).

The viewing experience

I watched the World Cup game simply because my family was visiting friends, self-proclaimed huge soccer fans, when the game was on. I’d been curious anyway, and it was great to watch with those who could explain what was going on.

I enjoyed the game, but if I had to describe the experience in one word, it would be “stressful.” This surprised me, since I wasn’t really rooting for one team over another. The continual heartbreak of one missed goal after another really stung me emotionally. Our hosts weren’t heavily invested in the outcome either—they just wanted to see a good game—but they seemed stressed as well. I’ve talked to several others who watched the game, and they had similar reactions. I even found an article online warning of World-Cup-related heart attack risks, citing a 2008 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which reported that “watching a stressful soccer match during the 2006 World Cup more than doubled the risk of a cardiovascular event.” 

The players look really stressed, too; where calm and cool would seem to convey poise and confidence, players instead tended to fall to their knees and tear at their hair after a missed shot.

Most team sports involve a certain amount of frustration and excitability, but I’ve never seen anything like this. I mostly follow cycling, and watching it is a completely different experience. Even when I care hugely about who wins, there’s excitement but no stress. Even the racers often describe their state of mind as “tranquil.” During this year’s Tour de France—the biggest event in cycling—veteran racer Damiano Cunego told cyclingnews.com, “We are preparing for the coming stages with extreme tranquility.” Going into the pivotal final time trial of the 2008 Tour, race leader Carlos Sastre said, “I am relaxed for tomorrow. I am healthy, I am in good physical condition and I am tranquilo.” Even during the most crucial moments of a Tour stage, the top contenders generally wear a poker face. Not for them the tortured, almost exaggerated look of anguish I saw so much in the World Cup coverage.

Why such stress?

So why the stress in soccer? I suppose much of it must come from the barebones strategy intrinsic to soccer and other ball sports: score as often as possible. (In a bike race, meanwhile, the strategy may be more complex; you might let a rival go up the road in a breakaway, hoping he’ll use up too much energy fighting the wind, while your team shelters you, so you can attack later.) And since it’s so damn hard to score in soccer (I’m basing this on the World Cup statistics and what I saw on TV), each scoring attempt seems to have the whole game—and whatever honor that game represents—hanging in the balance. Contrast this to basketball, where each shot sunk represents only a few percent of a team’s final score for the game.

It probably doesn’t help that soccer games seem so totally unpredictable, due to the vast number of factors that can keep that rare, precious shot from going in. During a game that is scoreless even well beyond the regular time, you have the prospect of what a New York Times columnist calls “the dreadful lottery of a penalty shootout.” Our hosts for the World Cup game also used the term “lottery.” I’m sure the role chance plays adds to the tension of the game. By contrast, we can often feel comfortably fatalistic about other sports, especially races of various kinds, where an athlete’s best is either good enough or it isn’t, where our hero tries his best and either has the goods or doesn’t.

Who cares?

Naturally, everything I’m saying—in addition to possibly being demonstrably false—is very unlikely to dissuade the soccer aficionado. He is going to love soccer and keep watching no matter what happens to his blood pressure, no matter how anguished he may be to see his team lose 0 to 1 after an agonizing ninety minutes or two hours of missed opportunities. So who cares what the experience is like?

Surely many people do care. I imagine a lot of soccer lovers in this country are disappointed that soccer doesn’t get the respect here that it deserves, especially considering how many kids play it. Of soccer in America, Wikipedia says, “It is the most popular recreational sport for both boys and girls and has been so for more than 30 years. As a spectator sport however, it is often overshadowed and not considered to be among the ‘big four’ major league team sports.” More evidence of soccer’s lack of popularity in the U.S. is here. Kids love to play soccer; why don’t they grow up into adults who love to watch it?

What is to be done?

I’m sure that sports broadcasters and promoters, at least in this country, have given plenty of thought about how to attract larger viewing audiences for this noble sport (which is, after all, the most popular in the world). At the risk of seeming hugely cheeky, I would like to suggest something, drawn from what I appreciate about cycling. I don’t believe we could change Americans, but why not tweak the game a bit to create a superior American version? (After all, one reason I’ve heard for soccer’s lack of popularity here is that we didn’t invent it.)

Needless to say it’s too hard to score in this game, which tries the patience of American audiences accustomed to viewing success on a continual basis during our beloved football, basketball, and baseball games. I don’t really know how to change that, other than making the goal bigger or no longer letting the goalkeeper use his or her hands. Those changes would of course be far too fundamental to put in place—the resulting game would no longer be soccer.

A simpler tweak, however, might really help the game. I’m thinking about the way penalties are handled.

The referee problem

What I’m mainly struck by, watching soccer, is how big an impact the referees have on the game. They keep penalizing players for what seem like minor infractions, and the penalties are severe. The ref’s calls interrupt the play, make the players angry, and provide players with outsized rewards for failing to avoid being bumped, tripped, or otherwise tampered with. The last World Cup game this year was lambasted for being “ugly”; since the Dutch drew more penalties, they got much of the blame. Me, I blame the refs.

Without the refs and their silly cards, I doubt I would have spotted any lack of beauty in that game. Could it be that the refs and the rules make the sport look ugly? A bunch of guys are trying to kick the ball at once, and they’re tired, and suddenly two of them are on the ground. Does it always have to be one guy’s fault? Can’t we just decide this is what happens when everybody is trying to accomplish the same thing, and let them get up and brush themselves off and keep going?

The die-hard soccer fan will defend his sport: “No, that guy clearly brushed up against the other guy! And his foot was right in the way! He wasn’t being beautiful!” God forgive me, but as a guy brought up with American football, where you clobber a guy because he has the ball, these penalties just look wrong.

Rules in soccer probably exist to keep the play relatively clean, but in reality they almost seem intended to interrupt the game. The offsides rule makes sense (now that it has been explained to me), as it prevents a player from loitering near the opponent's goal waiting for a sweet pass; it’s analogous to the “three seconds” rule in basketball. But why is there no equivalent to the shot clock in basketball, designed to keep players from hanging on to a slim lead by passing pointlessly to each other ad infinitum? Once a soccer team has a lead (there’s no concept of slim vs. huge lead in soccer, of course, given that all the planets have to line up for anybody to score any goals at all), there’s nothing to prevent players from dinking around the rest of the game to run out the clock, as we saw in the final World Cup match.

Moreover, many of the referee’s calls strike me as unnecessary, and the ref’s supreme authority (i.e., how his rule stands regardless of what the home viewer sees on the slow-motion instant replay) rubs me the wrong way. The referee, I read here, may cite a player at his discretion for “unsporting behaviour” for actions “that violate the spirit of the game, even if they are not listed as specific offences.” Isn’t this the kind of arbitrary authority we Americans left England to escape? The American viewer may well decide these pesky foreign refs are enemies of freedom.

The curse of flopping

And that’s just the refs. The players can be even worse. That there’s even a term—flopping—for pretending to be hurt, in order to convince the referee to penalize an opposing player, shows how much is wrong with this game. I don’t doubt that these soccer players are fine, upstanding individuals: but the benefits of getting that penalty kick, and eventually getting opponents ejected from the game, appear to be irresistible. So we get the pitiful sight, time after time, of a grown man flinging himself on the ground, clutching his knee, his face a picture of pain. Of course nothing ends up really being wrong with him, and he’s bouncing back into action seconds after securing his coveted penalty kick. Everybody agrees this is a disgraceful spectacle. To the would-be American fan, these players look like a bunch of namby-pamby bedwetting drama queens.

Why such dire consequences for non-violently interfering with another player? In basketball, fouls result in a free-throw or two, but the impact of the resulting points is diluted by the sheer number of points scored in a game. In soccer, meanwhile, appearing to get fouled is probably the best strategy to score, and there are so few points total, games can be won or lost based on how well a player can fake being hurt. The overall effect, for me, is the same exasperation I get during a long car trip when one of my kids or the other continually cries or whines to me about some minor offense the other has committed. “Daddy! She won’t stay on her side!” or “She’s looking at me!”

The cumulative effect

The cumulative effect of all these infractions and all this flopping is, I think, to turn the viewers into self-righteous prigs who routinely deride a team for not playing “clean.” Listening to the sportscasters after that World Cup game, I was shocked at how judgmental they were. “Well, the right team won, and the Dutch team only have themselves to blame for their loss, with all that foul play,” one said.

His co-commentator replied, “Yes, the rotten stinking Dutch really got what they deserved.”

“It really shows the hollow, soulless character of the Dutch people in general, I think.”

“Yes, they’re nothing but a bunch of heartless, soulless atheists. And now their ill-gotten dream is over and they can go back to their barren, hateful lives.”

I didn’t actually take notes during the broadcast, so I may not have that exchange exactly right, but I can quote verbatim from the New York Times editorial I mentioned earlier: “There has never been so foul an intent in the 40 years I have watched the World Cup.” The writer actually laments the “relaxed policing” of the game—he wanted more penalties assessed.

A soccer fan knows in advance of a televised game that the referees will play a significant role, and that part of the emotional reaction to the game will involve bad or missed calls. A friend of mine, before watching the final game of this year’s World Cup, put a pile of t-shirts on the floor: two orange, two red. Every time a ref made a bad call, or a player made an especially dirty play, she declared, they would switch their t-shirts to the other team’s color.

But what is “dirty” vs. “clean,” anyway? Without a ref showing cards and labeling things dirty, how many bumps, falls, and other minor skirmishes would the spectator decide were really dirty? Who created this zero-contact ideal? American audiences are accustomed to a certain amount of physical contact, and I think we would have extra respect for players who can look after themselves, absorb a bump from another player, and just keep the action going, rather than running crying to the ref for justice.

Just look at bike racing: despite the speeds involved and the danger of crashing, it is a sport fairly free of rules and penalties. Other than doping offenses, we rarely see rules or judges affect anything, even when the action gets rough. Of a recent Tour de France stage finish, cyclingnews.com reported of ace sprinter Mark Cavendish’s teammate Mark Renshaw, “Renshaw elbowed Thor Hushovd out of the way and then dragged Cavendish clear as the finish line loomed.” This was a simple description, devoid of any pejorative tone. After winning the stage, Cavendish said, “Renshaw did an incredible job, fighting with Thor [Hushovd], with Tyler [Farrar] and with Oscar [Freire]. I knew he’d drop me off at the right place.” No cards, no penalties, and no outcry from the media, the fans, or anybody else.

Even when sloppy riding causes a huge crash like this one, penalties are rarely assessed. As a commentator said after this crash, “Well, this is the rough-and-tumble of bike racing.”

That’s not to say riders are never disciplined for dangerous riding; on another stage of this year’s Tour, Renshaw head-butted one rider, then cut off another, during the final sprint, and was ejected from the race. But for several reasons, this was quite different from the red card scenarios we see in soccer. For one thing, this was the exception that proved the rule, being the first time a racer had been disciplined for head-butting since 1997. Second, the penalty wasn’t assessed until after the race, and didn’t affect Cavendish’s win (even though he’d benefitted from Renshaw’s aggressive behavior). Moreover, the action leading to the ejection didn’t have commentators, racers, or spectators up in arms. During the sprint finish, the Eurosport commentator David Harmon watched the head-butt and cried, “Renshaw gives him a good battering!” His co-commentator, the former bike race champ Sean Kelly, concluded, “That's your job in that situation, making sure your man doesn’t get crowded out.” The cycling world isn’t given to righteous indignation.

The alternative to penalty cards

A veteran soccer player, or spectator, might reasonably assume that without the referees and the specific rules, soccer would turn into a free-for-all, a series of brawls on the field. And who knows, maybe it would. But I think there’s reason to believe that it wouldn’t. Again, I turn to cycling to examine the frequency of infractions in a sport where it’s logistically impossible for a referee to keep a close eye on things.

I mentioned before that cycling doesn’t have a lot of rules. More accurately, cycling doesn’t have a lot of written rules. The sport actually abounds in unwritten rules, policed not by a referee but by the racers and fans themselves. For example, if your opponent suffers a fall or a bike problem, you’re not to take advantage by attacking him. There’s no rule saying you can’t do so, and a racer who breaks this unwritten rule wouldn’t be sanctioned in any way by race officials. Instead, a rider commiting such an act would risk being castigated by the peloton. This very scenario came to pass after a big crash during this year’s race, when a rider started to attack and was immediately upbraided by another rider until he backed down. (To see footage of this, click here and look about ninety seconds in.)

These unwritten cycling rules can be very complicated, especially during a race like the Tour de France where the race leader, easily distinguished by his yellow jersey, enjoys certain privileges. For example, during an early stage this year, the whole peloton stopped to let the race leader pee, even though there was a breakaway up the road. Breaches of such etiquette are mainly noteworthy for their infrequency.

For example, a few days ago Alberto Contador, widely seen as the favorite for overall victory, launched an attack while the race leader, Andy Schleck, was having problems with his bike. To attack any rider who has a mechanical problem would be questionable, but to attack the yellow jersey in such fashion was particularly discreditable. Contador was not cited or penalized in any way by the race officials, but he was booed by fans as he mounted on the podium later to accept his yellow jersey (which he’d taken from Schleck that day, his attack having been successful). As Contador saluted the crowd, his expression was like the cat’s who has eaten the canary.

The stigma factor

Following his unsportsmanlike behavior, Contador had two things to worry about. One, many in the peloton would judge him for his unsporting behavior. As a buddy of mine commented (in the long series of e-mails our bike club exchanged about this incident), “The peloton has a long memory. Contador will get his.” As the former pro rider Todd Gogulski said to me once, “It’s very hard to help somebody win a race, but very easy to make him lose.” Gogulski referred not to nefarious actions of the Tonya Harding stripe, but of perfectly legit behaviors like refusing to help a rider in a breakaway.

The other problem Contador faced was a bad reputation among his fans, which may translate into reduced popularity and the loss of endorsement opportunities. Cycling fans remember how riders behave in such scenarios; for example, in discussing Contador’s recent gaffe, several of my cycling pals recalled how, in the 2001 Tour de France, race leader Lance Armstrong waited for his main rival, Jan Ullrich, after Ullrich crashed, and how, two years later, Ullrich returned the favor when Armstrong crashed. Obviously Contador would rather be famous for his grace than infamous for his opportunism, and after initially defending his attack on Schleck in the race, he issued a formal apology on YouTube. A couple days later the two riders made up on French TV.

I strongly suspect that soccer players would be just as gracious if it weren’t for the system of penalties that exists, and the rigid enforcement of petty rules. I see a certain amount of cynicism in soccer surrounding these penalties. A player who flops, for example, gets groans from fans but also helps his team win, which seems to protect him from a reputation as a bad sportsman. Meanwhile, a player who breaks the rules may do so knowing he’ll get a penalty, but having decided it’s worth it.

The New York Times columnist wrote, of John Heitinga’s offence toward the end of the final World Cup game this year, “In some circles that is seen as a team-oriented act, deliberately accepting a second card to prevent what could have been the winning goal.” It’s as though the formal penalty takes the place of social stigma among players and fans, opening the door for cynicism on everyone’s part. The same columnist wrote, “Yes, the Spanish players retaliated, sometimes with kicks of their own. But when a team is in the World Cup final against an opponent that has said it was prepared to win ugly, it has little choice but to defend itself and show that it will not be intimidated.” Oh, so it’s okay to play dirty if the other side started it? Whatever, dude.

In a setting where infractions are quickly flagged and dealt with, cynical players will inevitably push the edge of the envelope, to see what they can get away with. In contrast, where social stigma is concerned a player might well have to err on the side of caution—that is, of putting sportsmanship first. That appears to be what we have in cycling.

I’m reminded of the study that Steven Levitt, the Freakonomics author, did with day-care centers, about how to prevent parents from being late picking up their children. The experiment was to enact a fine for any parent who was late. The effect, to their surprise, was that the number of late pickups actually increased—in fact, it more than doubled. The vague social taint of keeping the staff waiting was replaced by a set penalty, which the parents were far more willing to risk incurring. By accepting the financial penalty, they bought their way out of being stigmatized, to the ultimate detriment of the day-care center. “For certain types of misbehavior,” Levitt concluded, “social incentives are terribly powerful.”

Conclusion

I won’t say cycling should be a role model where U.S. viewership is concerned; for various reasons cycling isn’t very popular with audiences here either. But given the popularity of soccer as a recreational pastime in this country, I think events like the World Cup deserve a much wider American audience. If soccer players could throw off the shackles of the regulations and referees, and were free to wow us with their ability to stay upright and deflect defenders, all the while maintaining a stoic demeanor, they’d better match our American ideal of what a sportsman should be. The rules of the game, and the penalties, make these fine players into underhanded sneaks, willing to look like total momma’s-boys just to get a penalty kick, all the while chided and disciplined by den-mother-like referees, while we viewers learn to bask in righteous indignation at the players’ misconduct. Beautiful game, indeed!

dana albert blog