As America prepares to rejoice 250 years of kicking butt and taking names, I’m celebrating one thing that we aren’t kicking: soccer balls.
Our victory over the Brits did greater than assure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It additionally freed us of the menace of European tradition. We dumped tea and we drink espresso. We pushed away Parliament and penned a Structure. The Brits received to maintain their fish and chips, whereas we selected high quality dental care.
And our biggest victory. We received soccer. Britain received caught with soccer.
Soccer is a 90-minute toothache on grass, a boring contest between unimaginable athletes losing their time at a tedious activity. It was unfold all over the world by way of world oppression. Because the British Empire grew within the nineteenth century, it inflicted soccer on its topics. Whereas the redcoats patrolled the streets, Wooster and Jeeves pressured the locals to study purple playing cards and heading.
So why is America internet hosting the World Cup smack dab in the course of the celebration of our nationwide greatness? Why are my airwaves jammed with advertisements celebrating glorified kickball whereas I’m attempting to salute the purple, white and blue?
I, for one, refuse to take part. After they collect in Los Angeles on June 12 to hoist the tipoff or drop the puck or no matter they do to start out a soccer sport, I will probably be tuned into one thing extra thrilling, such because the Knitting Channel or the most recent video on “AllAboutAccounting.com.”
Spare me your outrage, soccer followers. I already know your arguments. Or fairly, “argument,” as a result of if you level out how boring their sport is, the soccer fan’s prepared reply is, “What about baseball? Now that’s boring.”
Effectively, let me let you know about baseball.
First, it’s not simply America’s sport as a result of it rocks. It’s America’s sport as a result of it was perfected right here within the good ol’ U.S. after which despatched on to take over the world — effectively, important elements of Asia and Central America, anyway.
(OK, so baseball isn’t America’s sport; that’s the NFL. However go together with it, I’m on a roll.)
Is baseball extra boring than soccer? Please. In soccer, practically all of the exercise is away from the objective. What number of precise scoring alternatives in a typical World Cup match? A dozen? Perhaps 20?
In baseball, each single pitch is a scoring alternative. Certain, the overwhelming majority are simply balls and strikes, however each pitch might be become a house run. Which is why a 3-2 baseball sport is a lot extra thrilling than a 3-2 soccer match. (And why the gang cheers each objective for about 20 minutes. They know nothing else is more likely to occur for some time.)
It’s additionally not a coincidence that soccer and socialism typically go collectively. (British prime minister and unapologetic socialist Keir Starmer? Lifelong Arsenal fan.) Socialism results in poverty, which implies shopping for bats, gloves and helmets is an issue. For soccer, all you want is a ball and a mob of individuals to kick it round. And socialist nations all the time have folks standing round with nothing higher to do.
We’re Individuals, dammit! We demand extra.
As soon as, throughout a visit to Eire, I used to be caught in a sports activities bar for a few hours ready for a pal. The Irish and their Guinnesses (“Guinni?”) had been gathered across the flat screens on the wall, watching “soccer.”
I glanced up at one other display screen, the place a handful of locals had been glued to one thing referred to as “hurling.”
To this present day, I do not know what the foundations are, however it concerned guys with club-like sticks working round a subject and hitting a fist-size ball whereas engaged in high-speed collisions with one another. After half an hour, I turned to the room and cried, “Why isn’t everyone watching this?!”
Carry the World Cup of Hurling to america, and I’m in. And even System 1 racing, or that bizarre Canadian ice sport with the rocks and brooms. Something however soccer.
From George Washington to FDR to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, what’s the one factor that they had in widespread? They weren’t boring. They knew placed on a present.
We fought the British to maintain issues like soccer out of America. And if it takes one other Revolution to maintain it out, I say “Reside Free or Die.”
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