Who’s the best James Bond?

Many times, bright minds argue over important issues like politics or philosophy. Other times, they argue about even more important things, like which actor made for the best James Bond. I will attempt to settle that very argument with an in-depth study that will hopefully put it to bed once and for all.

Our debate centers around Sean Connery, the original Bond, and Pierce Brosnan, the most recent incarnation before Casino Royale and Daniel Craig came along. Not in the initial argument were Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton, but my position was that the proper order went Connery, Moore, and then Brosnan. We excluded those actors who starred in only one movie (George Lazenby and Daniel Craig), and we also excluded Timothy Dalton from the initial argument. We all agreed he was the worst Bond, although he now has an entertaining appearance in Hot Fuzz to his credit.

Now, I don’t think Pierce Brosnan was a bad Bond, I just think Sean Connery and Roger Moore were better. Certain parties, whose tastes are more questionable, maintain that Brosnan is the best James Bond and that Connery was overrated. I will show here that this is an objectively incorrect position, on a par with saying The Phantom Menace was the best Star Wars movie. Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea.

I have chosen two different means by which to support my claim that Sean Connery was a superior James Bond. First, I have decided to use the IMDB rating of each actor’s respective movies. I chose IMDB because its ratings are an average of thousands of votes and it is the fairest way to judge popular opinion of each movies. The Bond stars themselves aren’t responsible for the quality of the entire movie they starred in, but they undeniably play a huge role. If Connery had the benefit of better scripts, Brosnan had the benefit of bigger budgets and special effects.

The other measure I used in this study, which once again is a measure of popular opinion of each particular Bond actor, is the inflation-adjusted box office gross for each Bond movie (source: Wikipedia). Surely, if Brosnan were a “better” Bond, his movies would be higher rated and bigger relative commercial successes than Connery’s, wouldn’t they? Let’s take a look at the results, actor by actor, again with Craig and Lazenby excluded.

Here are Sean Connery’s movies, followed by their respective adjusted box office gross and IMDB scores:

Dr. No – 425,488,741 / 7.3
From Russia With Love – 555,909,803 / 7.5
Goldfinger – 868,659,354 / 7.9
Thunderball – 966,435,555 / 7.0
You Only Live Twice – 720,388,023 / 7.0
Diamonds are Forever – 617,520,987 / 6.7

For argument’s sake, we can also include the “unofficial” Bond movie, Never Say Never Again, which is like the bastard brother of Thunderball.

Never Say Never Again – 331,405,622 / 6.0

Connery’s movies apparently got worse as they went along, but they did OK overall. They had an average IMDB rating of 7.23 without Never Say Never Again, a 7.06 with it. They had an adjusted average gross of $692,400,410.50 without it, $640,829,726.43 with it.

Now, for Roger Moore:

Live and Let Die – 785,677,477 / 6.8
The Man with the Golden Gun – 426,826,774 / 6.6
The Spy Who Loved Me – 659,607,920 / 7.1
Moonraker – Moore 624,527,272 / 6.1
For Your Eyes Only – 463,219,801 / 6.8
Octopussy – 405,873,493 / 6.5
A View to a Kill – 305,366,547 / 6.0

Moore gets hurt by a couple of relative stinkers. Moonraker and A View to a Kill weren’t terribly well received, although I would argue the latter should’ve done better given the Duran Duran and Christopher Walken factors. I digress. Their averages were a 6.56 rating and a $524,442,754.86 adjusted box office gross.

For humor’s sake, let’s include Timothy Dalton’s two Bond movies.

The Living Daylights – 362,876,056 / 6.6
Licence to Kill – 271,586,451 / 6.4

Averages: 6.50 and $317,231,253.50. Weak, as expected. Now for Brosnan:

GoldenEye – 499,954,330 / 7.1
Tomorrow Never Dies – 465,588,535 / 6.4
The World Is Notr Enough – 504,705,882 / 6.3
Die Another Day – 546,490,272 / 6.1

Brosnan’s movies got progressively worse although the worst of the four (the regrettable Die Another Day) made the most money. GoldenEye was a great movie and spawned a great Nintendo 64 game. His averages were a 6.475 rating and a $504,184,754.75 box office draw. What happens when we put it all together? Let’s rank them first by their IMDB scores:

1. Sean Connery, 7.06. I used the lower of the two numbers to avoid any argument.
2. Roger Moore, 6.56
3. Timothy Dalton, 6.50
4. Pierce Brosnan, 6.475

As you can see, it’s not even close. Going by their movies’ adjusted box office gross the order is:

1. Sean Connery, $640,829,726.43
2. Roger Moore, $524,442,754.86
3. Pierce Brosnan, $504,184,754.75
4. Timothy Dalton, $317,231,253.50

Dalton’s movies were obvious commercial failures. Brosnan is actually in the same neighborhood as Moore in both critical acclaim and box office revenue, although Brosnan looks worse if we consider his movies had considerably higher budgets than those of his counterparts.

It’s clear by both of the relevant criteria I have chosen that Sean Connery is far and away the most acclaimed and most successful of the Bond actors. Brosnan kept close with Moore but still is behind him in both categories, but given what I found I would not deviate at all from my initial assertion that Connery and Moore both beat Brosnan out. I was also shocked that Dalton’s movies didn’t have lower ratings, although the box office reception for them was rather poor – he’s generally considered the most unpopular Bond and never would’ve played the part if Brosnan had been able to get out of filming Remington Steele for NBC.

So, there you have it. Definitive, scientific proof that Sean Connery is, to this point, the best James Bond. I didn’t even need to mention the fact that when pop culture imitates James Bond, it’s Connery’s Bond – an obvious ode to the great Scottish actor’s portrayal of the secret agent. I hope that this hard evidence I have presented here settles any future arguments. It probably won’t, but one can always dream.

By the way, this is (still) worse than horse racing.

I mentioned in my earlier post on PETA, while highlighting their hypocrisy on issues of human welfare, that I would be donating to relief efforts for the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. Well, it appears aid donations aren’t doing a whole lot of good right now because the military government in Myanmar won’t allow most of the aid to be distributed.

So, to review once more: there are more screwed up things going on in the world right now than the plight of an unfortunate racehorse. That is all.

Well, if Domino’s Pizza is calling it a recession…

…then by golly, it might just be a recession.

Thanks to e-mails I get from Domino’s Pizza (e-mails that I’ve been too lazy to unsubscribe from since I ordered from them online) I get the latest “scoop” (wait, that’s an ice cream metaphor!) on all sorts of “hot deals” (slightly better, pizza is hot!) that the company has. For example: I found out recently that they raised the price of their 5/5/5 deal to $5.55 a pizza thanks to the rising price of dairy. Ouch. Anything that adversely affects my ability to buy cheese affordably is certain to have a negative impact on my quality of life.

Continuing the trend of Domino’s being a source of information on the state of the economy, I just got an e-mail pitching the “Recession Buster” 4/4/4 deal. $4 for a 10 inch pizza? Amazing! And yes, that last sentence was topped with sarcasm! (Ugh. I should not touch food metaphors ever again.)

I’m not sure how to feel about a national pizza chain using an economic downturn to sell its mediocre food, but I do find it amusing that they’re publicizing something that the federal government continues to deny. Who’s right, the pizza chain or the President? I’m going to avoid the obvious joke here.

Either way, the efforts of Domino’s certainly don’t match what Papa John’s did to make nice to the good people of Cleveland, all because of one restaurant’s publicity stunt. Cleveland’s got it good these days – the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, cheap pizza…um, Jacobs Progressive Field. I think their poor sports fans have been through quite enough, however.

This all reminds me of one of the brighter spots of living on Long Island: not needing to rely on national chains for all my pizza needs. STRONG ISLAND BRO!

More on PETA.

Since my last post got a little bit of attention…

This was initially a reply to the most recent comment on that post, but it ran a bit long, so I decided to post it up front for all to see. Here goes nothing.

My guess is that just as many people would generally be sympathetic to animal rights causes without PETA needing to accuse people who like cheeseburgers of being murderers or throwing paint on people who wear fur coats. There’s a difference between educating and prosletyzing and PETA can’t seem to draw the distinction too often.

I believe in animal rights, to an extent, but I also believe in basic human liberties. If a person wants to eat a burger or a hot dog, even if it’s “bad” for them (for the sake of argument), they have a right to without a sanctimonious lecture from PETA on their diet. It’s possible to have a healthy vegan diet, and it’s also possible to have a very healthy, balanced diet with meat included. The point is, human beings have a choice thanks to the benefits of their evolutionary status.

I actually do think that many people eat too much meat and too much unhealthy food that isn’t meat in general. More people should be aware that they do have a choice to eat healthier, and be educated on how to eat right, but the important word I keep using is: choice.

As for greenhouse gases produced by livestock, yes, there is certainly an impact. However, I sincerely hope that any PETA member who uses that argument lives in a carbon-neutral home with solar panels and rides a bike to work, because otherwise I think it’s sort of hypocritical to point and scream about the greenhouse gases that livestock produce (and this is coming from someone who’s very conscious of the environment). Most industrial production causes pollution; the computer you’re typing on required plastics and (some toxic) metals, the production process required oil, and so on and so forth. One of the greatest shames of the last decade in this country is the failure to invest in renewable fuels and in passing stricter carbon restrictions on industry, but food is a right, not a luxury (like driving a Hummer).

A lot of grain used to feed livestock is not suitable for human consumption. Want to help lower food prices? How about protesting America’s absurd fascination with ethanol, which is driving up the price of food around the world? I don’t see anything about that on their website.

If PETA really cares about human lives, let me see them address the tragedy in Myanmar, where as many as 100,000 human lives have been lost. Funny thing, though, is that I don’t see anything about it on their website, either. Not even a link to donate money. For the record, I am donating through Google and putting my money where my mouth is. I encourage you to do the same.

Ingrid Newkirk once said that she would not want a cure for AIDS to be tested on animals, even if it saved millions of human lives. That, to me, is fundamentally insane – almost like comparing the slaughter of chickens to one of the greatest atrocities in human history. Stop testing cosmetics and other superficial chemical goods on animals? I’m on board with that. Ban animal testing on medicines that can help millions of people live longer lives? You lose me there. A lot of medicines that make it possible for humans to live as long as they do were tested on animals first. It’s unfortunate that animals have to die in the name of science, but it’s reality.

PETA’s campaigns have often equated animal lives to human lives. I have a golden retriever and a handful of cats. I love animals. However, the idea that an animal life is equivalent to a human life, at the end of the day, is one I cannot fathom.

Have no fear racehorses, here comes PETA to the rescue.

Oh boy.

It figures that after my blurb on the free pass given to horse racing in the wake of the death of Eight Belles, the Kentucky Derby runner-up, it was only a matter of time before I found out PETA was now also on the crusade for racehorses everywhere. It’s to be expected, of course, but as usual they’re going about it in a batshit-insane way that only PETA can.

Let me clarify a couple of things. First off, I’m obviously not a fan of the mistreatment of animals. I’m not a vegetarian, but I have friends that are for moral reasons, and I understand that. I’m not willing to go that far in the name of animal rights (I tend to be of the camp that thinks humans belong where they are on the food chain) but I’m not going to berate anyone for choosing to do that. There are also a ton of worthy animal welfare causes, from mistreatment of domesticated pets (including racehorses) to the preservation of endangered species, that merit a lot of attention.

My feelings on PETA, however, are as follows: I wonder how much good could be done if all the time spent and all the fervent rabble-rousing done by PETA activists in the name of animal welfare (actions that arguably give a negative impression of the animal rights movement to mainstream America) was focused on issues affecting the lives of human beings every day, both in this country and around the world. There’s a lot of worthy work to be done to save the world’s animals, but PETA extremists give me the impression they’d rather a child starve than have meat on his or her plate.

I will admit that my viewpoint is biased as my parents were both furriers and I personally found PETA’s anti-fur campaign particularly distasteful. Please, go tell somebody making a living and feeding his family making fur coats a murderer and see how he reacts. I digress.

Their general point – racehorses are treated poorly – is a valid one. I’m just afraid that it will get taken too far and drown out the rational voices in the discussion. It’s also not a “sport” (I use that term with extreme reservations here) where the eventual death of one of the animals is a given, like dogfighting, so a distinction should certainly be drawn there.

Finally, while I do find the death of the racehorse regrettable and truly believe a more careful eye should be trained at the industry, I do hope that we don’t see a repeat of the Barbaro lunacy from last year. It is, in fact, just a horse. There are people out there that need help, too.

This blog: the place for all your Scott Schoeneweis trivia, apparently.

One of the great things about having a blog on WordPress as opposed to LiveJournal is that I get to take a look at all sorts of cool stats and facts about this blog, like how many visits it gets (surprise! not many) and where people that visit come from. That includes, of course, the words that people type into their search engines that cause them to stumble into this place by accident. There haven’t been many of those so far but one search string stands out already:

“schoeneweis favorite band”

So, to the person who was looking to find out what the favorite band of oft-maligned Mets reliever Scott Schoeneweis was: I’m sorry you did not find what you were looking for here because I have absolutely no idea what it is (nor have I ever cared). A quick Google search, however, did turn up a Schoeneweis appearance at a Pearl Jam concert. I’m not sure if that’s his “favorite” band, but one can assume he has decent taste at least.

I’m twofold amused by this. It’s funny to me that somebody went out of their way to try to find out what Scott Schoeneweis’ favorite band is. Does he has actual fans that care about this stuff? Or is it just a heckler looking for new material? “Hey Schoeneweis, Pearl Jam has sucked since 1994, and so have you!” Who knows?

On top of that, I care entirely too much about the Mets and I’m not even sure I’d be able to identify Scott Schoeneweis with anything other than a Mets cap and a melancholic look on his face, because frankly that’s the only Scott Schoeneweis I know. I certainly wouldn’t stop what I was doing at a Pearl Jam concert and think to myself “Holy shit! It’s Scott Schoeneweis!” And if I did, what would I even say to him without being a dick? “Hey, uh, sucks that Randolph uses you against righties all the time, huh?” Probably not.

I also love the fact that thanks to this post, bored Internet users looking for Scott’s favorite band in the future will almost certainly end up here as well. I’m sure I’ll get more ridiculous search strings as time goes on and you can be sure that I’ll post them, mostly for my own amusement but also possibly also for yours.

Here are a couple of interesting links to check out (not Schoeneweis-related, I assure you):

- An excellent article on the death of the Kentucky Derby runner-up and the silent treatment that the media gives to horse racing fatalities, something that I was discussing just the other day with a friend. This has to qualify as animal cruelty in some sense, yet the entire spectacle of horse racing seems to have this bizarre reverence that I’ve never understood. I’m just going to take a guess and say it has something to do with the millions of dollars that are gambled on horse races every year moreso than anybody really caring about the beauty of the animals involved.

- Finally, another blog’s take on whether the MLS needs “saving” and what it can do to improve its product, on the heels of my own evaluation of the league’s future prospects.

Enjoy. I’ll be back with more sometime in the near future, possibly after I finally find out what Aaron Heilman’s favorite vegetable is.

Adventures in Soccer Fandom, Part Two

Let’s talk about the English Premiere League. It ranks as one of the highest profile sports leagues in the world, rivaled only by La Liga (Spain) and Serie A (Italy) as far as quality of play and financial profitability goes for soccer leagues. It also is the foreign league with the highest profile in the United States (to a large degree, one would imagine, because of the language factor). While it has a long and storied past, my experiences with the league have been relatively sparse to this point. Still, that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about them, right?

My familiarity with the EPL, aside from the occasional Man United jersey sighting or cable telecast, really began in earnest with the Championship Manager series of games. Championship Manager is a soccer management simulation and, being a dork, I dabbled in old versions of the game, trying to run a successful franchise that wasn’t one of the big four (Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool, or Arsenal). It’s through that game I learned most of what I know about player movement in soccer (a complete departure from American sports), as well as many of the teams and players in England and other parts of Europe. A short time ago I tried to play a newer version of Championship Manager and, given my still-loose grasp of soccer tactics and the fact you apparently need to be well-versed in them to have any success (oops), I did not fare so well. Still, I had a lot of fun back in the day trying to lead backwards second division teams into the Premiership, and its there my on-again off-again fascination with the league began.

More recently, I decided to try to take an active rooting interest in the league, noting that the sports I have the greatest interest in are those where I have a vested interest in the outcome (sadly, my attendance as Stony Brook doesn’t do enough to get me interested in NCAA Basketball before March – I wonder why?). I narrowed my choices down pretty quickly and decided that Manchester City (and their sweet powder blue jerseys) was the natural fit for my masochistic sports-rooting needs. Just take a look at their wikipedia page!

“City supporters tend to believe that unpredictability is an inherent trait of their team, and label unexpected results “typical City”. Events that fans regard as “typical City” include City’s being the only reigning English champions ever to be relegated (in 1938), the only team to score and concede over 100 goals in the same season (1957–58), or the more recent example that City were the only team to beat Chelsea in the 2004–05 Premiership, yet in the same season City were knocked out of the FA Cup by Oldham Athletic, a team two divisions lower.”

A group of fans that expect failure! How refreshing and very much like me.

But wait, there’s more where that came from! Their owner, Thaksin Shinawatra, was the former Prime Minister of Thailand until he was removed by a military junta. After spending 17 months in exile he returned to Thailand – only to be arrested on arrival at the airport. If James Dolan flew to Thailand and got arrested, Knicks fans everywhere would celebrate the day as a holiday. Despite the apparent hurdles of exile and accusations of human rights violations, Shinawatra has actually improved the club’s visibility by spending huge amounts on transfers and hiring (and recently firing) former England manager Sven-Goran Erikkson. The EPL’s ownership ranks also boast idiot Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks (Liverpool), Tampa Bay Bucs owner Malcom Glazer (Manchester United) and Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich (Chelsea).

Manchester City’s brightest young star is 19 year old defender Micah Richards. Micah is known for his sterling play on the field (he’s already become a national team regular) but he’s also known for “roasting” a female fan with a fellow Premiere League player and then sending the videotape of the incident to his friends through his cellphone. “Roasting”, for those unaware, is the term Brits use for an “Eiffel Tower”. While the act may have been lewd and his behavior ridiculous I can only presume it takes a hell of a lot of self-confidence to send video of orgies you were involved in through your phone. And if there’s one thing you need to be a star athlete (or an amateur porn star), it’s confidence.

Manchester City has a couple of obvious similarities with the New York Mets, most notably the spotty record of success and the loyal-yet-apparently self deprecating fan base (I would like to note that no Met player has yet been involved in a sex tape controversy as of yet, however). They also share a city with a high-profile, well-bankrolled team with a group of obnoxious, omnipresent supporters. Sound familiar? I’m talking, of course, about Manchester United, perhaps the world’s most well-known sports franchise (contrary to what the YES network would have you believe). Manchester United’s best player is Christiano Ronaldo, a preening, self-absorbed pretty boy and one of the world’s finest players. He’s like Alex Rodriguez, only if A-Rod fell to the ground after any pitch came within six inches of him and started screaming in agony.

Speaking of Christiano Ronaldo and Manchester United, they haven’t been without their own off-pitch problems. I mentioned last time that EPL players’ seemed to have significantly more hilarious personal lives, but maybe the words I should’ve used were “fucking insane” because they all appear to be sex-crazed maniacs. The United States has athletes like Shawn Kemp and Travis Henry fathering children out of wedlock all over the place (including the recent and disturbing Karl Malone story), but it can’t match the sheer lunacy of Europe’s athletes when it comes to sexual escapades. There was also a decidedly unfunny rape accusation thrown into United’s troubles thanks to a team sex party. No good.

As far as issues of on-pitch performance go, Manchester United is in position to win another Premiership title as well as the UEFA Champions’ League, but were swept by Manchester City this season for the first time in nearly 40 years (take that!). Manchester City, for its troubles, is in the top ten and seems to be entering a new era, although they recently fired manager Sven-Goran Erikkson despite a season that could only be considered a success for them.

Despite the problems with their ownership I decided to follow Man City because of a loyal, long-suffering fanbase, the various similarities with my Mets, the sweet jerseys and the apparent promise in the team’s future. I have had the chance to watch only a handful of EPL games this season and very little at all of Manchester City, unfortunately. With any luck, I’ll be able to watch more games next season and become something more than a phony internet fan.

And if Jozy Altidore, the Red Bulls star who I mentioned in my first post, does join Manchester City at some point? Please, keep him away from Micah Richards and his cameraphone.

Adventures in Soccer Fandom, Part One

Anyone who has spoken to me for more than 5 minutes can immediately identify my sports allegiances: the New York Mets, the New York Giants, and the New York Rangers being most obvious among them. And, if you dig really deep, you can find the lost corner of my soul that hasn’t been killed off by James Dolan and Isiah Thomas that still cares about the New York Knicks (under the salary cap by 2010? Sign me up!). To a varying degree I’ve been a fan of each of these teams since the mid 90s: the Rangers and Knicks 1994 playoff runs, the tail end of the Phil Simms/Lawrence Taylor era with the Giants, and the Mets’ dark age of Bobby Bonilla and Bret Saberhagen (I just threw up in my mouth a little). I’d admit now that baseball is probably my favorite sport, but each one of the others has its own excitement, its own nuances that make it worth being a fan and can whip me into a frenzy at a moment’s notice; Super Bowl 42 is the single greatest sporting event I’ve ever watched, I don’t think any sport can match the atmosphere or intensity that hockey has during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and when the Knicks were competitive Madison Square Garden was one of the best home courts in the NBA (sigh).

There has been one major sport I haven’t been able to follow with the same intensity or passion as the others all these years, and that (if you didn’t read the title of this post) is soccer. The World Cup is a must-watch every four years and one of the great spectacles in the world of sports, but beyond that and Greece’s 2004 European Championship (the biggest upset in the history of sports that nobody in America knows about), my interest in the game has been flaky. Maybe it’s been that I’ve gotten so spoiled by World Cup matches that I haven’t been able to watch relatively mediocre MLS talent, or maybe I’m just ticked off that I don’t have the money to pay for the EPL package on my home satellite dish. Either way, I’ve been a delinquent follower, but lately I’ve been striving to change that.

On the MLS front, a friend of mine recently purchased Red Bull New York season tickets. I’ve always had mixed feelings about the MLS and its New York franchise. In part because of the fact that they changed the team name a couple of years ago because Red Bull bought the team (the MetroStars were one of the few original non-knockoff Euro names in the MLS), and in part because of my general apathy towards the American domestic leagues, I haven’t really followed the team closely in some time. Oh, I knew of a few of their star players through the years (Savarese, Donadoni, Ramos, Mathis, the flaming disaster that was Lothar Mattheus) but I never kept more than a casual interest in their results or who was their roster, especially in recent seasons.

After attending two games, however, I can see that there is the possibility for a greater MLS influence on the American sports scene. There’s a small but dedicated fan base, the games are affordable, and presumably the atmosphere will improve once the team moves out of the cavernous Giants Stadium (a great venue if you can draw 75,000, not so much if you draw 10,000). The level of play has also improved. Everyone knows about David Beckham’s arrival but the Red Bulls seem to be the model for how the MLS wants to operate: lots of American players (led by Claudio Reyna, former national team captain) with some mid-level internationals (Juan-Pablo Angel is the “star” international here, formerly of Aston Villa).

Most exciting of all Red Bull players is Jozy Altidor, the 19 year old forward who scored a goal on a spectacular run against New England at the last match I attended and could be the first truly great American forward. He has also been linked to a move to the English Premier League in the summer, which highlights the inherent dilemma of MLS competition: other than unique situations where the league will pay a huge sum of money for an aging foreign star (Beckham) it doesn’t have the financial resources or the level of competition to satisfy most truly world-class players.

Hence, until American soccer improves as a whole from the grassroots level, its level of play is somewhat restricted. This is a part of the problem with any American soccer league; it seems Americans are generally disinterested because it’s not “our” sport, we’re not very good at it, and the national team did little to inspire anybody in Germany in 2006. With the MLS in its present state, even top American players like Altidore will leave these shores for money or to improve their game against tougher competition. And who can blame them? The only conclusion I can come to is that as the American game progresses from the bottom up so will the MLS competitively; it seems financially stable right now, so as the fan base slowly expands it should become more and more relevant both on the American sports scene and internationally. Hell, it’s already on a more visible cable network than the NHL is (ESPN as opposed to Versus, thanks Gary Bettman!).

The MLS is doing the sane and proper thing, however. The New York Cosmos used to sell out Giants Stadium with Pele and Beckenbauer (the craze even inspired a documentary), but the last major American soccer league, the NASL, was out of existence a decade later. By sticking to its principles it should continue to improve in the coming years and, while not on a par with the top leagues in the world (despite whatever insane pronouncements Alexei Lalas wants to make), should certainly garner a respectable following and a growing presence in the American sports mainstream.

In conclusion? Go Red Bulls!

I want to add that for all my praise of the MLS’ financial responsibility, that if the league signed Zinedine Zidane out of retirement for an insane amount of money and assigned him to New York I’d buy season tickets and a jersey on the same day. Zidane blew Beckham away as a player and even after two years off might be the best player in MLS, plus there would be the added head-butt/comeback storyline that would put the league in the news for a day or two (Marco Materazzi is a punk, for the record); however, that’s probably a pipe dream.

Speaking of Europe, Part 2 will discuss my growing interest in the English Premiere League and in Manchester City, the possible future home of Jozy Altidore. The best part? EPL players’ lives are a lot more hilarious than their MLS counterparts. Stay tuned (or, continue not to care because I’m writing about soccer)!