Team leaves town, team comes to town

November 19, 2007 · Filed Under Off-topic ranting · 119 Comments 

We don’t do a lot of Seahawks or Sonics discussion here. I enjoy other sports but I don’t know nearly enough about how they’re played to do serious analysis. I’ve been arguing about baseball for ten years now and I know more about the Mariners than I think is frankly healthy. I’d feel dumb writing about, say, college basketball or whatever.

But amid the continuing saga of the Sonics’ attempts to get out of town*, I thought it was worth noting that Seattle will be getting an MLS soccer team. Of unknown quality, with an unknown manager… so why not put your season ticket deposit down now?

In many ways, soccer’s a lot like baseball (hear me out): casual viewing of a three-hour game will have a couple of pretty spectacular plays, but long periods of what appear to be tedium. But when you’re into baseball – watching the defensive positioning, how pitchers set up hitters, how the strategies all come together – it reveals much more.

As a result, both of them are tagged as “boring” by many people, compared to the breakneck once-every-minute collision of football play, or the near constant ball-in-motion shuffle of basketball, and that’s unfortunate.

But then, I watch professional bicycling telecasts, so I’m clearly not to be trusted.

Anyway — welcome, Team to be Named. I wish them great success.

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