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Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Bruce’s picks, scattered, smothered and covered
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So it is a little after 6 p.m., at the appointed hour, and how does SportsCenter lead off its program that supposedly contains the ballyhooed announcement of the U.S. World Cup team?
With that super nerdy NFL guy tossing around after-the-fact draft scuttlebutt like the 3-day-old Waffle House hash that it is. This stuff has been scattered, smothered and covered to death already!
This is the kind of guy who could have passed for a soccer player at my high school, where the football players used to stuff footy types into lockers with room to spare. Now it simply purloins whatever basketball players it feels it needs to win state championships.
Now we get Kornheiser. We get him every day! Ditto for Wilbon, who asks which team is the best in baseball. It’s May 2! Who cares!
Here comes Schwarzenegger, who wants two professional football teams in Los Angeles. Actually, Tinseltown has four — Galaxy and Chivas, and USC and UCLA.
Mel Kiper Jr. gives us his top 10 seniors for 2006 — somebody send him back to the place that spawned him and put a muzzle on for the next 12 months. This is the fifth time in the last four days (at least) that he’s takin’ a shinin’ to the Brady Quinn lad at Notre Dame. Me thinks that’s a wee too much.
It’s 6:23, and what’s on? The bane of Bruce Arena’s existence, the endless reel of baseball highlights, followed by worse yet, Peter Gammons extrapolating on Bonds hitting No. 712 and Johnny Damon’s warm welcome back to Fenway. Last night. Tonight it’s supposed to be in the 40s in The Hub. And hey, what do the boys in pinstripes think about it? The only forecast I’m interested is the one Glenn Burns doles out. Enough!
Can we get on with this? Nike has just sent an e-mail saying the new U.S. World Cup uniform will be debuted as well tonight. Yippee. Who’s going to be in them?
Here it comes, precisely at 6:32 p.m. In drips. The names, one by one. Dempsey. Reyna. O’Brien. Olsen. Then at once, Beasley, Donovan, Mastroeni, Convey. The midfielders. Bruce is in the studio, wearing a suit and tie. Wow!
Now the forwards. Wolff — Parkview High and Stone Mountain’s own — is on his second straight W.C. roster. McBride. Johnson. Ching? Yes, Brian Ching made the cut, after it wasn’t looking so hot for him.
The defenders: Onyewu, Hejduk, Pope, Cherundolo, Lewis, Bocanegra, Conrad, Gibbs.
The keepers: No surprises. Keller, Howard, Hahnemann.
Didn’t make it: Noonan, Klein, Ralston, Zavagnin, Armas, Albright, Casey, Berhalter and Twellman, among notables. The last one is a surprise. I thought he’d get a spot over Ching. But maybe Brian is the thing this spring. Here’s the official link, but it’s understandably running a bit slow.
To wrap it all up is Eric Wynalda, I guess to do some second-guessing. He says with a little luck, they could reach the semis. Yes, the answer seems ridiculous, but so does the question: Can the U.S. win the World Cup? Who came up with that? PTI’s stat boy?
Well, Waldo’s spell was brief, because a guy in a pink salmon suit is asking us to come back for more NFL draft news. It is now 6:43. OK, USA, you can go back to your same old, same old. Hope we didn’t send you into toxic culture shock. Besides, there’s film of an A’s-Angels brawl on now. All is right now in ‘Murkah.
And for you, footy hounds, what’s your take on this team?
