July 2004

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Thunder Notes

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The Thunder (10-4-3) begin a truly heinous stretch of the season this evening. The team has at least 12 games remaining, but only 3 of them will be played at home. In particular, the next 8 days will be a grueling test of the team's depth and fitness. After tonight's game in Rochester they travel to Syracuse for a Saturday night match with the Salty Dogs. Then it's back to Minnesota for Wednesday's huge U.S. Cup powwow with San Jose at The Jimmy. Immediately after that game, the team will travel to Portland to take on the Timbers. And then they finally cap off this nasty stretch at Seattle on August 7th.

Got that? Five games over eights days in three different time zones.

The arduous schedule is particularly worrying given the team's lack of defensive depth. The Thunder have allowed an astoundingly stingy 7 goals so far this season in 17 matches--or .41 goals per game. Dustin Branan has played every minute of every game at central defense and has been the lynchpin of the squad, controlling the middle of the field and winning every ball remotely in his vicinity. Lord knows where this team would be without him.

Can the team really expect Branan to play at least 450 minutes over the next 8 days? What will happen when Branan sits? Who will fill the middle slot in his absence? Should the Thunder consider switching to a four-man backline for a couple of these games?

Guess we'll find out soon enough.

The San Jose game is likely to be a sellout. Buy your tickets now.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 30, 2004 4:18 PM

 

How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

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That's the unfortunate name of Franklin Foer's new book. I'm not sure I could come up with a more off-puttingly pretentious title. (Oh let's see: How Soccer Saved Civilization).

Fortunately, Foer doesn't take himself nearly as seriously as the title implies. The book's actually an entertaining romp across the globe scrutinizing the many strange permutations of soccer fandom. Foer deftly profiles British hooligans, cross-dressing Iranian soccer fans, and Nigerian footballers toiling miserably in the Ukraine. I particularly liked his examination of soccer's role as a pinata in the American culture wars.

But the best chapter is the opener. It focuses on Red Star Belgrade, the storied Yugoslavian club that became a crucible of Serbian nationalism as the country disintegrated into civil war. Foer explains how the club's most ardent supporters were transformed from fans into a merciless death squad, known as Arkan's Tigers, that killed some 2000 people during the war.

In 1996, Arkan purchased his own soccer team, Obilic. It quickly became one of the most successful clubs in the region--although not owing to the players' skills:

At games, Arkan's message to his opponents was clear enough. Obilic's corps of supporters consisted substantially of veteran paramilitaries. These Tigers would "escort" referees to the game in their jeeps. At games, they would chant things like "If you score, you'll never walk out of the stadium alive" or "Well break both your legs, you'll walk on your hands." As English newspapers pointed out, it was in the player's best interest to adhere to the demands. Fans were frequently waving guns at them.

One quibble: Foer's section on Barcelona fans annoyed the piss out of me. He claims to be writing the chapter while wearing his beloved Barca jersey and feverishly checking the score of the Barcelona-Newcastle United Champions League match. Foer, a New Republic writer, lives in Washington, D.C. What the hell's wrong with supporting D.C United? This fetishization of European clubs by snobs like Foer is galling. These folks will shell out $50 to see, say, Barcelona and Juventus play a meaningless exhibition match at the Meadowlands, but refuse to support their local clubs.

Fuck that.

The Atlantic web site has a nice Q & A with Foer.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 27, 2004 5:55 PM

 

Camel Toes Kerry

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Kerry's doomed. It's bad enough that he speaks French. Now it comes to light that he's a footballer? This man shouldn't be running for president. He should be put on trial for treason! From Jack Bell's column:

John Kerry threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the Yankees-Red Sox game Sunday night at Fenway Park. But Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, could try to lure votes from a different fan base by publicizing his soccer pedigree more than he has.

According to the British soccer magazine FourFourTwo, Kerry started playing the game at boarding school in Switzerland, then he played at prep school in New Hampshire and in college at Yale.

Nicknamed the Camel by his teammates because of his size, the shape of his face and his loping running stride, Kerry also liked to show off his dribbling skills, sometimes drawing the ire of his teammates. "He did like to freelance too much," John Griswold, a former teammate, told FourFourTwo.

By the way, Kerry's position at Yale: right wing.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 27, 2004 1:46 PM

 

Tarzan of Loxahatchee Groves

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A few years back, when I was living in Lake Worth, Florida, I wrote a story about Loxahatchee Groves, an unincorporated chunk of Palm Beach County that's kind of the last outpost of old-school, undeveloped, anything-goes South Florida. It's got dirt roads and shotgun-wielding bird breeders and a whole slew of oddball characters. If I had the time or talent I'd write a book about the place.

Anyhow, one of the residents I hung out with in Loxahatchee Groves was Steve Sipek, a.k.a. Steve Hawkes, a Croatian-born, one-time B-movie, Spanish-language Tarzan. Sipek was a strange cat. He'd been horribly burned over much of his body when a movie set caught fire and claimed to have only been saved from death by a lion who dragged him out of the flames. After that he devoted himself to caring for very large cats.

On his 5-acre compound were 9 of them: tigers, lions, panthers, and a black leopard. We had to chat outside his razor-wire-enclosed home because the animals had the run of the place. Only Sipek and his girlfriend could go inside. Anyone else might be eaten. 

He was not an easy guy to interview, cautious and seemingly harboring a lot of unspoken emotional baggage. At one point I asked him about feeding the animals and he told me that every two weeks a truck delivered 1500 pounds of turkey legs to the compound. But Sipek was having trouble paying the bills. He mentioned the possibility of killing off the animals--and himself--if he could no longer take care of them. This kind of freaked me out.

All this is a rather roundabout way of mentioning that Sipek's been all over the news recently. One of his Bengal-Siberian tigers, Bobo, escaped from the compound and was shot by a wildlife officer.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 23, 2004 2:15 PM

 

Praise Jesus

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The Thunder beat the snot out of the L.A. Galaxy last night--and I got a copy of The Dirty South in the mail today.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 21, 2004 2:05 PM

 

U.S. Open Cup

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Tomorrow night at 7 p.m. the Minnesota Thunder will take on the L.A. Galaxy in a fourth-round U.S. Open Cup Match at the Metrodome (a surprisingly decent facility for soccer).

The Thunder will be massive underdogs. They've never beaten an MLS squad and the Galaxy are the most explosive (and quite possibly the best) team in the league. If the badass Guatemalan chihuahua Carlos Ruiz is on his game, along with Jovan Kirovski and Andreas Herzog, it will be a very long night for the Thunder.

That said, there are a few reasons to not rule out an upset:

1. The Galaxy are coming off a 1-1 tie against D.C. United, in Washington, on Saturday. Their legs will not be fresh. (Although it looks like Kirovski and Herzog each played only half the game.)

2. The Thunder have allowed an absurdly stingy 7 goals in 19 games so far this year. The twin towers of Joe Warren in goal and Dustan Brannan in central defense have dominated A League opponents all season long. If they can frustrate Ruiz and company perhaps the Thunder can sneak in a goal.

3. The massive, raucous crowd that will surely be on hand at the Metrodome.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 19, 2004 3:01 PM

 

The Bogeyman

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"Nader Keeps Race Hot" is the headline on the front page of today's Pioneer Press.

Then there's this lede, penned by reporter Bill Salisbury:

The "Nader Factor" appears to be keeping the presidential race competitive in Minnesota, according to a new Pioneer Press/Minnesota Public Radio poll.

The problem? There's absolutely no evidence in the poll data to back up this assertion. With Nader in the race Kerry defeats Bush in Minnesota by 1 percentage point; without Nader his margin of victory climbs to 3 percentage points.

Either way, I don't think anyone could possibly argue that the race would no longer be "competitive" if Nader suddenly dropped out of the race.

But, more significantly, the margin of error on the poll is +/- 4 percentage points. In other words, either way--with or without Nader--the race is a statistical dead heat. Put another way, the presence of Nader on or off the ballot does not demonstrably change the poll results in any significant way whatsoever.

And then there's the overlooked matter of Nader's increasing irrelevance. In 2000, he took a fairly impressive 5 percent of the Minnesota vote. Now, according to this latest poll, Nader's garnering just 2 percent. Furthermore, there's little doubt that Nader's support will further erode as the election gets closer. In 2000, for instance, Nader was polling at 8 percent right up until election day. But in the final calculation, as it became clear that the contest in Minnesota was tight, many left-leaning voters held their noses and voted for Gore. (I should know; I was one of them.)

Why Salisbury chooses to obsess over Nader is beyond me. The poll numbers reveal a perfectly compelling storyline: Bush and Kerry locked in statistical dead heat.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 19, 2004 10:52 AM

 

Soon to be Glue, Vol. III

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Tomorrow is the Claiming Crown, the biggest racing day of the season out at Canterbury Park.

At last year's event, naturally, I didn't win a single wager. Initially I decided to bet on Chicago-area trainer Scott Lake's horses owing to his past Claiming Crown success. But after two of his early prohibitive favorites faltered miserably I abandoned that hare-brained strategy.

I'm not sure what scheme I devised next, but I recall insisting that there was no way Julie Krone was going to ride back-to-back winners--which of course she proceeded to do.

I haven't divised a solid betting strategy yet for tomorrow. But I'll probably just drink beer and bet on the prettiest ponies.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 16, 2004 1:20 PM

 

Alert George Soros!

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A curious advertisement has been running frequently on The Patriot (AM 1280) in recent weeks. It's for a company called Northlanders Trading and the product they're pimping is the Iraqi Dinar.

I can't remember the exact pitch, but it hamfistedly plays on Patriot listeners' presumed right wing, pro-invasion sympathies. The gist of the argument is that by investing in the Iraqi Dinar you'll be fulfilling your patriotic duties, insuring a second term for Team W., and getting fabulously rich.

The company's web site provides zero business data about Northlands Trading, and a quick Nexis search covering two years of newspaper articles yields not one tidbit of information.

I know it's not really my place, but a bit of financial advice for you patriotic Patriot listeners: This might not be the wisest investment.

 

Posted by Paul Demko at July 13, 2004 6:59 PM

 

Holthouse

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A few weeks ago I mentioned David Holthouse's riveting first-person account of being raped as a kid--and his plan to exact vengeance 26 years later on his attacker. Shortly after the piece was published, Holthouse and a friend were arrested for felony stalking.

The charges have now been dropped. Holthouse details the peculiar fallout from his story in this week's Westword.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 9, 2004 1:45 PM

 

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