Recovering from a wonderfully wild and wacky weekend, when futbol put football on hold, I’m wondering why the Orioles, if they really want a left-handed bat to occasionally spell Ryan Mountcastle at first base, don’t jump at the chance to pick up Eric Hosmer, recently DFA’d by Boston?
It seems like a perfect match — San Diego is paying most of the $39 million remaining on the contract passed on to Boston last year, making the four-time Gold Glove winner a low cost investment. At age 32, even with diminished power numbers that would be enhanced by the friendly right field wall at Camden Yards, something he’s never had at previous stops in Kansas City, San Diego and Boston, it would seem like a good fit.
But more of that later, on to the real stuff from last weekend, when the NFL’s No Fun League hashtag took a beating with some of the craziest finishes ever … but still played second fiddle to what the other four continents refer to as the world’s game. Which, of course, is why they call it the World Cup.
It was the weekend when futbol upstaged football, even in parts of the North American continent, where we tend to have a rather snobbish hands-off approach toward a game that is exactly that. For those only borderline interested, that means no hands allowed.
After watching more of the World Cup contests than ever before, I have one big regret about the final match between Argentina and France. Even though it took more than 120 minutes (plus stoppage and extra time) and a shootout, with Argentina’s 4-2 advantage breaking a 3-3 tie that featured a goal for each team during extra time, I wanted to see it last longer — at least another 15 or 20 minutes longer.
Not because the match (not game) was as thrilling a finish as one could imagine in the finale of a world-class event — but because I wanted to see what Fox would do if it had to make what would have been a widely debated decision. Would it be the NFL or World Cup bounced to FS1?
The possibility of another Heidi Game (you could Google it) 54 years later would’ve sent shock waves around the globe if futbol had been upstaged by football. Of course, on the North American continent, the NFL rules the land and moving the Cowboys and Jaguars to a backup network would be unthinkable.
As it was Terry (Bradshaw) and Friends were left with nothing to do while their legion of fans, looking for tips before last-minute bets, were deprived of the pr-game spiel. For a soccer game … oops match? Egad.
Damn it, how I would’ve loved to see the World Cup last another half hour. It would’ve been such fun.
For those who stayed the course and put the NFL on hold while listening to post-World Cup wrap-up, we heard over and over that never before had there been anything like it.
Best Match, Best Cup, Best Sporting Event. Ever. That line courtesy of my main “soccer source” George Vecsey, who has covered more World Cup tournaments than I have seen matches from start to finish. He says this was the best ever, and that’s good enough for me.
America might not be ready to buy in yet, but we lose four continents to one on this one and who am I to argue?
I had hardly even heard of Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappé before this World Cup grabbed my attention and didn’t let go. Now I know that Messi is the wily veteran who finally got the only medal missing from his collection. I even made a baseball connection on his penalty kick, the second of Argentina’s four that clinched the final match. He deftly deked the goalkeeper before left-footing the ball into the net. It reminded me of Luis Tiant’s “hesitation pitch,” which has become popular again and would’ve been a balk with a runner on base.
As for Mbappé, who already has two World Cup medals with France at the ripe young age of 24, he seems destined to become, if he isn’t already, soccer’s next “one-name” wonder — perhaps even challenging Pele, Brazil’s original single name legend. For the record, my only exposure to big-time soccer was seeing Pele in an exhibition match in Memorial Stadium, back in the early days of the original (outdoor) Blast team.
That was more than half a century ago. I’ve been paying a little more attention since then … and will continue to do so.
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com
Photo Credit: Photo by Rhett Lewis on Unsplash.com