Dog Jumping

By Keith

There must have been something in the air on Saturday. Maybe it had to do with the nice weather, the fact that it’s the middle of summer, the approaching All Star game, Idiots completely losing control of their schedules or maybe all of the above, but Saturday’s Idiot attendance, as well as the Metros (not NY/NJ MetroStars or New York/New Jersey MetroStars or Metro, as a recent MetroStars press release reminded everyone) performance was life-less.

Saturday was once again a double header soccer day with the United States playing Jamaica in a Gold Cup Quarterfinals match up at Foxboro in New England followed by the Colorado Rapids at Giants Stadium in NJ. We had many choices for the US game including going up to Foxboro, watching it on a TV in the parking lot, or watching it at a bar. We opted to watch the game at Mulligans in Hoboken and then head over to Giants Stadium.

When we arrived at Mulligans, they had two other patrons watching the Yankee vs. Boston Game, but they told us they no problem putting on the US game on one of the big TVs for us when it started. We were a little worried, but since they bill themselves as a soccer pub, it wasn’t a big surprise. It also didn’t hurt that Ronen, Greg and I outnumbered the other patrons.

When we inquired about food, we were informed they had none and were greeted with an array of menus for local eating establishments. After long debate, I was sent off to pick up a large pizza pie.

They put the US game on 5 out of their 8 or so televisions, but at some point they changed 4 of their televisions to ESPN. We weren’t really sure why and didn’t care all that much since we had it on the big plasma screen in front of us. At some point we looked over to the TVs on ESPN only to discover they were showing a dog jumping event. That’s right: an event where dogs were jumping! It was totally bizarre. Their owners would throw a toy up over a pond and the dog would run, jump to grab it and land in the water. We looked around to see if anyone was watching it and discovered there actually was a dog in the bar that probably was totally in to it. Hey, we’re glad ESPN, a *sports* channel is showing something important, like dog jumping. It appeared no expense was spared either with informative graphics showing us stuff like “Tale of the Tape.” The quarterfinals included Sly, a 4 year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, weighing in at 75 pounds, competing against Wylie, a 2 year old Yellow Lab, weighing in at 69lb. If you want to learn more about this event, you can visit ESPN.com’s Dog site . (Note: The site is a great resource including videos and news. It includes news about important Pennsylvania legislation which we urge Brian to get his family back home in PA to write into their representatives to support.) Maybe one day they will actually use their primary sports station to show something more interesting and entertaining like say perhaps an MLS game or the maybe even the Gold Cup Semifinal match? One can only dream.

Although they should have scored at least 2 additional goals, the United States easily beat Jamaica to move on to the Quarterfinals which we’ll see on Thursday at Giants Stadium. Josh Wolff scored an early goal in the 6th minute, followed by two Beasley goals in the 42nd and 83rd minute. Although Jamaica didn’t have many real chances, Kasey Keller did an awesome job in goal, including saving an Andy Williams penalty kick. Jamaica was able to get on the board in the 88th minute to bring the score to 3-1. The game appeared to be over, but in the 93rd minute, John O’Brien earned a penalty kick for the United States. Landon Donovan stepped up to take the kick, but after doing a bunch of really silly rituals, Donovan missed with a lame shot. It was alright because we didn’t need really need the additional goal and Donovan is still the gold boy, of course.

Drew joined us for the second half of the game at Mulligans. Once the game was over, we headed over to Giants Stadium for some pre-game beers and to take in some MetroStars action.

Saturday was Columbian Heritage Day at the Metros match and even though John didn’t bother to show up, they still had the event which included a special pre-game and half time show.

In preparation for the upcoming Gold Cup Quarterfinals and Final match, Giants Stadium was outfitted with grass, instead of the usual turf. Since there has been a lot of complaining surrounding the field surface at the stadium, you’d figure the grass would have been a welcome additional, but according to comments after the game by players, the grass was too heavy and made it difficult to play. Whatever the excuse is, the Metros played a poor game in front of a small crowd of 8,324.

The first half was relatively uneventful and boring. The Metros got on the board 6 minutes into the second half with Ante Razov doing what he was traded for and scoring from 25 yards out. Razov has scored 4 goals for the Metros since being acquired last month. Colorado’s Jeff Cunningham tied the game in the 60th minute. No amount of substitutions including the addition of the King at the half, and Abbe Ibrahim and Mike Magee in the finals could bring any excitement or additional goals to the game. The Metros had to settle for a tie against a team they should have easily beat.

Idiots In: Drew, Greg, Keith, Ronen
Idiots Out: Brian, Jason, Joey, John, Ofer,and Paul