Oh, joyous day

Today is opening day of the English Premier soccer league season. My joy is the same kind I felt as a kid (i.e. until the age of 30) on opening day of the baseball season. It is only slightly diminished by the prospect that, as I write this, my team (Everton) is probably being whipped by mighty Arsenal (isn’t that the best team name in sports). I will view the carnage on tape in a few hours.
I became interested in soccer when I spent time in England during the 1970s. In 1994, it replaced baseball as my favorite spectator sport. This was due to (a) the baseball strike of that year, (b) the World Cup, which was played in the the U.S. with four matches here in Washington D.C. and (c) the realization that I could now follow the sport (as played in Europe) via the internet and through increased television coverage. Learning to love and understand the game and its lore felt made me feel very much like I did when I learned baseball as a kid. No doubt this feeling reinforced my passion.
My few blogs about soccer have not yielded any evidence that my passion is shared by readers, so I’ll resist the temptation to “go on” about the sport. Despite some success 35 years ago in turning Rocket Man on to baseball, it’s generally futile and boring to wax eloquent to the unconvinced about the virtues of any sport.