Tuesday's Cool Cool Considerate Coffee

Ah, the link farm post. But there's stuff out there worth reading, so I'll get back to my world in a bit, but first let's poke the head above the covers and see what we see.

BEN OLSEN - OUT AGAIN: Paul Tenorio writes up the sad situation, but there is something to feel good about here. First, we got to see Ben on the field again, and that was a tremendous moment. Second, Ben himself makes this choice knowing full well the situation he was in, and I feel better about that. As though somehow he has more ownership of this, rather than being at the mercy of the medical staff. And third, it just means that at some point, we get to welcome him back again. Preferably unannounced, and with WWE style entrance music (MAH-GAWD!!! IT'S BEN OLSEN!!!)

MID SEASON WRAPS: UnitedMania is up with theirs, and John Haydon at the Times is also getting into the swing of things. However, the key thing from Haydon is Olsen on Olsen:

It's almost impossible to be a soccer fan and not to have seen the mind-numbing Dick's Sporting Goods commercial starring Ben Olsen. "I'm willing to give them the money back they paid me for the commercial if they would stop playing it," Olsen said..."I wish they would stop playing it because it's ruining my soccer watching because every time it comes on I get into a bad mood and turn the TV off," Olsen added.

Now, we can debate how successful that particular advert is, but the one moment I love is Olsen looking at the TV and announcing to all around him "Oh, I got that move." That's what I love about Ben, the blasé arrogance of looking at anything and figuring out he could do it.

RATINGS: Steinberg at the Bog examines the question in detail, vis a vis the Nats. But wasn't United outdrawing the Caps, and even with the Wizards a year ago? Now we're behind both. Part of that may be that this is early season, and was perhaps also affected by United's poor start, the Caps amazing playoff run, and the Wizards once again flirting with the playoffs. I dunno, I try to keep this stuff straight in my head so that it keeps me honest.

The National Pastime of Infuriating the Opposition

Just a quick side note on other sports in the DC Area: I got a chance to watch some MASN coverage of the Nationals yesterday. While the Nationals have now nicely set the expectations of DC fans for the 2007 season (oooofff... a pythag projected record of 8 wins, 154 losses... but you know pythag isn't accurate until after 30 games or so and can't be used for forecasting, so it could be worse...) I got to see the MASN commercials for upcoming games. While I am envious that they can tailor commercials for upcoming opponents, I have to question MASN's choice of using a taunting tagline specifically calling out an opposing player at the end of each promo. Yes, praise Chad Cordero as much as you like, but then saying "Game Over Molina!" seems to be a bit puckish. Given the expectations for this season, it's almost as if MASN is inviting opposing teams to get riled up when they come to RFK, daring them to beat the Nats as brutally as they can. Give me Pride, Passion, Tradition generic promos any day over slickly produced antagonizing video packages any day.

My Game is Turnabout, which is Fair Play

We'll talk about more fall-out from the Olimpia game in a sec, but first: A proposed exhibition between USA Baseball and China couldn't happen at RFK because of a scheduled DC United match. Why do I mention this? Because there's a lot of belly-aching over how DC United is treated as a second class tenant in the place they've been longer than the baseball team. It's strangely reassuring to see that baseball had to accommodate soccer, and that everyone (at least, the baseball fans I respect [partial list only, see the sidebar]) don't seem to have a problem with this. It's... refreshing. The dog didn't bark in the night.