The same issue of SI that reported on the US beating Spain over the summer in the Confederations Cup in South Africa also had excerpts from The Beckham Experiment. Ive always loved Bexx - basically anyone associated w. the Man. U. 1998-1999 season is forever on my list. I made a point to see him when he came to Chicago three previous times to play, and I was excited he came over to play in MLS.Its also kool to read about MLS. Nobody ever writes book treatments on the league - its sorta like going to a Chicago library and having to suffer through the bunches of Cubs books by dudes from Iowa looking for the meaning of life by attending every game in the bleachers some summer or other - to get to the good stuff by Roeper, Veeck, Lindberg, Rogers, etc etc etc... and this is by a senior editor of SI. Plus, he more or lss had full access for the story these last 16m. It was a compulsive read that led me to dragging out my Bexx LA Galaxy shirt this last week - outstanding.
But boy this book puts Bexx in a silly lite. There are two main charges against him. One was that although he was made captain of the team when he came to LA - but when things went bad, he never acted like a captain. A captains job is to lead the team both on and off the field - yet Bexx kinda just disappeared as time went on. Landon Donovan, the greatest player America has ever produced so far, was really miffed by this - HE was the man who had to give up the captains armband to Bexx, and the team was close to his heart. He knew how to lead - but he was no longer captain.
The other charge was his 'people'. In his second LA season the coach was fired and Bexx's 'people' got their choice put in. Ooops!! Ruud Guillet, who I saw play in his day (TV only) turned out to be a spectacularly bad choice. Believe it or not, but its takes a special kinda coach to have success in MLS. A MLS coach has to know all of the weird rules that MLS has and European leagues do not: salary cap, college players, different types of player designations (MLS teams can have a few foreign players, a few "junior" foreign players, etc etc etc ... Guillet didnt do any of it - and Bexx never rallied the team to fix things. Then, when Guillet was fired, Bexx just gave up on the team and played out the string.
Still, Im a fan of Bexx. Im pretty mellow and forgiving even though I do get miffed @ times over his conduct. I wanted to see him play when LA visited Chicago in August, and was sad that he had to miss the game because he was red carded the previous game (1 game suspension). However, Bexx is the enemy this Friday - it's Fire -v-Galaxy @ 10pm Central.
Other things: The pay disparity. Some players make ..... gasp ..... $12,000 a year. Several players do. Maybe 5-7 on the roster are paid this badly. So, MLS mite claim to be a 'major' league compared to Europe and Mexico - but Im thinking that even the 20th player on San Luis or Paris St. Germaine or Hibernian make tonnes more than ..... $12,000 a year. Even I made more than that last year.
And the MLS hotel policy. MLS makes sure that its teams stay in cheap hotels - not like, fex, the Sox having guys stay in A class hotels on their road trips. So when LA came to play the Fire in 2007, the team stayed near Midway airorts "Hotel zone" near 65th and Cicero. The players were warned to not go out of their hotels because the neighbourhood was 'too dangerous'. The writer made it out to be an industrial wasteland - ad their are RR tracks nearby. But overall that hood is actually pretty safe. It petty much is a residential neighbourood (yes, I know, a major airport is also smackdab in th middle of that hood - but trust me, go two blocks on any side of Midway airport and its all nice bungalows, bodegas - and the original irish food factory in Chicago, Winstons. And a White castle. So, I know the hood to be safe, although maybe a writer from elsewhere mite think otherwise.
