From: radioacti...@gmail.com   
      
   Hey Michael:  appreciate the socce...er, FOOTball obits regarding what Europe   
   and the rest of the non-North American continent calls "football"...but my   
   question for y'all is:   
      
   When are the stuffy ruling powers-that-be of the game gonna come to their   
   senses and allow free substitution?  For decades, it was a mere 3-sub limit,   
   rendering skads of talented players bench-sitters...and I'm informed by a   
   local fan that nowadays they'   
   ve upped the substitutions limit to merely FIVE.  They should have ABOLISHED   
   the limit.   
      
   Now, North American football--either of the NFL, collegiate or--heaven   
   forfend--that Canadian Football League bigger-field variety--would not be   
   thriving (as it has been since the late '50s) if free player-substitution were   
   disallowed.   
      
   A word about that dominance of American sports TV by the NFL:  TV is over here   
   often said to have "made" the NFL, specifically during December 1958, with the   
   NFL championship overtime win by the late Johnny Unitas and the Colts over the   
   Giants at Yankee    
   Stadium the final Sunday of the year.  (Before that, all the way back to the   
   NFL's 1920 founding, the NFL was a sideshow while the national fascination was   
   with the college game.)   
      
   Meanwhile, I AM disheartened but NOT surprised that soccer has after decades   
   of misfires) finally taken off here in Middle America.  But that's because   
   this country--like Europe, not incidentally,--has a burgeoning Third World   
   population after decades    
   now dispersed throughout The Lower 48.  And people from around the planet   
   don't seem to be annoyed as are middle Americans by the fact that soccer   
   disengages the athlete's most important tools--arms and hands.  (And however   
   old they these immigrant    
   Americans are, few remember, say The Ice Bowl at Lambeau, or Joe Namath   
   stunning everyone by defeating the Colts in Super Bowl III, or other memorable   
   NFL moments that turned many a casual viewer instantly into an NFL fan for   
   life.)   
      
   By the way, Michael, I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, widely considered   
   to be the USA's soccer "capital"; still, it was considered a minor sport at my   
   high school.   
      
   BRYAN STYBLE/Florida   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)