Please stop trying to make me like soccer.

I can see the PR push that's going on right now:  hip commercials with cool young dudes playing soccer on a blacktop playground, lots of added soccer on ESPN2 and other channels, more soccer on the "Top 10 Plays Of The Day".  There are people in the blogosphere asking for more soccer stuff, and even while sitting around the other day discussing baseball, some joker chirped, "You know what the U.S. needs?  To get more into soccer." 

No, we don't.  And we won't.  Now before all you soccer-heads start with the requisite whining, let me assure you that I understand your position:  soccer is the most popular game in the world.  It takes skill and unreal endurance.  Soccer players are some of the best athletes in the world.  The worldwide celebrity of soccer players makes A-Rod look like Stephen Baldwin. I know, I know.  Respect and kudos.

Here's the problem:  we don't care, and we're just not going to.  Soccer in the U.S. has been relegated to a children's game; a game that is better for kids' physical fitness than baseball, better than basketball for learning teamwork (because more kids can play at once), and not as physically challenging and female-exclusive as football.  I played soccer myself, and was pretty good at it, from about the 4th grade to the 7th grade.  By the by, please appreciate the inherent emasculization I feel as an American sports fan for admitting that in public.

Is this just typical American "any sport where you don't use your hands is for sissies" machismo?  Maybe a little, but I think there's more to it than that.  Although, really, it's pretty simple:  We already have three huge, multi-billion dollar, multinational, multi-generational, American-invented sports that have occupied our collective conscience for the last 100 years.  We really just don't have the emotional reservoir, the time, or the inclination to add more.  And if we do need more, we've got hockey.  This sports-crazed overload that Americans have just doesn't allow us to give two hoots about professional international soccer.  That, and a lot of soccer players still do look kinda sissy-fied.

I've told this story before, but I love it so much that I'll tell it again.  A year or two ago, David Beckham and his wife Posh Spice were in L.A., shopping for shoes.  They caused a ruckus at one store when they demanded that the store be closed to the public for an hour, so that they could shop "undisturbed by fans".  The shop owner refused.  Why?  Because it was L.A., and nobody would know who they were, or care who they were even if they did know.  You're a soccer player and a Spice Girl.  Nobody cares.

A perfect example of why international pro soccer will never fly in the U.S.; we just don't care, and we never will.  Thank God.

So, soccer fans, do yourselves and me a big favor, and please stop trying to make me like soccer.