Sports Watch
Of course, in the Olympics, futbol or football means soccer and 1-0 scores - a deadly combination that explains why football, as it is known everywhere else in the world, hasn't really been big in America.
Americans love lots of scoring. That's why real football is so popular. And major league baseball with its football-like scores (26-7, 24-11 and 21-9) is hanging on despite its boorish ball players. Never mind that the pitching is watered down.
Just score, score, score, baby.
That's also why basketball, even in the Olympics, is so popular. Trouble is, foreigners liked the American sport invented by a Canadian so much that they've gotten good enough at it for the US of A to call for professional help in reclaiming the gold.
Hence we had the birth of the Dream Team. It'll be in its third edition at Atlanta, where things go better with Coke.
Even though Magic, Larry and Michael won't be playing, it figures to be another cakewalk to the gold medal for Dream Team III. It'll be wake-me-up-when-it's-over time in basketball.
About the only exciting thing that figures to happen will be Charles Barkley spearing that Angolan, if they run into each other again. Anyway, Orlando's Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway, who played like pussycats against Chicago, can pick on somebody their own size from Argentina, the opening opponent.
YOU might be up for the Olympics - America's Games as it is being billed - but is Atlanta ready? I mean, it'll be the biggest thing to march through Atlanta since General Sherman.
The city survived that onslaught, but whether it'll survive this disruption remains to be seen.
In these days when everyone has a cause, the Atlanta Games has all the makings of a public relations nightmare globally. The Olympics will definitely be a protest target of every conceivable interest group in this, what-a-country.
Gay rights activists have already targeted Atlanta's Cobb County, which had passed a resolution a couple of years ago condemning "the gay lifestyle." The Atlanta Committee on the Olympic Games (ACOG) decided that the Olympic torch relay wouldn't pass through Cobb. The result? That only riled the conservatives and anti-gays.
Never mind that Cobb County, scene of the Battle of Atlanta, will be the venue of the team handball competition. One can see the battle lines being drawn up there again.
And as early as two months ago, 765 fugitives were arrested in a sweep to take them off the streets and make it safer for the an estimated two million visitors. About 100 of the arrests occurred in Birmingham, Ala., where the soccer will be held.
Fugitives are one thing, but those taking up the cause for the homeless are upset because the word is out that street people aren't welcome, either. They've supposedly been given one-way tickets out of town.
In addition, expect some heat because of Georgia's current state flag, which incorporates the Confederate battle emblem. You can bet members of Dream Team III won't be using it to cover up their commercial logos.
AND this doesn't even take into account the possible threat by terrorists, who would love the world-wide attention the Olympics brings.
ACOG officials obviously are concerned. That is why more than 10,000 military personnel, mostly from National Guard units, will de deployed at the Olympics. Nearly a thousand of them will be driving buses and vans, chauffeuring athletes to their venues.
It will be a larger military presence than at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, when helicopter gunships circled the Memorial Coliseum.
The heck with Dream Team III. This sounds like the Battle of Atlanta II.
Anyway, you all have a nice stay in Atlanta, you hear?