Un-American activities

Soccer and the metric system — two ideas that never got off the ground in America. Ever wonder why?

Soccer requires constant movement by all of the participants, an un-American concept. Our two most popular sports in this country allow some or all of the players to sort of loll around at least part of the time. Soccer does not.

Baseball and football require bursts of energy when the ball is snapped or batted. Then everybody gets to stop and catch their breath. Soccer is just run, run, run. You’ve got to really be in shape for that. Another un-American idea.

When I was a kid they introduced soccer into our sports program. It was a sad sight. We just didn’t have the ball handling experience that foreign kids had from the time they were old enough to stand upright. Our players would run up to kick, miss the ball completely and the force of the kick would upend them, leaving them flat on their backs while the opposing team ran over them like a herd of stampeding cattle. We did not win a single game.

I guess soccer is doing better these days. It is not too expensive, equipment-wise, and the head injuries are not quite as severe as American football.

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The metric system could never be successful in a country that refers to large objects as “so many football fields in length.â€� Football fields are measured in yards, not meters. The good old English system  has a different, clear-cut name for each different unit of measurement. It’s not deci-yards or centi-yards. It’s inches and feet and yards and miles.

The last time I checked, the New York Thruway still had one last surviving sign from the attempt to go metric. It is a sign denoting kilometers to Buffalo near Syracuse, N.Y.  It has been peppered with shot gun blasts. America has spoken.

For years they tried, but the general population just kept on asking how far that would be in real miles.

Bob and Doug Mackenzie (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas), from Second City Television, used to offer metric conversion help in their Great White North comedy skit. Being Canadian, they had grown up with metrics, but were often a bit fuzzy on the conversion to English measurement. It seemed to them that Americans would jump at it since, according to their formula, you simply doubled the number and added six, sort of like Fahrenheit to centigrade.

So then a six pack of Molsen’s would be doubled and add six would be 15 beers in a metric six pack. Who wouldn’t love that?

At least they never tried to foist those annoying foreign police sirens on us.

Bill Abrams resides in Pine Plains.