Sublime

concept of kensho, or satori—enlightenment that comes in a flash, a blinding pop.

Gentile’s response was blunt: “Soccer is not for ballerinas.”

the basis of that most profound expression of the American psyche, the game of baseball, a game whose object is to leave home in order to return to it again, transformed by the time spent circling the bases. And that famous shortstop Odysseus also played this game, propelled around the world by the same dream, of returning home in the end, transfor

stand lead-footed, watching the ball skid low, graze the inside of the line on its way to set the chain-link fence into song.

Another theory was: Americans need double-digit football scores and triple-digit basketball scores. Unless they can witness a series of acrobatic dunks, with the scoreboard digitally rising like the National Debt Clock, then Americans lose interest. We like things big, like American restaurants doling out super-size portions, even if they bring on

Of course, anybody who follows soccer also becomes part Brazilian.