Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for November 21, 2024

…y ya Billy Ray Cyrus es un zurdo.

I have two improvements:

1) Have a countdown game clock, so everyone knows how much time is left in regulation. When there is any stoppage time, simply add it to the remaining game time and adjust the clock display accordingly. With electronic scoreboards, this should not be a difficulty.

2) Eliminate the penalty shoot-out to decide games tied at the end of regulation time (plus stoppage time). Have a 10 or 15 minutes overtime period, first score in the overtime period wins. If the score is still tied at the end of the overtime period, have a second overtime period but remove the goalkeepers; again, first score wins.

All great ideas and add them to baseball, too.

Forgot the landmines on the field.

I’m confused. Soccer is already the most popular sport on the planet. Does he think “American Football” is?

What I’d like is an explanation, in simple terms, of just what “offsides” means in futbul.

In Europe, it’s called ’American soccer."

Yeah, those are pretty much the same ideas that wrecked baseball. It used to be the only sport that mattered. No there is no such thing.

I watched a soccer game once on TV where they “cornered” the ball for about 1/4th of the game, boring is an understatement. At least Cricket was so strange as to be interesting trying to figure out all the rules. Rugby is a death match which makes it fun to watch.

The “no ties” idea is actually a good one.

Get rid of the offsides rule. Allow for the fast break, just the striker and the goalie.

And Bolling likes to compare the right to racists and fascists.

The comic isn’t only about soccer. Read the last two panels.

No one likes us, I don’t know why

We may not be perfect but heaven knows we try

But all around even our old friends put us down

Let’s drop the big one, and see what happens

…

Asia’s crowded, Europe’s too old

Africa is far too hot and Canada’s too cold

South America stole our name

Let’s drop the big one, there’ll be no one left to blame us

We’ll save Australia, don’t want to hurt no kangaroo

We’ll build an all-American amusement park there

They got surfing, too!

Boom goes London, boom Paree

More room for you and more room for me

And every city the whole world round

Will just be another American town

Oh, how peaceful it’ll be, we’ll set everybody free

You’ll have Japanese kimonos, baby

There’ll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow

So let’s drop the big one now

“Political Science,” Randy “National Treasure” Newman

When he’s done with soccer and Spanish, maybe Gavin can think of something to make homosexuality or church (or both) more popular.

My dad played college and semi-pro basketball before WWII. Zone defense, no shot clock, jump ball after every basket. What he taught me about the strategy under those rules is very similar to soccer. I love watching it.