Across the pond

I've just returned from a week's holiday in the US, so here are ten observations on how sport is different (and in some cases not so different) across the pond.

1. Sport benefits/suffers from (delete as you see fit) saturation TV coverage every bit as much as it does in the UK. While we were there, it was wall-to-wall baseball (regular season) and basketball (playoffs). And then there's college baseball, the women's college softball finals series, lacrosse, Arena football (think of it as an indoor NFL which bears a passing resemblance to 5-a-side football) ... I could go on ...

2. Most Americans - particularly those in areas with big football (by which I mean NFL), baseball, basketball or hockey teams (i.e. most cities) - don't really seem even remotely bothered about soccer. Incidentally, David Beckham has a lot of work to do - as of last week, the LA Galaxy were one off the bottom of their division. (Good job they don't have relegation in US sports!)

3. Similarly, despite whatever the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone might claim, F1 also has a pretty low profile. OK, it was the Indy 500 last week, which skews things, but to put it into context, the Monaco GP got much less airtime than NASCAR - I waited for ages for ESPN to tell me something, and then blinked and almost missed the result flashing past on their on-screen ticker.

4. Unless you're a fan of the San Francisco Giants, everyone REALLY dislikes Barry Bonds. He is a tantalising nine home runs short of the most sacred of records, Hank Aaron's 755 career home runs, and is consistently booed every time he sets foot on the field. It seems like everyone - fans and media alike - use the word "tarnished" in every sentence, and are either clamouring for him to voluntarily retire before he reaches the record (like that will happen) or for the powers-that-be to strip him of the record (only marginally less unlikely). Now I'm a great believer in innocent-until-proven-guilty, but the circumstantial evidence against Bonds is pretty compelling. At an age when his performances should long since have deteriorated, his scoring rate has as good as doubled. And while it's understandable that a player's chest, neck and other measurements might grow with age as a result of legal means, what conclusion are you supposed to draw about a player whose shoes have increased by three sizes since he first turned pro? The man is tainted, and so will the record be. Very sad, for baseball and for all sports in general.

5. Does the baseball season really have to go on for 160-odd games? I've grown to like baseball over the years, but if I were to watch every minute of every one of my favourite team's games over the course of a season (and every game is televised on either a mainstream or MLB subscription channel), I would be watching over 500 hours a year even before the playoffs have started - that's 24/7 for three WEEKS!

6. West Ham, Craig Bellamy and football teams and players in general really do get off lightly for their transgressions. Two NFL players have recently been banned for repeated bad/criminal behaviour, with the negative impact it has on the image of a league which wants to promote its players as role models cited as a key factor. The length of their bans? Half a season. And a full season. Ouch.

7. NFL players - particularly offensive linemen - have always been large, but surely it's getting a bit silly these days when you start referring to a player who tips the scales in the region of 300 pounds (21-and-a-half stones) as being "under-sized". You would be amazed at just how athletic many of these guys are, but even so, that really can't be healthy.

8. You think our footballers are too often guilty of unsportsmanlike behaviour? How about Alex Rodriguez, star of the New York Yankees? While running the bases, he shouted in the ear of an opposing fielder to put him off, resulting in a dropped catch. Maybe he saw the video of Bolton's Stelios Giannakopoulos stamping on a balloon as Kevin Doyle was taking a penalty a few weeks ago. Oh, hang on, it was a soccer match - of course he won't have seen it!

9. Basketball can be a great sport played by incredibly talented (and unfeasibly tall) athletes, but it's hard to get excited when scores are pinging in left, right and centre and tension never builds until deep into the fourth quarter when the scores are tied at 90-90 ... and then the final minutes are strung out over an interminable period of time-outs, fouls and other stoppages. Why not just play it over one quarter's length and just cut straight to the exciting bit?

10. I've always known about the huge popularity of college sports in the US (you get 100,000-plus people regularly turning up to University of Michigan football games, for instance), but it still amazes me. Whether it's college football, baseball, basketball or even women's softball (which I can say from personal experience is strangely compelling), it receives prominent TV and press coverage not far short of what the pros get. Can you imagine the Times covering, say, Bournemouth University's football games?!?