Despite my not-so-closeted fascination with the Azzurri, I was going about a very busy day on Tuesday.
The Italians were playing Uruguay in far-off Brazil. I was with my wife in a modest but wonderful Indian restaurant near Harrisburg, Pa., en route to family, friends and pushing my soccer book. My cell phone buzzed. It was Doug From Florida. He is half Latino. Sometimes he honors me with messages in Spanish. This one said: “Lo siento.” I am sorry. I wrote, “Que pasó?” What happened? I’m sure he had figured I was watching. The words popped up on my phone screen. “La Mordida de Dios.” The bite of God. I knew this was a pun on the blatant and unpunished punched goal from Diego Armando Maradona in 1986. The Hand of God, Maradona called it. Bite? Soccer? Maradona Arrogance? It could only be Luis Suarez. And it was. So instead of talking about the games, about Michael Bradley’s stumbles, about Landon Donovan's absence, about Klinsmann’s lineup against Germany on Thursday – or even the subsequent departure and eternal ansia of Italy – people were talking about The Bite. This is some World Cup. The NYT has asked me to write something about Germany-USA for later today. We're heading back to NYC for a baseball program at the Museum of the City of New York this evening. Your opinion about La Mordida de Dios?
Bob Bicknell
6/25/2014 04:10:47 am
I was an All American soccer player at Navy in 1952. I have followed soccer all my life and found your book "Eight World Cups" a wonderful commentary on the sport and its characters. Not the least of whom is Sanchez. Still in the news. I did look for one game in your book which I had the good fortune of attending. The game between Russia and Cameroon. The match in Stanford, California, is worth mentioning since two incredible records in world cup history were made in the same match. The first goal was by Milla of Cameroon. Roger Milla’s record as the oldest man to score in a world cup is unlikely ever to be beaten. To this day Oleg Salenko of Russia remains the only player that has scored five goals in one world cup match. Perhaps, if you ever write an update, you could slip these events in. Best wishes. Bob Bicknell
Josh Rubin
6/25/2014 04:26:39 am
George,
Jeff Geller
6/25/2014 04:53:11 am
According to ESPN, FIFA announced that there was a possible violation involving Senor Suarez. That is akin to asking the captain of the Titanic, except for that excessive ice order, how was the trip? The beautiful game has always been feel with the passion. Now it*s talking overbites. Hope Senor Suarez enjoys the rest of the games on Univision.
Brian Savin
6/25/2014 01:45:22 pm
Glad it wasn't a chunk. It was easy to find Holyfield's piece of ear in a boxing ring than it would be a shoulder chunk on a soccer pitch.
Andy Tansey
6/25/2014 02:22:32 pm
Have you seen the Hyundai commercial, about the guy trying desperately to avoid spoilers so he can watch the recorded match? That is I, and it will be tomorrow. If I can make it home without learning the result, it may be a sad commentary about US.
Altenir Silva
6/25/2014 02:53:54 pm
Italian food is always tasty and so the cannibal Suárez didn't lose the opportunity.
Gene Palumbo
6/25/2014 07:23:47 pm
George's column in tomorrow's (Thursday's) NYTimes:
George Vecsey
6/26/2014 01:27:38 am
The guy lowered his head and bit a fellow human.
Mike from Whitestone
6/26/2014 01:04:48 pm
GV, my good friend Mr Lopez of Columbia here in Whitestone knew the story of the bite from '86. He called a one year icing for Senor Suarez. Sad that this takes the stage away from the excitement of the World Cup. And too bad Mr Lopez wasn't right.
George Vecsey
6/26/2014 01:42:29 pm
Mike, sorry I couldn't get to Queens today. I think it was also the last graduation for a Jamaica High class. Makes me sick. Comments are closed.
|
QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html |