Hey, here's a shocker - Liverpool and Tottenham played to a 0-0 tie in a soccer game yesterday at Baltimore's very own M&T Bank Stadium Yep, a soccer game ending in a 0-0 tie. Who woulda thunk it? But hey, this is a sport in which a 1-0 lead practically initiates the Mercy Rule.

I still don't get why anyone would want to watch such a thing. America is right and the rest of the world is wrong when it comes to this sport. We invent baseball, they invent soccer. Mom and apple pie win out on this one by a long shot. Why would anyone want to watch a game in which the only points scored in the history of the game occur only once every four years against the American World Cup team. I understand its use as a geopolitical tool, but as a sport, forget it.

Yet those who run the game simply will not give up trying to get we yokels to appreciate the brainpower and strategy that goes on between the lines. Nice try - after all, her majesty's a pretty nice girl but she doesn't have a lot to say. Her majesty's a pretty nice girl but she changes from day to day. I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a bellyful of wine. Her majesty's a pretty nice girl; someday I'm gonna make her mine all mine, someday I'm gonna make her mine.

Would you like to see brainpower and strategy going on between the lines? Watch Buck Showalter and the third base coach flash signs when there is one out, the bases loaded, and the infield drawn in. Or the movement in the backfield, the offensive line, and the wide receivers - along with the corresponding defensive reactions - when Joe Flacco calls an audible at the line of scrimmage on third-and-short at the opponents' forty. Unlike soccer, baseball is only boring to those with boring minds.

However, all insults having taken root and all that having been said, absolute kudos to Mayor Blake and the other city officials who pulled off this remarkable event. It could not possibly have been easy. But there is a hard core soccer crowd in this area and many, many more in the surrounding metro area, and these were two world class teams. It makes the city look good, and that's always a wonderful thing.