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The steroid fueled offensive boom was definitely not good for baseball. Low scoring, tight games are actually more interesting if you know what to look for. The casual fan wouldmbe clueless, so baseball has that in common with soccer. I wtch both sports...some of the playoff games this year were fantastic, and who didn’t know about the brilliant US-Algeria game? Hell, it was a good year for hockey, too...gold medal games couldn’t be scripted to match intensity and intrigue we had last Feb.

One big difference with soccer is that low-scoring games really aren't the problem . . . but games with few scoring chances are. My biggest complaint about soccer in this regard is not the lack of goals, but the lack of real scoring chances. How many difficult saves does a goalkeeper make in a typical soccer game? I wonder if a soccer game would have any more than 4-5 goals scored between the two teams even if they took away the goalies!

I'm with you when it comes to the excitement of low-scoring games, though -- as long as the offensive chances are there. I'm a huge hockey fan, and one of the most exciting games I've seen in the last 15-20 years was that epic 1-0 classic from the 1994 playoffs between the New Jersey Devils and the Buffalo Sabres. Buffalo won the game in the fourth OT period at nearly 2:00 AM. Dominik Hasek made 70 saves for the shutout, while Martin Brodeur made 49 saves in defeat.