Boys of Summer : : Anne McAllister

When I was growing up, the boys of summer were baseball players.  And we watched a lot of baseball in my family. 

When my kids were growing up, they played a lot of baseball – on the street and in leagues – especially our oldest son who seems to have inherited what we have referred to as “the baseball gene.”  The apples didn’t fall far from his tree, either. All four of his boys play baseball.  Not just in the summer, either.  Even in Iowa they somehow manage to play all year round. 

But summer is when we go watch them play, which we did this past weekend when the oldest, playing now in a Minnesota college league, was on the field near his hometown.  It’s always fun.

Most summers, too, we either tune in early or set the DVR and record the Tour de France. Those ‘boys of summer’ are exciting to watch, too.  Talk about endurance and stamina and sheer guts just for riding in such close confines where road rash and broken bones are a split second away. 

They provide daily examples of focus and determination and a lot of those ‘heroic’ qualities that I look for in my heroes.  I haven’t ever written a bike racer, but Freya North did some years back. Very entertaining.

It is, too, a lovely way to see a lot of France – which is quite gorgeous, especially on an HD TV.  Sometimes I find myself watching for the geographic scenery, not just for the men!

And this summer, of course, there has been the World Cup to watch. Not regularly ‘boys of summer’ – at least not in their club football – but every four years we get to watch the national teams who have qualified battle each other for soccer/football supremacy.

Again, stamina, endurance, and determination are on display for the better part of a month.  Not to mention the sheer physical spectacle of very fit men in shorts.  I’ve had a hard time focusing on my revisions.  I keep getting distracted!

If you haven’t bothered until now, you still have plenty of opportunity to get into the Tour de France. It’s still in the first week.  The World Cup Final ends this weekend, so you can catch the top two teams, Germany and Argentina, kicking it out on Sunday afternoon (in the US and South America), on Sunday evening in Europe, and sometime in the middle of the night the following day if you’re down under. 

Worth a look!

Do you watch sports? Which ones?  Feel free to add to my list of revision-avoidance activities. 

(soccer photo: Erik Daniel Drost, Flickr, wikimedia commons)

Men in Shorts : : Anne McAllister

It’s that time of the summer again – that time of the summer every four years, that  is.  I know you who live in enlightened areas of the world get to see more soccer/football than you probably ever want to see.  But for those of us who live in the US, this is the summer we look forward to.

Yes, we have MLS soccer, and yes, our sons and daughters play AYSO soccer, and yes, even high schools, colleges and universities are getting in on the act at last. But it’s not the same. 

Nothing is the same as watching the World Cup.

I got seriously hooked when I spent most of a summer in Europe 20 years ago.  It seems like yesterday – except the kids I was traveling with now have kids of their own.  But I still look forward to it because, oddly, it’s the only time I get to watch soccer in the US (that I’ve found) where the cameras stay back far enough to watch the action.

Of course the cameras still give us close-ups now and then, but not the way they do in MLS soccer, where you can’t ever tell what’s going on but you can tell which players shaved that morning.

So I like watching the World Cup for the action. But I also, admittedly,  like it for the men.

I can’t help it.  I like watching fit, agile men run and run and run.   I almost considered putting up a half dozen photos of soccer players’ legs here on the blog because they are, simply, worth ogling.

But so are the men themselves.

I am used to seeing American baseball players or football (American version) or hockey players.  There are occasionally ones worth a second glance. But not nearly as many as there are in every World Cup match.

There are the ones who get all the press like David Beckham (not in this year’s  tournament but certainly still a part of soccer lore) and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo who is gracing this month’s cover of the UK edition of Vanity Fair along with Ivory Coast football star, Didier Drogba.

Lots of ogle-worthy gents in this issue besides  Didier and Cristiano.  But also lots they left out.

It’s hard to remember them all.  Just yesterday as I watched Uruguay play South Africa, Diego Forlan crossed my radar. I’ll be keeping an eye on him.

While I wasn’t looking the USA provided Heath Pearce and Benny Feilhaber to go with Carlos Bocanegra. 

I’m looking forward to another glimpse on Friday. 

In the meantime I had Spaniards Cesc Fabregas and Iker Casillas to entertain me Wednesday. 

And I have France’s Yoann Gourcuff on Thursday.   There’s no end (well, until July 11) of my enjoyment. 

Are you watching the World Cup?  Got a favorite player?  If not a soccer player, pass on your favorites from other sports.  From the comments, I’ll pick a winner to receive a copy of my very own soccer  book, a Harlequin Presents called McGillivray’s Mistress. 

  If soccer isn’t your thing, but you still like hot-blooded heroes, check out my most recent Mills & Boon Modern, The Virgin’s Proposition. 

No soccer – just the Cannes Film Festival, the hot Mediterranean sun, and a sailboat journey to Greece, not to mention  Demetrios Savas, who is seriously sexy and definitely a wounded hero. 

What on earth could a virgin like Anny have to propose to a man like him? 

It will be out in the US in September.  In the meantime, enjoy the World Cup!