Explaining our recent soccer pleasantness

As you are well aware, there presently is more buzz about minor league soccer in the Lowcountry than about the Al Parish gnome auction, Harry Potter and the weather combined.

Permanent and temporary residents, virtually everyone from Station 22 to Jedburg, seem to agree the Charleston Battery's conquest of the Major League Soccer-leading Houston Dynamo in the third round of the U.S. Open Cup might be the greatest thing since the invention of seedless watermelon.

Sure. You expect Charleston chefs, sweetgrass basket weavers, hurricane analysts, greenskeepers and seashell sales staffers to fare well nationally.

But soccer?

The magnitude of this week's upset at Blackbaud Stadium — aka The Black Hole of Daniel Island — has not been properly explained.

You know, in relative terms of minor league baseball, college football and basketball, and basic golf.

Dude, where's my perspective?

Evidently, this is like baseball's Charleston RiverDogs defeating the New York Yankees.

Well, OK, the Yankees are just another .500 team.

Make that RiverDogs 1, Boston Red Sox nil, with some 19-year-old kid just signed out of junior college robbing David Ortiz of a home run before a Splash Day crowd of 4,000-plus at The Joe.

Bring on Posh Spice

Too bad American professional baseball doesn't have an all-inclusive summer tournament similar to soccer's tradition-rich U.S. Open Cup. The concept allows a modest USL First Division club to tangle with the powerful likes of Houston.

If only all minor league baseball teams from rookie league to Triple-A were allowed to compete in a tournament with the big leaguers the true ineptitude of the Kansas City Royals would finally be exposed.

The RiverDogs match up favorably with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, at the gate at least.

The minor league hockey South Carolina Stingrays are not bracketed into a tournament with the Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks.

The minor-league football South Carolina Gamecocks do not play the Indianapolis Colts.

The Battery's next U.S. Open Cup foe is FC Dallas in the quarterfinals at Blackbaud.

It appears not even Posh Spice and family can stop FC Charleston.

Houston had won more games than DC United. And more than the Los Angeles Galaxy (sans Beckham), Colorado Rapids (sans Elway) and Real Salt Lake combined.

Amazing, considering the Battery on Friday night lost to the Puerto Rico Islanders, 3-1. The loss dropped Charleston into seventh place in its sub-MLS league going into tonight's rematch with Puerto Rico on an unforgiving pitch in Bayamon.

On second thought

Which is like you and your partner advancing in the club best-ball member/guest shotgun scramble to face Tiger and Phil at Winged Foot only to

come home and lose to some father and son from James Island.

The USL First Division alignment is difficult enough to contemplate: Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, California, Charleston, Montreal, Puerto Rico ...

Imagine the Pac-10 Conference expanding in basketball to add the College of Charleston, the Toronto Raptors and Virgin Islands Tech.

Perspective, however, never sleeps.

Upon further review of rosters and still photographs, it seems the Houston Dynamo was a shell of its esteemed self Tuesday night on Daniel Island. Two of the best players on the team were among those left home as the Battery won 1-0 on a penalty kick in the second overtime.

Kind of like the Clemson basketball team taking on the San Antonio Spurs minus Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and some other guys and the Tigers nailing a 3-pointer at the double-OT buzzer to win 17-16.

Not quite a miracle, in other words, but worth a toast between hurricane analysts.

Reach Gene Sapakoff at gsapakoff@postandcourier.com.