byline goes here

description

David Beckham of L.A. Galaxy juggles the ball Wednesday during a training session at RFK Stadium in Washington.

Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

If you're an Angeleno, you can't help but recall those heady days when the cry on the lips of everyone from Long Beach to Venice Beach was: The Beckhams are coming! The Beckhams are coming!

But that was oh so last month.

As I write this post, David Beckham is maybe, finally, going to overcome an ankle injury and see some play for the L.A. Galaxy.

But does anybody in L.A. even care anymore?

Other than diehard soccer fans, certainly few who were caught up in the initial wave of Beckhamania.

Remember the throng of e-voyeurs who watched as the Beckhams -- David and his wife, Victoria-nee-Posh -- scouted a house to live in, a school for their child? Recall, do you, the lavish Hollywood shindig thrown by Hollywood A-listers as an official welcome to Tinseltown? All front page news here in L.A.

Now, to find a mention of Beckham, perhaps playing a game, you've got to flip (or click) to the sports page of the L.A. Times. Appropriately enough. But then, you have to drop down past a story on Vegas sports book tennis betting before you get any mention of Beckham. And that comes wrapped in larger story about the Galaxy in general.

How did it happen? How did this guy fade so fast? Two things: One, of course, is Beckham's ankle, which he injured early last June, then aggravated again later that month. Certainly, the injury is not Beckham's fault. But when so much is made of what a guy is getting paid, and then he cannot do the one thing he's actually collecting the duckets for... Well, that don't go over real well in fickle L.A., where you can throw a stick and hit a star -- which is why I keep a lot of sticks around the house -- and sporting events have to get in line behind movies, TV and celebutantes for attention. There's a reason the second-biggest television market in America doesn't have a football team.

Secondly, well, Posh could have made a better entrance. Her NBC reality special came off as vain and self-absorbed, and I stress came off because there was actually some high satire and sarcasm in it. However, the American public doesn't much go in for satire and sarcasm. Except for the NPR audience. They looove sarcasm!

But with a gaggle of ditzy one-name blondes already getting drunk and tossed in jail out here -- Paris and Nicole -- another just seemed like overkill (not to imply that Posh Spice Beckham has or will ever get drunk and tossed in jail or that getting drunk and tossed in jail is confined to women and blonde women in particular).

Ironically, in the world of football, even without playing Beckham's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing: getting bums in the seats. The 45,000 fans expected to turn out for the Galaxy versus D.C. United game at RFK Stadium in Washington would be the most for a United home game in six years. And I gotta tell you, anybody who chooses to wear the number 23 because that was Michael Jordan's number is okey doke with me. So however things work out, I wish the guy well. Even if he can't be a big Hollywood celebrity, he can always settle for being an exceptional athlete.

2:42 - August 9, 2007

What is this?

Share