Have you been watching the World Cup? Bob Schieffer hasn't.

Well, today on Face The Nation one of my Washington heroes, Bob Schieffer, blurted out a confession that rocked my soul. He said, "I have never seen a soccer game." He was responding to an allusion to the World Cup used by one of the reporters on his round table to illustrate a political point. I was really crushed, because I consider Bob Schieffer as one of the good guys--who year after year keeps an open mind, presents a balanced discussion and then at the end of his show gives us a little food for thought and lets us know just where he comes down on an issue or event of our time.

But, Bob, you are now part of the problem. The U.S. will never really be accepted as any more than a bully in the international stage if our leaders, our press, our citizens cannot understand the most basic points of the 'beautiful game'. American football, which I refer to as 'gringoball' to distinguish it from what the rest of the world calls football, does have its following in other countries and even a fledgling European league, but the world doesn't stop for it every four years. Baseball, okay, that's a little more international, since we introduced it to certain Asian countries while we occupied them after major wars and to certain Caribbean nations as entertainment for sugarcane plantation workers, but it hardly occupies the entire globe's collective imagination the way soccer does. And our 'World Series'? What is that? We toss in a token Canadian team and call it a day.

Once when I was teaching English in Brazil, I was helping a student read an economics article in Time. It wasn't even a whole page long, but there were eleven uses of baseball terminology to illustrate points throughout its text. A marketing homerun here. An economic plan in the bottom of the ninth there. A curveball of a policy move. I don't remember them all. While we might think the whole world is learning English, they don't all speak baseball. They do speak soccer. But not us. Not even enlightened, open-minded people like Bob Schieffer speak soccer. Is there any hope for us? The rest of the world does not strike out; they get a red card. They are not in the ninth inning, but the 90th minute.

I actually enjoy baseball. I even like a good game of gringoball, but I have room for soccer in my heart, as well. And during the World Cup, I want to not only feel like an American, but a citizen of this planet we share. Come on, Bob. Come on, America, check out the 'beautiful game'. Join the rest of the world in its joy and celebration for a change. It might make us all a little more welcome when things aren't so bright.