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>Why not do something akin to baseball's Cy Young award? It is given each year to the best pitcher in each league and is named after (who would have guessed it?) Cy Young, the pitcher with the most lifetime wins. It is an ongoing tribute to Cy Young as well as the recipients each year. The Sergey Berezniker award, anyone? I am completely serious.

No that sounds like he's deceased or something.
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>Speaking of trophies -- OK, OK, that was a reach of a segue -- did the U.S. get hosed in the World Cup seedings or did the U.S. get hosed? Our team, although not a serious threat to win it IMO, is seeded #8 in the world in the FIFA rankings. Not only were they passed over in the seedings of the top 8, they were placed in the "group of death" preliminary round with two other highly ranked teams. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I suspect Bush, Cheney, and Rummy have as much to do with this as team strength. We have never been more disliked or distrusted around the world. Until we change our ways other countries are going to stick it to us every chance they get.

It's FIFA punishing you for calling the game soccer! I don't know how S. Africa are doing but they deservethe same fate. My daughters' latest ballet teacher is S. African and I met her for the first time last Saturday during a demo of the lids' class. She used a fottball as a prop and kept referring to it as a "soccer ball" for Godssakes! (as "soccer" is a corrupted abbrev. of "associated football" this means she was calling it a "associated football ball")

That's worse than saying PIN Number.