I’m with Roger on the big principle. If government’s gonna be in a business it might as well do it right — i.e. in accord with American values. This is, of course, the great dilemma for all libertarian-minded conservatives. If you don’t think, for example, the government should be in the school-business at all, then how and when do you give up that argument in favor of the government at least doing the best possible job. Statecraft as soulcraft and all that jazz.

But, I’m not too worried about the park thing. Immigrants will play soccer no matter what, because soccer — alas — is here to stay and soccer fields will always be essentially interchangeable with football fields. As for cricket, how many cricket fields are they really going to make? I think it’d be cool to watch people play cricket (Officially known as The Most Incomprehensible of all Civilized Sports) in the local park. In New York, I always liked seeing old men play bocce in local parks even though I knew it was an example of enduring European influence.

As long as TV and capitalism encourage American sports, I don’t think we need to worry overly about a burgeoning ghetto of cricket players.