Pele Dead At 82

 At best, you may refer to him as the Babe Ruth of soccer, but in truth, Pele dominated in a sport in a way no one could. 

The Brazilian soccer icon died yesterday (Thursday, December 29th).  

To understand his greatness, in Pele's prime, there was no ESPN, no sports radio, and certainly no electronic social media, and yet, he was well known even in the US, where Soccer has never been able to rank amongst the top 4 major sporting events. 

We were in Seattle on April 9th, 1976, when the old Seattle Sounders played the New York Cosmos.  Pele played for the Cosmos and this was the first sporting event ever at the Kingdome.   We were not going to that game but to another engagement in Seattle.  Since we (my mom, dad, sister, and brothers) were staying in Bellevue, I remember the traffic tie-up on the Evergreen Point Bridge.  Of course, nowadays, that's a normal occurrence.