MLS Insider Blog

BY SHAWN FRANCIS

While roaming around the sidelines of last night’s celebrity game I spied Houston Dynamos Bobby Boswell and Geoff Cameron chatting with a few teammates and hangers-on in front of one of the player benches. I asked if the two of them were game for doing a quick interview but they decided to do me one better and take the mic for their own guest commentary segment.

What did they discuss? Diminutive teammates-cum-would-be-officials Cory Ashe & Danny Cruz, a wager involving a smoothie and a few sarcastic words about how they would call a match versus they way some current commentators do. Proof that given a mic and an opportunity players can be just as opinionated as the pundits.

BY SHAWN FRANCIS

Last night at Bobby Boswell’s All Star party in Houston, the funniest guy in the room that was not onstage was Mike Chabala. I ran into the Dynamo defender in a dark pitch black corner of Venue and caught up with him for a minute about his plans for All Star week and the Dynamo’s league match against New York this weekend. Like I said, it was dark and cavernous environment so please excuse the low-lit nature of the clip but I promised a Chabala fan or two that I’d post something featuring him this week.

BY SHAWN FRANCIS

Last night Dynamo defender Bobby Boswell kicked off the MLS All Star week festivities in style with a packed party at downtown Houston’s Venue nightclub. While the DJ and the bartenders certainly got a lot of attention from the patrons, it was the athletes who were the main attraction on the night. With everyone from Houston Rockets 1st-round pick Patrick Patterson to Houston Texans wideout David Anderson filling the V.I.P. area, show was the center of the Houston sports & party scene for the evening.

There were also tons of familiar MLS faces in the room; New England’s Kevin Alston & Shalrie Joseph, Colorado’s Jeff Larentowicz, D.C.’s Jaime Moreno and seemingly every member of the Dynamo were in the house. I also found your homeboy (and mine) Nick Rimando from Real Salt Lake mingling among the athletes and the beautiful ladies that follow them. How’s he enjoying Houston? See the clip above to find out.

BY SHAWN FRANCIS

When the 2010 MLS All-Star game descends upon Houston later this month (July 28th to be exact) Dynamo defender Bobby Boswell will be doing his part to get the party started off right. The resident funny guy of the “Orange Crush” will host an evening of stand-up comedy from a selection of athletes, including a Dynamo teammate or two at the Venue night club in downtown Houston on July 26th. So far David Anderson of the NFL’s Texans and fellow Dynamo defender Craig Waibel are slated to join Boswell on stage.

Whether or not Anderson & Waibel are as confident in their comedic skills as they are in their athletic skills is unknown, but Boswell seems to be quite comfortable with the whole thing. Speaking to the Houston Chronicle Boswell said, “I’m not too worried about performing. The thing is, I don’t have to be funny. I just have to make people laugh.”

Make people laugh without being funny? How you do one without the other is beyond me. But then again I’m not the one going on stage so I don’t have to have that figured out. Bobby on the other hand does and I pray that he’s got it sorted, otherwise the All-Star party could start off with some uncomfortable silence.

BY SHAWN FRANCIS

D.C. United’s Devon McTavish is currently touring around the South Pacific with teammate Marc Burch and Houston’s Bobby Boswell and Mike Chabala, bringing soccer clinics to a handful of U.S. armed forces station’s in the area. In between clinics (and islands) they’ve managed to sneak in some beach time and –inexplicably– hold a handstand contest. So yeah, they aren’t exactly being worked to death on this little adventure.

You can get the lowdown on all that and then some in Devon’s post about the trip at Behind the Badge. And judging from the photo above, Mike Chabala can get a tan with shocking speed; on one hand I hope he’s using some sunblock but on the other hand I am freezing to death on the East Coast at the moment and will have little to no sympathy for him if he returns to the mainland with a sunburn in December.