Beckham's arrival is big, but let's not go overboard

	David Beckham's move to MLS will generate more casual interest in the league, but will it translate into long-term acceptance? Simon Bruty/SI
	MAILBAG Frank Deford will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

David Beckham is a very fine soccer player, but with apologies to Macbeth, "Nothing in his life (becomes) him like the leaving."

My, but the man knows how to make an exit. As a player, he's most famous for getting kicked out of the World Cup in 1998. His departure from Manchester United in 2003 was so sensational that television covered his medical exam live. And now, as he departs Real Madrid for America, once again his leavetaking is the big story.

This would worry me if I were Major League Soccer. Becks is a lovely guy to have show up and hang around for a bit, to rattle the pots and pans, but I'm not so sure he leaves any footprints. Now, yes, absolutely, wherever he goes, he is noticed. When he visited Nelson Mandela some years ago, a British newspaper covered the summit of the two gods in this fashion: "One is an icon of his generation, adored by millions across the globe, who has brought hope to his nation where once there was despair. The other is Nelson Mandela."

But then, history tells us that when a sport believes it can use one great star to boost it -- a surge, if you will -- it's only a momentary lift, and when the star fades, the sporting enterprise itself is back to the same old oil in the same old lamps.

Red Grange signed a huge contract to play in the NFL as soon as his storied college career ended in 1925. Crowds thronged to see the Galloping Ghost. Alas, it was another 30 years before the NFL was accepted. Bill Tilden turned pro. He toured the land, selling out arenas, but he did nothing for pro tennis, just for Big Bill. Rick Barry jumped to the American Basketball Association.

It would go the same way as the United States Football League went after it attached its wagon to Hershel Walker. RIP: USFL, ABA. Pelé was a sensational draw when he signed with the North American Soccer League. The day he left, the league was a ghost in short pants.

This is not to say that MLS made an unwise decision in signing on Beckham to the Los Angeles Galaxy. There are some shrewd promoters in that league -- notably Tim Leiweke of the Galaxy and Dave Checketts, late of Madison Square Garden, now with the Real Salt Lake club. Americans who've never heard of professional soccer will now -- perhaps especially if they peruse People magazine or glimpse Access Hollywood on TV.

But the boast of MLS commissioner Don Garber, in which he declared that Beckham's arrival might be seen as perhaps one of the most crucial events in "the history of professional sport," is an hysterical athletic overstatement. Mission accomplished!

But yes, this too: from Chris Evert to Anna Kournikova, Billie Jean King always had the wisdom to say, OK, if men come to check out the beauty, they might find they like the action. Becks will be like the circus come to town. Maybe the strangers in the soccer tent will notice what's in the other two rings, and actually pay to watch when the Kansas City Wizards or the Colorado Rapids come to town to play a game.

In the meantime, may we hope that some other country of the world with a struggling baseball league will decide that the way to make it work is to take Barry Bonds off our hands.