Whatever he has or hasn’t done in the rest of his life, he’s never failed to step up on the pitch during his whole career, so why on earth would he start now? Maybe Galaxy fans have been reading gossip columns a bit more than the sports pages in brushing up on their new signing.

Here’s what he’s known for as a player: tireless training (Pele’s observations–of what?–notwithstanding), team loyalty, and being miserable when kept off the pitch (hence his agreement to leave Real Madrid, where he wasn’t playing regularly at the time, and signing for the Galaxy where he expected he WOULD play regularly).

As for getting paid, the wage disparity in MLS is sinful, but Beckham still would have made significantly more money if he had stayed in Europe, so he clearly didn’t come for the big payday. As far as I can see, he came to play, as he’s always done.

Here’s a column that wraps up various details about the injury/travel from Yallop et al (from Yahoo, obviously our premier sports page but handy nonetheless):
http://sports.yahoo.com/mls/
news?slug=ro-beckham073007&prov=yhoo&type=lgns