It's thunder-stealing time, folks.

Yes, as Don Garber puts his red pencil through the clunky phrases in the State of the League speech he'll deliver tomorrow morning in San Jose, my "dream speech" is ready to deliver.

Actually, I'm still working on my opening joke to loosen up the suits -- my friend the other day reminded me about this kid in high school who thought the Stones had a song with the lyric, "I'll never leave your pizza burning." But I'm still working on that part.

So, here's the guts of my speech.

Lades and gentlemen, internet shut-ins, Euro wannabes, basically, my friends in soccer -- let me begin by saying, "Welcome to the sixth and final MLS All-Star game."

Yeah, I've decided this event has become kind of embarrassing -- definitely not one of the two events of the season that we want to put on ABC. From the meager number of votes to the fact that our fans have not shown themselves sophisticated enough to even vote for players who've, you know, played this year. I mean, Ben Olsen? Last time I saw Ben Olsen it was when I was staring at the milk carton on my breakfast table.

And let's be brutally honest, do we really want to watch another 9-4 fiasco like last year? Do we want to see Rob Stone hanging "chillin'" in front of the goal with Nick Rimando?

I know I don't.

I've seen a lot of FIFA World Stars games through the years, but obviously MLS players haven't, because those games look something like soccer. These MLS All-Star games look way too much like the MTV Rock n' Jock games? Too much laughing and clowning. More breakaways than you see in one of my son's U-5 games. What's next, three points for goals from outside the box? Water balloons for the players on the bench?

The other thing that bugs me about the All-Star game is the columnists who will show up, see 13 goals and say, "If soccer were like this all the time, Americans would like it." Those guys can all go back to their NBA Summer League games for all I care.

Enough is enough. Next year, we're going to rev up the Open Cup early so the final can be played on the weekend where we usually hold the All-Star game. So, our two ABC games will be the Open Cup final at the end of July and the MLS Cup final in October.

It's time we stop worrying about the lowest common denominator, folks. You know what I'm talking about, the People Who Don't Get The Cup Concept. Eventually, if they care at all about soccer, they'll get it. They understand that in golf and tennis there are four majors. Eventually, they'll understand that in American soccer, there's a single-elimination "open" tournament and the MLS season, playoffs, and Cup. After long hours of thought, I have come to the conclusion that this is not that complicated.

Moving right along -- I have a few bold announcements to make.

The Fusion will stay put in Fort Lauderdale for one reason and one reason only. Because MLS cannot afford to give up on one of two teams that play in an appropriate stadium. This is not, in any way, to be construed as "MLS believes in Florida." No, I've come to the conclusion that Florida cares about football and NASCAR and nothing else. But at least we have a nice little stadium with a good lease in Fort Lauderdale. I can live with sub-10,000 crowds at Lockhart because they don't look that bad on television.

As for the other Florida franchise, the league-owned Tampa Bay Mutiny -- we're moving them to Houston's Robertson Stadium, starting next week. They will be known as Houston '01, to give the club a sense of history immediately.

Moving the Mutiny out of Tampa will be the first in an effort to get as many MLS teams as possible out of NFL Stadiums. We're going to have to live with the Wizards at Arrowhead and the Revolution at Foxboro, but that's going to be it.

And we're going to move quickly folks. Here's what we've got in store for the next couple of seasons.

The MetroStars will play next season in a modular stadium at Aqueduct Raceway. Like the Chicago Fire's plan to play at Arlington Park, we know this isn't choice 1A. But, it is a quick way to get the Metros out of Giants Stadium.

If a stadium ever gets done in Newark or Harrison, Metro investor-operators John Kluge and Stuart Subotnick will put an expansion team there. File that under TBA.

Our first expansion team will be awarded to Union FC, a club that will play in a 20,000-seat stadium in downtown Trenton, N.J., beginning in 2003. This goes back to the "lowest common denominator" theory. It would be easy to say, "We need a team in a name-market like Philadelphia" but it's obvious to all that a Philly team will be playing in the new $515-million NFL stadium. And that's not what we want. We think soccer fans from Philly will be more than willing to travel 25 miles to watch the Union play in the nation's premier soccer stadium. The only problem I foresee is ticket availability. The response from people in that market has been overwhelming.

Our second expansion team in 2003 will go to Portland. I've told my people to find a "Lockhart Stadium" in that city and to get busy rehabbing it for the 2003 season. I hope that a team in Portland, a city that's supported soccer in the past, will spur a group in Seattle to get a plan up and running for the next wave of expansion in, say, 2006.

Just a few other points of interest.

I've issued a "stop trying to convert soccer-haters" memo to all MLS employees. This is a colossal waste of time and energy.

I'm doing away with all afternoon games after the month of May. Yeah, I know we'll lose some of those 4:00 ESPN and Telemundo games, but I cannot watch another game at the Cotton Bowl in 110-degree heat. Soccer wasn't meant to be played in those conditions and, besides, the night games draw so much better.

I've commissioned a friend of mine to re-do any MLS team logos that are not fit for professional soccer clubs. For those Columbus Crew fans who object, we're going to have a Turn Back the Clock day with a post-game Village People concert so you can break out the old stuff one more time.

We will make all first-year professional players 21 and under roster exempt, not just those who were signed to Project 40 contracts.

We will offer all out-of-contract players who have played five years in MLS free agency.

We will run MLS ExtraTime for the duration of the season, and it will be on at nine o'clock on Monday nights instead of 11. ESPN has agreed to this, so long as the "Insider" segment is scratched.

I'll conclude my State of the League address with a quote from a favorite movie of mine.

"Who's your buddy? Who's your pal? I am, aren't I?"

Jeff Bradley is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail jeff.bradley@espnmag.com.