In these clashes, moderation takes a beating

There are some things you can't do when you are engaged in a sanctioned mixed-martial-arts fight.

You can't gouge out your opponent's eyes. You can't hit him with a folding chair or shoot him with a staple gun, either. The absence of chairs and staple guns helps to distinguish competitors in the Ultimate Fighting Championship from the guys pretending to maul each other down at the VFW Hall on Tuesday night.

Before any of the apparently numerous fans of the UFC on TV come banging at my door in order to kick me in the head (which tactic is OK, according to the rules of their dodge), let me acknowledge that mixed-martial-arts fighters, unlike professional wrestlers, aren't pretending. The beatings they administer to each other are authentic, and according to L. Jon Wertheim, they constitute sport rather than theater or, as some have charged, "human cock fighting."

Toward the end of "Blood in the Cage," Wertheim describes one "exhilarating and repelling, beautiful and disgusting" moment during which one man does, in fact, kick his opponent in the head. The result is "a squishy sound, a reminder that there's a lot of liquid and pulpy gunk surrounding that hard skull." At ringside, Wertheim speculates that the recipient of the kick is unconscious before his head bounces off the floor.

Maybe you'll want to read the book anyway. If you do, maybe you'll stop at the point where Wertheim describes another blow to the head that sounds "like a water balloon exploding against a brick wall."

The closest thing to a violent confrontation in "A Course Called Ireland" comes when the author, Tom Coyne, is stalked down a lonely road by a filthy, snarling dog "as tall as a Harley with paws the size of pancakes." Coyne is on that lonely road as a result of his determination not only to play "every true links course" he can find in Ireland, but also to walk the distance between each of the courses, except when a ferryboat is required. This adventure takes him four months and sees his score on some 900 holes balloon to 311 over par, but he loses a lot of weight and brings his blood pressure way down.

Coyne's inclination toward self-deprecation (a quality lacking in many mixed-martial-arts fighters), his sense of humor, and the delight he takes in telling stories rescue this account from becoming a catalog of golf shots. Like any good travel book, "A Course Called Ireland" explores the history of the land being traveled and pauses for tales both tall and short, as well as, in this case, for pub songs. Coyne finds plenty of all of the above from Kilkee to Kerry, the long way. Golfers reading this book may wish they'd been walking by Coyne's side or, more likely, that they'd been able to meet him at the clubhouse at the courses he played, since some of the walking between courses is painful, and a lot of it is wet.

People determined to dislike soccer probably won't change their mind as a result of reading "The Global Game." That's OK, since the essays, stories, and poems in this delightful collection aren't meant for those people. They are meant for readers open-minded enough to be curious about what writers from dozens of different cultures have had to say about the sport that comes closest to being the world's game.

Such readers won't be disappointed.

From Kosovo there are details about the days "when writing about sport . . . was more dangerous than writing about politics."

From Argentine journalist and author Osvaldo Soriano there is the brave and glorious tale of goalkeeper Gato Díaz, who, thanks to an exceptionally unruly crowd and the decision of a determined albeit impaired referee, finds himself with a whole week to think about whether the man taking a penalty kick against him will choose to shoot to Gato's right or his left. Gato knows that Constante Gauna, the opposing player, always kicks to the right. But he realizes as well that Constante knows what Gato knows, and knows, also, that Gato is aware of that as well. That a beautiful woman with whom Gato has fallen hopelessly in love seems to have promised to ease his pain if he makes the save further ratchets up the tension, which I will do nothing here to alleviate.

From Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue come tales of Alfonso "the Fool" Madrigal, a player flawed but gifted with flair who "occasionally fell over while fighting for the ball and couldn't get back up because he was too drunk." Enrigue concludes his account of the fragile hero of the author's long-gone childhood by imagining that some Sunday he should return to Pachuca to watch a game. Then, he muses, "maybe the world would, once again, be filled with meaning."

Bill Littlefield hosts National Public Radio's "Only a Game." His most recent book is also titled "Only a Game."