WELCOME TO CITY OF ANGELS, BECKS.

Byline: MARIEL GARZA

WHEN it comes to professional sports, I'm a stereotypical woman in that I find them mostly unwatchable.

Football has too many rules and not enough action. Baseball is slow and boring. Basketball seems pointless -- it's just too easy to score to make it meaningful. Hockey is just an excuse for grown men to fight with sticks.

Considering my indifference, I was amazed and bemused on Thursday to find that I, like many Angelenos, had David Beckham fever. As the news that he was coming to play in L.A. zoomed through the city, it was obvious that even people who don't follow sports know of the dress-wearing, wild-haired English soccer player who married Posh Spice.

David and Victoria Beckham are favorites of the European gossip rags. Everyone is giddy that he's coming to town. No doubt, the local paparazzi in particular are glad for the distraction from Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan.

Men and women in the Daily News newsroom gushed Thursday over the handsome star. The men considered the implication for the state of soccerdom, and the women the half-naked pictures of his tatted torso being passed around.

Before noon I was checking The Home Depot Center Web site for ticket prices and wondering which is the best route to Carson. I wasn't the only one. More than 1,000 people bought season tickets in the hours after the announcement.

Suddenly it occurred to me: Who am I? I don't like sports. And, then: Los Angeles has a soccer team?

It seems many people woke up Thursday morning to find that Los Angeles does indeed have a soccer team -- the L.A. Galaxy -- and that its moment of fame had finally arrived.

If my reaction is any indication, Beckham-Galaxy Soccer has real hope for whipping up interest in a sport that America has always ignored, despite the fact that most people are ancestrally tied to a country in which soccer is the unofficial second religion. That's good news for the L.A. Galaxy, which might be able to overcome its unfortunately appropriate name.

I'm excited because soccer is one sport I can actually imagine getting excited about, and not just because of the handsome, half-naked men running around. It makes sense, and you generally know when it's going to be over.

Most sports require a certain amount of prior knowledge, none of which is printed on the back of the tickets or on the $10 beer cups. Instead, a novice such as myself must pester the unfortunate guy sitting next to me just for the basics on the action, such as ``Why did everyone stop running?'' ``Why does the man get to go to first base if he didn't hit anything?'' ``Why don't you get extra points for bouncing the ball off other players?''

Soccer, however, is self-explanatory. Two teams face off on a big field with an objective of kicking a ball -- no hands allowed! -- into the other side's jealously guarded little rope cave. When -- or, if, as is often the case -- one team scores, it's a heady moment because it so rarely happens. Plus, there are often dramatic, body-wrenching jumps involved.

In soccer, when someone kicks someone unnecessarily or trips them, they get a yellow card. If they are really bad, they get a red card. See, simple. Even a child knows that yellow is a warning and red is instant death.

And all of it happens in two 45-minute halves. It's the perfect sport.

So on behalf of the men and women, especially the women, of Los Angeles, a hearty welcome to David Beckham.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Soccer star David Beckham and wife Victoria ``Posh Spice'' are naturals as an L.A. celebrity power couple.

Steve Finn/Getty Images

(2 -- color) Real Madrid's David Beckham reacts after losing a match against Recreativo de Huelva during the Spanish league football match at Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid in December.

Javier Soriano/Getty Images