Soccer superstar David Beckham, about to make his Major League Soccer debut last summer, was talking about the advantages of playing on the grass field at Washington's RFK Stadium.

He said he loathed FieldTurf, a brand of artificial surface that is popular in the United States and is used on the Toronto field where Beckham's Los Angeles Galaxy had played its previous game. He said FieldTurf stresses athletes' bodies.

Oops. It turned out that three fields at Beckham's California youth academy are FieldTurf. He looked sheepish when he apologized the next day.