And as if to prove the point made in my last post. . .

I’m very stoked to see one of my favourite current U.S. gymnasts from the Olympic trials - edged out of the team until today - is going to Beijing to compete for the U.S.: Raj Bhavsar. The unfortunate injury of Paul Hamm, last Olympics’ U.S. superstar, created one empty space to be filled, and Raj just got the nod to fill it.

So, pack up your Hepa filter, grab a wet towel to cover your face and head on out to Beijing, Raj man!  The wife and I are pulling for ya.

I rarely comment on sports on this blog, though I have to admit that some Olympic stuff is bound to come up in the next few weeks.  And on this latest news coming out of the world of football, I really feel compelled to comment.

Brett Favre leaves Green Bay for the Jets?  Isn’t that a little like taking a shit in reverse?  Maybe it’s just me.

Rodger Clemens has begun apologizing for “mistakes in his personal life” today. We all make mistakes. Sometimes, we lock ourselves out of the house in spring when the keys are in our coats. Sometimes, we weave a bit too much in traffic because we’re on a cellphone call we know we shouldn’t be on. And yes, sometimes we inadvertently spend a bit too much time warming up the ol’ bat in a fifteen year old’s dugout:

Roger Clemens apologizes for ’mistakes in personal life’ - BostonHerald.com

Roger Clemens apologized today for unspecified mistakes in his personal life but denied having an affair with a 15-year-old.

“Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes, I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry,” Clemens said in a statement issued by spokesman Patrick Dorton. “I have apologized to my family and apologize to my fans. Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right.”

Exactly. We all have flaws and make bad choices. Though in Mr. Clemens’ defense, it should be pointed out that the fifteen year old in question was pumped full of performance enhancing drugs at the time and had the strength of ten teenie boppers.

You can survive for one hour. One hour only, but that aught to be enough. We’ve got scientists crunching the numbers.

“Oh, smashing news,” you say. “Hang on. Survive where? The moon?” No, Beijing, the world’s most polluted city, which is hosting the Olympic Games. Now, get out there and compete:

Athletes safe in Beijing air for up to an hour: IOC | Reuters

International Olympic Committee scientists have proved that Beijing’s air will present no health risk to athletes competing for up to an hour at the 2008 Games, IOC chief inspector Hein Verbruggen said on Wednesday.

Well, it appears as though just about every minor league team in Rochester is in danger of either collapsing or leaving because of some exceedingly bad financial moves by the ownership.  That’s the news from the D&C today, in their piece entitled “Fast-ferry future for city’s teams?,” an unmistakably gleeful choice of words.

The question in my mind is: are these bad financial dealings the result of an inept leadership or were they the desperate tactics of a failing business model?  The truth is doubtless somewhere in the middle, but it makes a  big difference in terms of what happens next.  My suspicion has always been that the city’s market is just too small to support all those teams, especially for things like soccer and arena football, which are niche sports with a very small audience in the first place.

I’m just hoping that, in an effort to save face for the city, the mayor doesn’t decide to try to take over Paetec Park unless it can be proven to be a money-maker.  I would say that we need to have someone take a serious look at what kind of entertainment/sports venues this city can really support - that we could use a master plan against which to work - but I think we all know by now these things are run by the contractors, not by our elected officials.

Vive la CMCE.

It’s funny, but Tommy Mule on WCMF was just talking about some of this on my ride into work today. I’d meant to write this up last night, but didn’t get the time. . .

Really, what is it about steroids that is so bad? I don’t mean that they’re not bad, but I’m just wondering what it is about them that we object to so strenuously while not in the same moment objecting to any number of other chemicals players dope their bodies up with. There is an entire industry built around the idea of either making professional athletes stronger or patching up injuries so they can go back out onto the field and play hurt. Are we so sure what they’re doing is ethical simply because they might have eschewed the use of one chemical over another?

It is an interesting question once you begin to dig beneath the veneer of major league sports and get at the truth of what they’re all doing. Really, ethics are a very relative thing in a world where athletes push their bodies beyond breaking and corporations making billions actively encourage it so they can sell beer during the commercials. And it’s a fair question: are we just kidding ourselves about the steroids thing?
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Hmm. . . Perhaps I’ll get a series started: Douchebag of the Week. It has a great Friday ring to it doesn’t it?

Anyway, allow me to say I could really give a rat’s patoot what MLB jocks do to their bodies, with the exception that impressionable young kids might get the idea that “doping until you die” is the way to excel in this world. That said, if the Mitchell report has revealed anything, it’s that there is no possible way Bud Selig could not have known what was going on. Hell, there had to be gumball machines filled with steroids in every locker room across America, and this douche has the balls to say this:

MLB report outs stars; Selig vows action - Yahoo! News

“If there are problems, I wanted them revealed,” commissioner Bud Selig said. “His report is a call to action, and I will act.”

Yes. It’s a call to action. And the action is: why don’t you go outside and play a game of Hide and Go F*ck Yourself.

Looking at the roster of Olympic medals won by the US, I am struck by the notion that entitles this post. The majority of gold medals won by the US team were in a sport that we invented in the first place.
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So Dick Cheney is going to make himself available to the public concerning the whole shoot-the-lawyer-in-the-face thing.? And he’s doing so in the one place he can truly assure a fair and balanced interview: on Fox News with Brit Hume.? Yep, that’s facing the tough questions.

John Moody, Senior Vice President for News Editorial at Fox, proves he is worth his weight in gold with this quote:

“I think he wanted to make sure he got a fair interview and a good interview — good in the sense of thorough — and Brit is sort of the pre-eminent journalist in Washington right now.”?

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So, I’m riffing here.

But the best moment of the Olympics thus far was seeing the American speed skater Cheeks pull the Russian up onto the Gold podium at the end of the national anthem.? That looked from where I saw it like a genuine act of a good competitor.? Another great moment was when the Russian men’s skater told an interviewer to wait until the long program was over before asking him to gush over how great he is.? It was remarkable not because he said it, but because he said it so dismissively, focused instead on the competition he’s in.? They always ask such assinine questions, anyway.