I know. I know. Curling was that bridesmaid you wanted to pass the time with for a handful of days. You never intended your relationship to get serious, the moment has passed and you wish they’d stop insinuating themselves back in your life.

I get it. Really. You don’t care about curling anymore. You never really cared about curling. You especially don’t care about Chinese curling.

But maybe you should care for just one more story, because it involves your country.

China’s curling skip Wang Fengchun was booted from the team after its pit-i-ful showing at the Vancouver Games. But this being the Chinese team we’re talking about, they didn’t just politely hand Wang a pink slip and a plane ticket home. Matter fact, they literally did neither, deploying instead a series of blatant burns to the guy.

Burn No. 1: Wang was banned from joining in on the celebratory banquet on the Olympic delegation’s return to Beijing.

Burn No. 2: Instead of doing Saki-bombs with teammates in Beijing and then taking a quick plane ride back to his home city after the celebration, his flight was revoked and replaced with a ticket for a 12-hour train ride home to Harbin.

Burn No. 3: The team manager didn’t bother to warn him that it was going to happen.

Burn No. 4: The impetus for Wang’s punishment was not his performance, but his behavior coming home after the Games ended. He was so unhappy with being benched for the final two matches in Vancouver, that he showed up in Beijing wearing a U.S. team cap along with his Chinese uniform.

To be honest, I’m not sure who this is a burn on. China, because one of their own dared to wear “another gang’s colors,” Wang because he performed so poorly he had to wear another country’s gear or the U.S. because … well, because that other country’s gear was ours.

A lot of behaviors get lost in translation between such different countries as ours and China’s, but this ain’t one of ‘em. China made themselves very clear: you do not blow the Olympic Games and sulk by supporting our enemy.

“It’ll be very helpful to heavily slap him down with pain,” team manager Li Dongyan added. “We will not give up on such a good curler. We hope he changes his attitude and we will then consider using him in future competitions.”

You get the feeling that if we could read Li’s mind immediately after this quotation it would have added, “… because if Wang doesn’t, Wang will be sorry.”

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

Water consumption spiked to abnormal highs in between each period and abnormal lows during gametime action. Hockey fans across the city (and, let’s face it, country) risked permanent bladder damage by holding in uncountable amounts of LaBatt’s until the end of each period. And during the medal ceremony? Forget it. Real fans just wet where they stood.

That’s the Canadian way.

Graph below, don’tcha know.

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First of all, no one likes a mumbler. Second of all, these curling shenanigans are the fastest growing sport in this year’s Olympics. Even moreso than the freestyle snowboarding that the kids are all tweeting about.

The point is, there’s just no way to tell which Olympic sports are going to catch fire with the masses – something members of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association are counting on.

Suddenly and without warning, a bevy of pole dancing groups are joining together to form a chorus (a boozy, red-light, tight-thighed chorus) of people who want the International Olympic Committee to recognize pole dance as a sport and they want that so that it may one day soon be included in the Olympic Games.

Hong Kong-based Ania Przeplasko, the founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association, the sport’s fledgling supervisory body, believes Olympic recognition is only a matter of time and would be a victory for unappreciated sports worldwide.

“There will be a day when the Olympics see pole dancing as a sport,” said Przeplasko.

Przeplasko sees such recognition as nearly inevitable, despite the Olympics not supporting nonofficial demonstration sports for the last 18 years. Why this woman is so sure – and more importantly how hot this woman is – are two items yet uncovered. But let’s assume Ms. Przeplasko is correct (and hot) and that pole dancery has too long been overlooked. What form could the sport possibly take? And what are the chances it’ll be included in the Winter Games as an outdoor sport? Oh, please include it as an outdoor winter sport. Think about it.

But first thing’s first: the IOC has to recognize it – something that isn’t as inevitable as the founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association would have you believe it is. Remember, the IOC brushed baseball off the table last year and baseball isn’t nearly as glittery as pole dancing is.

It helps that, along with the IPDFA, there is also an annual International Pole Dancing Fitness Championship in Tokyo, a U.S. Pole Dance Federation (! – how did I miss this?) and Britain’s Vertical Dance organization helping to shape pole dancing as a sport. But still … pole dancing? Isn’t it just too synonymous with tiny, scantily clad females wearing too much makeup to be considered Olympic-appropriate?

Oh … right. Well played.

“I don’t need to see pole dancing in the Olympics,” said Wendy Traskos, co-founder of the U.S. Pole Dance Federation. “I don’t think this is necessarily the path that we need to take, as a sport. I feel there are many small, tiny, steps that need to be taken before this sport, or any sport, can get into the Olympics. We are on, like, tiny step 10 of 1,000.”

Did you catch what just happened there?

Even the poo-pooers are slowly attempting to erode the stigma attached to pole dancing. Traskos’ comments skipped right over whether or not pole dancing is even technically a sport. She, along with many others, have already decided that it is and went right into whether it belongs in the Olympics.

That’s slick. I’m pretty sure the people involved in the gymnastics floor exercise pulled the same thing in ’48. No one questioned its credentials as a sport and now look. You can’t stop the floor exercise. It’s damn near bigger than the NFL!

“Now, when you talk about it you don’t hear ‘like a stripper’ anymore,” Traskos said. “You hear things like, ‘Oh, my friend takes classes for fitness’ or ‘Yes, I’ve seen it on Oprah.”’

Yeah.  Just like when you talk about curling, you don’t hear “like fat dudes with brooms” anymore either.

Check out the AP story.

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

The Winter Games put an interesting strain on the loyalty of an NHL fan. It’s when you realize that not only is half of your favorite team Canadian, but 90 percent of those remaining affiliate themselves somewhere across the ocean. Clearly your first loyalties should lie with Team USA because if they don’t, you’re a “terrist.” (OK, fine, I suppose a scant handful of NHL fans are Canadian and we’ll let them cheer for Team Canada), but many fans would do well to pick up a second team.

In fact, some countries almost still look like your favorite team.

Every 2010 Olympic men’s hockey team has at least one NHLer on the roster. Starting in reverse order of how they were ranked pre-competition, we’ll let you know which fans might want to adopt each country as a ‘second team.’

Norway – 1 NHL player

You’d think this would be easy. One guy. Sent over from the Detroit Red Wings. Not that anyone needs to concern themselves with the thought of Norway taking the gold, but this should be a Wings team according to NHL fans right? Not so fast. Because the player in question is Ole-Kristian Tollefsen. And he has yet to actually play a game for Detroit. Sorry Norway, let’s hope you brought your own fans. You won’t find any here.

Latvia – 2 NHL players

Latvia doesn’t come off much better than Norway as I don’t imagine many NHL fans are clamoring to see Oskars Bartulis or Karlis Skrastins on the Olympic stage. Though if it really came down to a fight between Flyers fans and Stars fans, I have to think the Philly fans would win … because they will cut you. We’ll call Latvia a fringe team for Flyers fans.

Germany – 7 NHL players

OK, now we’re talking! Seven from the NHL. Way to infiltrate the Germans. (Or is that Germany infiltrating the NHL?) We haven’t reached the point where NHL super-stardom and the Olympics collide, but the Nashville Predators did send two of their guys along, while the other four NHL teams represented only sent one. So Nashville? Go ahead and root for Germany. The rest of us promise not to call you traitors. To your face.

Belarus – 5 NHL players

Belarus is actually less impressive in their NHL representation than it may appear. Of those five we have another Red Wing who hasn’t actually played a game with them and a Canadien who Montreal hopes will be ready to return from injury by the end of the Olympic break, but clearly will not be playing for his country. But the Canadiens still had two more players named to the Belarus team than almost any other NHL team, and two more Kostitsyns named than any team at all, so we forgive you, Montreal fans, if you’re keeping tabs on Belarus’ performance as well.

Slovakia – 12 NHL players

Good showing from the NHL here, though the only team sending multiple players is the Blackhawks. And did I mention one of them is Marian Hossa? Of course Hawks fans should be cheering for Slovakia as their second team. They have two players there and have made the Slovakian team enemies of half the NHL by including Hossa. In fact, I bet he’s really Bulgarian and just thought he’d have a better chance of medaling if he changed his nationality. (Note to Hossa: Next time pick Russian.) Still, congratulations Blackhawks, here is your second team.

Switzerland – 3 NHL players

After Switzerland, this gets easier. Three players, three teams sending them. I tried to focus on numbers of players (or at least numbers of games played with a team) more than who is sending the “best” players, but for the Swiss it seems the only NHL fans that have a legitimate claim to their team is the Ducks for shipping off No. 1 goalie Jonas Hiller.

USA – ALL NHL players

As we stated before, this one is a wash. One of two Olympic rosters comprised solely of NHLers. (Give me $20 if you can guess the other. It was worth a try…) Even if your NHL team isn’t represented here, it’s still “your team.”

Czech Republic – 16 NHL players

The Czech team has a good healthy mix with two players coming from the Thrashers, Senators and Wild, as well as 10 other NHL teams. But we’re not about to call this one for Atlanta, Ottawa, Minnesota or any of the other teams individually represented. The Czech Republic should serve only as a second team for Jaromir Jagr fans. I’m not sure which NHL team they may support in the regular season, but I’m betting there’s still more of them than Thrashers fans.

Finland – 18 NHL players

A handful of teams have two of their players included on the Finland roster, the Minnesota Wild is the only team with three. And considering their three are Niklas Backstrom, Mikko Koivu and Antti Miettinen, it’s perfectly fair if Wild fans reserve a special little place in their hearts for the Finnish team.

Sweden – 19 NHL players

Sweden could make a good second team for the Canucks (as if Vancouver, of all places, needed a ‘second team’ in this Olympics!) After all, they have sent the Wonder Twin power on to the Swedes, who many feel are medal contenders. But a quick glance at the roster shows Sweden can only truly be claimed by Detroit fans. Not only do they have four of their men playing for Sweden, but when one had to pull out due to injury, he was replaced with (who else?) another Red Wing. There’s more Wings playing for them than guys playing on Swedish teams total. The biggest confusion for Detroit fans choosing to back their second team should be “Why are the Wings wearing blue and yellow?”

Russia – 14 NHL players

Russia may have two Penguins to go with their three Capitals but this shouldn’t even be a question. As a second team? This one belongs to the Capitals. Evgeni Malkin is good, but that’s like ordering chicken because you can’t have steak. If a Pens fan isn’t cheering for Team USA, I suspect it’s only because they’re worshiping on the altar of Sidney Crosby. Meanwhile, the Caps have sent their own golden calf, Alexander Ovechkin, on to Team Russia, and added his ridiculously high-chemistry linemate Alexander Semin and goalie Semyon Varlamov to boot. D.C. fans might even have fond memories of how Sergei Federov (also on the team) was starting to get his second wind in his last years with the Capitals. So go ahead, Caps fans. Feel free to support Russia (as a second team only!) And we won’t call you Commies. But we might still think you’re spies.

But no matter who NHL fans choose for their second team, the Olympics should play out among fans by ultimately dividing them into the same two sides we’ve seen in the past few NHL seasons: Those who love Sidney Crosby … and those who want to see their team make him cry.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

Track and field’s hurdles events ask very little of its competitors. Run, jump, repeat. Speed with a dash of timing to make it more interesting. That’s it. While hurdling might be difficult to accomplish at a word-class level, it’s easy to understand. It’s clear among the hurdlers what is necessary and how to go about it successfully. No one is more thankful for this clarity of goal than Australia’s Jana Rawlinson.

Jana Rawlinson has trouble sticking with her decisions, you see.

Several weeks ago, the 2003 gold medalist in the 400m hurdles had her breast implants removed because she felt they impeded her ability to compete.

Hurdling: Built for speed not comfort.

“Every time I raced I panicked about whether I was letting my country down, all for my own vanity, ” Rawlinson said. “I absolutely loved having bigger boobs, but I don’t want to short-change Australia either.”

I’m not Australian, but how sure are we that Rawlinson isn’t short-changing her country now? I mean, she failed to compete in the Beijing Games 16 months ago and Australia seems to be over it. Don’t underestimate the importance of breasts down under.

That sentence didn’t turn out like I’d hope. A little dirtier than I imagined and I’m now imagining boobs down below the knees. I haven’t seen something like that since my neighbor Ethel died two years ago.

But Rawlinson’s impetuousness doesn’t stop at the chest. Let’s travel about 18 inches higher to Mrs. Rawlinson’s brain – where all the action is.

Although I feel confident that spending $13,000 on two surgeries in 14 months and having only incision scars to show for it is enough to convince you she ought to sleep on a few more decisions in her life, the story of Rawlinson’s frontcourt is secondary to the story of her time spent in divorce court.

Rawlinson is preparing to get married a second time just as soon as the divorce from her previous marriage is finalized. The catch here is that the man she is engaged to and the man she is in the process of divorcing are the same man, hurdles coach Chris Rawlinson.

They split in April and by December they had decided that the divorce was a mistake. by the time Rawlinson came to that decision, both parties had put ink to paper. Non-erasable ink on divorce agreement paper. Unfortunately, couples cannot legally wed until they are legally divorced and a couple cannot legally be divorced until all appropriate paperwork is filed.

The paperwork was filed this week, so the happily divorced couple can become the impetuous, near-sighted, devil-amy-care wedded couple they were sorta destined to be.

Let’s hope Mrs. Rawlinson keeps running a straight line and timing her hurdles just right. Without that, who knows where she’ll end up?

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

Ms. Winfrey’s on a kick. Yeah. I’m calling it a kick instead of a development or a movement or a new direction. Having Iron Mike and Real Deal chit-chat 12 years past their primes and for little reason other than promoting the DVD release of Tyson’s documentary, seems nonsensical if considered anything other than a passing fancy of Winfrey’s. I mean, what’s the end game here? Two weeks ago, she traveled with the president and first lady to Copenhagen to cajole the International Olympic Committee into handing Chicago the 2016 Summer Games. Three weeks before that, she scored an exclusive post-peep video interview with ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews. Why? What’s Oprah got to do with sports? Have you seen her? The women’s built like Kirby Puckett.

There are only two reasonable explanations for her sudden interest in athletics: a) someone said that she has very little pull with sports fans and it didn’t sit well with Oprah or b) someone dared her to start doing crazy things that she has no business doing, just to see if she could pull it off. Frankly, I think it’s a little of both.

“Oh, I’ll bring the Olympics to Chicago. Don’t think I won’t. I type 15 numbers into that phone right there, I’ll have the president clearing a space for me on Air Force One this afternoon. And when I’m done with that, I’m gonna make someone cry? Who should I make cry? Mike Tyson. I’m gonna make Mike-friggin’-Tyson weep. I’m gonna make him weep and shake hands with Evander Holyfield. I’ll make ‘em hug! What do I care? I’m Oprah! … Now who is this skinny blonde chick I’m interviewing and why do we care about her nudity?”

But that’s why this whim is so bizarre. Outside of a decidedly sports-centered, decidedly male and decidedly horny audience, no one did care about Erin Andrews. Certainly not Oprah’s key demographic of women ages 28 – 55. They didn’t care. How many women in that audience had ever heard of Andrews before walking into the studio? Andrews has said that she wanted to purge the incident from her life by discussing it on the grandest single-serving stage she could find. But for the people interested in her story or those that helped create it, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was among the most nonsensical venues to appear. Peephole drilling (or video voyeurism) isn’t generally happening to housewives, nor does it seem something housewives need a crusader from whom to gather strength. Besides, peephole guy is more a fan of “The View” if you catch my meaning.

I’ve already written about Winfrey’s hubris-mas involvement with the Olympics (what? Michael Jordan was too busy?), and here it was again during Monday’s taping when Tyson sat in on the show.

Hey Winfrey audience members, how many of you enjoy boxing? No? Not many of you, I see. Okay, well how many of you like Mike Tyson anyway, perhaps for his appearance in “The Hangover” or the famous Nintendo game bearing his name or the spousal abuse scandal with Robin Givens from 20 years ago? No? No fans? How many of you would rather watch a show about mothers and daughters re-forming bonds after perilous estrangements?

Yes. There’re those hands we were looking for.

The Tyson portion of the interview (before Holyfield came on stage) touched upon his abusive relationship with Robin Givens a little, but nothing that his followers didn’t already know and certainly nothing that warrants drudging up 21-year-old demons.

And this is why Oprah must be making good on a few dares. She could have any interview she wants and she chooses non-sequiters that neither speak to her audience nor showcase her particular brand of influence.

Old, female, self-help, love, literature: Oprah.
Male, sports, athletes: Somebody else.

She won the dare with the Andrews interview, lost another with the Chicago Olympic bid and went double-or-nothing with the “Bite Fight” reunion.*

Unfortunately, I think the double-or-nothing was dependent upon both Tyson and Holyfield crying. Tyson got teary-eyed, Holyfield didn’t. If Oprah’s that far in the hole now, expect something crazy from her before the new year.

I’m thinking she’s going to brainwash America into becoming passionate about cricket. Crazy.

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* How ironic is it that the very fight in which Holyfield gets chunks of his sound-detecting body part bitten off by the sport’s most enraged personality was a fight originally hyped as “The Sound and the Fury?” A dozen years later and that still kills me.

It’s Tuesday and in two weeks the 2009-10 NBA season will officially begin. Many of us are already gathering notes together for our basketball fantasy drafts. I know, right? You can hardly control your excitement. Well, Sidelines can’t control its excitement. So for the five weeks leading up to the season tip-off, we’re thumbing through our old fantasy notebooks, cringing at our past selections and revisiting our top 10 fantasy picks from each of the seasons that introduced us to a new decade. This week: the season that introduced us to the 90s. A decade after entering the league, Magic Johnson had just won his second MVP award despite losing to the Pistons in the Finals. A young Naval officer named Robinson entered the league. And reigning scoring champ Michael Jordan had established himself as the most dangerous man in the game on one of the most one-note teams in the league. Would moving the lanky SF Scottie Pippen from a backup to starter make any difference?

Enjoy and we’ll see you on October 27.

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Yo, yo, yo sports fans. SportScape Sidelines bringin’ it to you for this season’s baddest picks for your fantasy basketball draft. It’s our 30th anniversary, so you know we ain’t here just smackin’ our gums. Scoot up your chair close to your Macintosh word processor and take down these picks. You’ll be glad you did.

And now: The best bets for your 1989-90 fantasy all-stars!

… Wait. Wait. I can’t, in good conscience, start this list without warning you readers ahead of time that I didn’t include Atlanta’s Dominique Wilkins on this list. I know half of you have already stopped reading, but for those of you who remain, please believe that ‘Nique is No. 11 on this list. Matter fact, he’d go right here on the actual page if my editor allowed me to do a Top 11 list. But he didn’t. He limited me to 10 because he knows I tend to ramble.

The fact is, I just think The Human Highlight Film has reached his full (astonishing) potential. Chris Mullin, on the other hand … his stats were comparable to Wilkins’ and I think he still has room for improvement. We’ll see at season’s end.

10. Larry Bird, BOS
Larry Legend belongs higher on this list. If this were last year, he’d be somewhere around third or fourth. Unfortunately, the ’88-89 season is over and Bird only played six games during it. If Bird is Bird again and you can nab him with the 10th pick of the draft, feel free to laugh at the sucker who chose Mullin.

09. Chris Mullin, GSW
I’m still not convinced Mullin is from this decade. It’s like this new “Back To the Future” sequel that’s coming out next month: The preview shows Michael J. Fox traveling into the future instead of into the past. This must be what Mullin did. Mullin looks like he played H-O-R-S-E with Bob Cousy. And for as good as his 26.5 points / .509 FG percentage are today, imagine who must have won that game of H-O-R-S-E way back then.

08. Patrick Ewing, NY
Of the eight guys left on this list who haven’t won a championship, I’m pretty sure Ewing is the most likely to grab that big brass ring. Playing for a large market and fortifying that market’s team with a big man are the two hardest parts of building toward a championship. The Knicks have both. Knowing New York, this team will be winning championships peppered throughout the next 20 years.

07. Clyde Drexler, POR
How beloved is this guy in Portland? They’re going to name streets and art fairs and forest preserves after this guy over there. And can you blame ‘em? Portland may be “Bridge City,” but The Glide’s 27/8/6 average will provide passage from your fantasy team to a fantasy championship.

… For you. A fantasy championship for you. In case it wasn’t implied.

06. Charles Barkley, PHI
I’ll be honest, I don’t like the guy. He’s a big mouth and he thinks he’s a better power forward than Karl Malone. Well, no one’s a better power forward than Karl Malone, not even the Round Mound of Rebound. But neither you nor I need to like him to respect his ability. If Chuck is still available after the fifth pick, he’s the guy for you. This cat better be careful with his opinionated disposition. He’s liable to retire, get blackballed and never be heard from again.

05. Karl Malone, UTA
There’s no two ways around it, the best thing about the Mailman is John Stockton. If you hate Malone, you probably say Stockton does all the work despite Malone’s dunks being the only thing showcased on the highlight reel. If you like Malone, you want this conversation to distract everyone from the fact that he averages a half dozen of these dunks every game without anyone being able to stop him.

04. Hakeem Olajuwon, HOU
Look, I’m not going to try to convince you that Olajuwon is better than Barkley or Malone. I will say that The Dream blocks 2.5 more shots and earns one more steal than those other guys each game. He also plays center, which you’ll notice is the least-represented position on this list.  I’m also not going to try to convince you that Houston is an awful city that you should never visit. Even though I’m not going to try to convince you of this, you still owe it to yourself to remember that I brought it up in the first place next time you make travel plans.

03. John Stockton, UTA
I used to watch “Leave It To Beaver.” I don’t know why I watched it. I didn’t like it very much. I think maybe it was because of Wally’s friend Eddie Haskell. Eddie Haskell was a troublemaker who always brown-nosed June Cleaver. Mrs. Cleaver just thought he was the kindest, wonderful-est young man ever. But he wasn’t. He was dirty and slimy and he fouled in the paint a lot. What’s my point? Why, that John Stockton led the league in assists and steals last season, is all.

02. Earvin “Magic” Johnson, LAL
“… One just never knows with rookies. Most rookies. Not this rookie. There’s no question with Johnson. Combining Kareem, Wilkes, Nixon and now Johnson will be magical. The kid’s gonna average a triple-double this season.”
I wrote that about the reigning league MVP a decade ago when he was a rookie and I ranked him eighth. He didn’t average a triple-double that year or any year since, but I’m just as convinced he can do it this year as I was in 1979.

01. Michael Jordan, CHI
There have been whispers that the International Olympic Committee might start letting pros play. That’s a pretty wild rumor, but just imagine it for a moment for fun. Magic passing to Bird on the wing, swings it around then dumps it down to Ewing. Malone sets the pick. Shot not there. Clears it out to Jordan who squares up for the jumper. Jordan stops … pops … GOOD! Now that’s fantasy basketball, folks.

(As far as picking M.J. first: If you have the No. 1 pick in your fantasy draft and you pass on 32.5 PPG / 8 RBD / 8 AST / 2.9 STL / .538 FG%, you deserve to lose and not get asked to play again next year.)

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

Is three days enough to start looking back at Chicago’s epically failed bid for the 2016 Olympics with 20/20 vision? Because if it is, I think most will agree that Chicago is going to come off mighty smug in this one.

Why, when Rio declared Friday’s bid decision a national holiday, did the U.S. believe parading the president and a lone celebrity in front of the International Olympic Committee would be all that was necessary? Was it the Vegas odds? The bookmakers in Nevada pegged Chicago as the obvious front-runner for months. Nevermind the city’s dearth of public transportation. Nevermind the numerous suspect promises made about being able to fund the games. Nevermind the shallow support from the host city itself (only 33-47 percent of Chicagoans who took into account the probability that they’d have to pay for part of the Games through taxes were in favor of the bid). And finally, nevermind the fact that few countries even like America. President Obama may be more popular abroad than our former president, but he’s no get-out-of-jail free card, either.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

Nevermind all of that. Vegas says we’re the 3-5 favorites and therefore anything less than a successful bid is completely deserving of the freakout that inexplicably took place in America on Friday.

Sporting-wise, there are four things Americans simply don’t care about: rugby, cricket, soccer and the Olympics. Americans like winning. It’s like the popular kid in school that wants to steal your girlfriend just so he can tell you he did it. The problem is, no one really likes that kid. In fact, almost everybody hates him. In two weeks, no one wil be talking about Chicago’s shameful showing with the IOC, which is one of the reasons the bid wasn’t successful – the U.S. wanted the bid for all the wrong reasons. Heck, outside of Illinois, announcing that Chicago failed to capture the hearts and minds of the IOC is like announcing that The Thermals just broke up.

“Who are the Thermals and why do I care,” you ask? You don’t care. And that’s the point.

Conventional wisdom believes that baseball managers often get thrown out of games in losing efforts on purpose; not simply out of frustration, but as a last stitch effort to fuel their players, to propel them into a higher plain of competition before all is lost and the game is over. Similar conventional wisdom holds true for teammates who rumble on the sidelines or dugouts or locker rooms only to see their teams go on winning streaks immediately afterwards.

Get beat, get angry, get better.

America just sent in its biggest guns and they jammed. Call it a national humble. All weekend, reports trickled out gazing backwards hoping to explain why America doesn’t have what they felt certain was rightfully coming their way on Friday. Chicago is the third-largest city in a country that has burned many bridges and dealt with this destruction with hubris.

Look at that picture of Mayor Richard Daley, Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. There’s hubris all over that photo. The color of Obama’s dress is Copper Hubris. “Hubris” is the scent of Daley’s cologne.

Oprah Winfrey? She panders to housewives and promotes babbling authors for a living. Why’d the U.S. bring her along? America’s going to look back on decisions like that with astonished embarrassment until … well, until it stops making decisions like that.

Ms. Winfrey and the Obamas weren’t the biggest players in this boondoggle, they just came in during the ninth inning and blew the save. The second President Bush and Daley … they were the biggest players. And they brought this on themselves with the IOC, stomping hither and yon, promising whatever anyone needed to hear in order to get what they want, like junkies on a bender. The IOC spent over a year considering the best host for the games, were the U.S. Olympic committee and the city of Chicago really smug enough to think they could muscle their way into hosting the largest international event in existence?

Yes. The answer to that is yes they did.

In the end, America should be grateful this effort wasn’t enough. The U.S. doesn’t deserve to host the Olympics. The IOC sent that message loud and clear. America needed a humble like this.

Now let’s see what we do with it.

Here’s a recap of the weirdest or most overlooked sports stories on the Interweb this week. Plus, as you’ve come to expect, the sweet, sweet relief of on sports.

Monday Eighty percent of athletes’ marriages end in divorce. Ninety percent of ex-athletes’ wives end up rich. Sports Culture
Tuesday The pics of a dead coyote stuck in the grill of a NASCAR will haunt your dreams. They collided at 140 mph. NASCAR
Wednesday What do you get for the swimfan religiously forbidden from baring skin? A birquini, of course. Swimming
Thursday Baseball players aren’t the only ones getting artificially pumped up. Basketball box scores are juicers too. Basketball
Friday MLB.com videos take a while to load, but watching Vlad Guerrero hit a bounced ball is WAY worth it. Baseball
Saturday Not sure if the play you just saw was nice? The clapping ref is a dead giveaway. Baskeball
Sunday Usain Bolt crushed the 100m world record in last year’s Olympics. On Saturday, he broke it again. Track & Field
Eighth Day “Didja see SportsCenter today?” “Yeah, a little. While I was peeing.” This thing is going to make billions.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

It stings. You just know it still stings.

The U.S. Olympic softball team (67-4 since 2000) coasted into the gold medal game last summer against Japan and flopped. No one questioned that the U.S. were the far superior team, but still … they flopped. And they didn’t just flop in the most recent Olympics, they flopped in possibly the sport’s last Olympics. It’s old news that the International Olympic Committee rid itself of the undercompetitive baseball and softball competitions for London’s 2012 Games. Why pick at old wounds?

Because like improperly set broken bones, if they don’t heal correctly, they’re impossible to forget.

The IOC convened in Berlin on Thursday to discuss the changes in the sports that will be included in the 2012 Games, but also to discuss which two sports will be (re)introduced into the 2016 Games. They voted to recommend the reinstatement of rugby after an 85 year absence and golf, 105 years since its last Olympic appearance. Send your thank-yous to Tiger Woods.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

You just know it still stings that softball and baseball were the first sports to be dropped by the Olympics since 1940. Along with women’s boxing, mixed doubles tennis and the 50-meter swim sprints are vying to take softball’s place in 2012. But none of those events will be the sport’s main attraction. The men will still garner more attention in boxing, the singles will rule tennis and audiences will likely see the 50-meter sprint as just another in a long line of swimming heats. But for softball, the Olympics were the destination, not the detour. The Olympics were the sport’s grandest stage and not only did they fail in 2008, who knows when they’ll get a chance to redeem themselves. And if you’re an American with a passion for softball, you have to be worried about this Olympic drop. Rugby, if reinstated in ’16, was last played in the 1924 Games where the reigning gold medalist was – wait for it – the U.S. What a difference 85 years make. These days, rugby is somewhere just below the Wisconsin State Fair’s potbellied pig races among America’s most popular sports.

You just know it still stings that while softball’s chances for reinstatement were being trampled by golf and rugby sevens, the International Softball Federation was busy raising $100K to fly to Africa, a continent largely unaware of softball, in hopes of sparking a movement in popularity to demonstrate the sport’s universal appeal. They were also knocking on doors to see who might be interested in joining an Olympic mens softball league in conjuction with the reinstatement of the women’s sport. It might eventually work, but it won’t work quickly and with the newest ruling, one has to wonder if the ISF will have the passion to keep it going.

Where does the sport go now? What’s its endgame? The Olympics were once the sport’s endgame. There will be no softball for at least another 11 years (at best) because, as some have suggested, the U.S. team had been too dominant for too long.

You just know it still stings that the U.S. was dominant enough to crush their sport, just not dominant enough to crush Japan a year ago.

Here’s to hoping the Olympics grow past 28 sports. Maybe then, the U.S. softball team can get another crack at that gold.