I am guessing “Flipper Phelps” was already used somewhere. Jay “I never met something I couldn’t nickname stupidly” Mariotti is in Beijing and talking about his favorite penis. Oh, sorry, I meant “Olympic swimmer”. Michael “The Machine” Phelps.

Not that anyone is calling him that besides Jay, but there it is anyway.

During Jay’s trip we have the following first hand observations from him*; he* drinks Heinekin, he* has been to McDonalds (although he* does not claim to have eaten there), he* eats greens, has walked on the Great Wall and takes his* heart meds like a good little boy*.

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed that not one single item listed above has one damn thing to do with the Olympics. Or the athletes. Or, well, anything meaningful at even a rudimentary level.

After Jay takes the time to repeat that Phelps is steroid free, even though not one person has ever even whispered such an accusation in Phelps’ direction, we are then treated to a pile of bilge about how America needs Michael Phelps.

Why? Because he’ll take our minds off of gas prices.

Well, okay then. All is good in the land of plenty.

Oddly enough, Jay’s fellow ESPN cohort, Jim Rome, put things in a better perspective yesterday. He noted, correctly, that no one in America really gives a damn about swimming outside of the Olympic games. We cheer them, root for our country and then go back to watching baseball or football or anything but swimming. God help us all when Jim Rome makes the most sense on that diseased network.

Simply put, who can name the events that Mark Spitz won or competed in AFTER his Olympic records were set? No one. We know he won 7 golds in one Olympiad, and some people even know that he won 9 golds lifetime, but after that you couldn’t fill a corner bar with the number of people who can recite his career stats. I should note here that several sources, one of which I quoted in an earlier post, were in error. Spitz won 9, not 10, gold medals in his Olympic career. JTJ apologizes for being stupid.

In many cases you couldn’t fill a room with the number of people who know that there are swim events outside of the Olympics. There are, but very few people care.

The article* is filled with the usual, un-attributed, quotes given to the media pool, multiple uses of his* new nickname for Phelps and multiple claims that Phelps is steroid free. I liken the last item to the old, yellow journalism, standard; “When did you stop beating your wife, Senator?” So, now, an athlete with a stellar reputation has had the word steroids attached to his name 2 times and inferred to on several other occasions in the same article*.

As Tyrone noted yesterday, I have been traveling a bit. All I can say is that it is really good to be back and that I have learned that TSA stands for Those Satanic A**holes. New member, Harwood 518, has already started a very lucid thread on today’s subject, so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!