Bring It On Home

I hope you did not watch the closing ceremony. If the opening display was largely fabricated, why subject yourself to more deception and betrayal?

CGI appeals in the context of a movie but not so much in "real life." The final straw was stories of humans forced to wear adult diapers while waiting under boxes for several hours. God bless America!

The overall "official" medal count shook out like this: USA 110 (36 gold), China 100 (51 gold) and Russia 72 (23 gold). What is more important: total count or golds? I'm guessing the answer depends on the country you call home.

Over the years I've engaged in a single argument many times with countless people. What constitutes a sport? I've always maintained if a judge is prominently involved, it's probably not a sport.

So, for the purposes of accuracy, let's remove boxing, diving, equestrian, gymnastics, judo, taekwondo, trampoline and wrestling from the medal count. Thanks to Yahoo Sports and Fourth-Place Medal for the idea and counts.

The USA won 32 gold medals (80 total) in non-judged sports. For the mathematically challenged, that's four fewer golds than the "official" count.

China on the other hand checks in with 24 golds (55 total) in non-judged events. A whopping 27 of its gold medals came courtesy of "fair and unbiased" judges.

Draw your own conclusion. I'll feel a little better at night knowing the majority of our gold medals were earned the old-fashioned way: faster times and higher scores.

Here are a few more interesting tidbits courtesy of Yahoo Sports.

The United States won the same number of gold medals in 2008 as in 2004 (36). Great consistency.

The Chinese won a single gold medal for every 25 million people in its population. The US won one gold for every 8.5 million people. Jamaica captured a gold per every 450,000 residents.

The mammoth population benefited China in medal totals. The same cannot be said for India. The country is home to 17 percent of the world's population. They won a minuscule 0.31 percent of the Olympic medals.

So long Olympics. See you in the United Kingdom in four years. Winter Olympics just aren't curing the Olympic fever.

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In a little less worldly news, Mayor Kathy Taylor and Tulsa Drillers President Chuck Lamson announced the new ballpark will be constructed in the Greenwood District in downtown Tulsa. The agreement came after more than eight months of negotiations.

I'm not cynical enough to think the city and organization dragged out the negotiations to remain in the headlines. But it would have been a brilliant move by the Drillers to continually re-establish cutoff dates.

The mayor wore a pin-striped uniform at the press conference. "I am thrilled that we were able to reach a mutually beneficial agreement that will really super-charge our exciting development and revitalization efforts in the area," she said.

"The 70 Drillers home games along with other events throughout the year will bring over 400,000 additional people to downtown each and every year for affordable family entertainment.

"We believe this new state-of-the-art stadium will ultimately play host to over 100 days of activity each year. A new ballpark in downtown Tulsa has long been a dream of mine for the Tulsa Drillers and their loyal fans."

New is not always better... but in this case it will be. Regardless of the park's layout, it will be a vast improvement over Drillers Stadium.

Drillers owner Chuck Lamson can exhale after months of his life were undoubtedly wrapped up in stadium chaos. "We are sure that it will be one of the finest ballparks in the Texas League, right here in the heart of downtown Tulsa," he said.

The timing of this agreement should allow the stadium to open in 2010. "I would also like to thank the generous donors that have worked with us collaboratively to reach a mutually beneficial agreement," said Lamson. "I strongly encourage the City Council to allow us to proceed immediately so that we can play ball in our new home in 2010 and avoid any unnecessary delays."

Look for a minimum of a 20-year lease agreement between the Drillers and the new ballpark.

"We plan to aggressively work with the Brady, Blue Dome and Greenwood Districts to develop a first class arts-and-entertainment district that will connect the area to the new BOK Center," said Mayor Taylor.

Big talk, bold plan and bodacious stadium baby. Sounds like my kinda downtown. Now if they could just do something about these roads.

In the spirit of the upcoming presidential elections, I'd like to remind everyone out there that I approve this message. Unlike the forgery of an opening ceremony put on by Zhang Yimou, the Chinese government approved his message.

A quick note on TU. The Golden Hurricane opens conference and season play this Saturday. TU travels to Birmingham, Alabama to play UAB at 3pm.

The game will not be televised. The possibility of a 14-0 season set to start and we're shut out. We'll have to rely on Bruce Howard, Rick Couri and Chris Kaiser at 740AM, KRMG to be our eyes and ears.

Maybe the OU Sooner pigskin preview next week. Maybe.