News Cut Category Archive: Sports

This Saturday, an Aberdeen, South Dakota basketball coach is likely going to pass legendary hoops coach Bobby Knight for most collegiate victories. They have a few things in common besides basketball. Knight is known for throwing chairs. Don Meyer, the coach at Northern State University, has to sit in one; he's been in a wheelchair since last September when he fell asleep while driving to a team retreat and hit a semi-truck head-on.

His leg was amputated and during the operations to put him back together, doctors discovered he has cancer in his liver.

"I have to be strong for our team now," he told a local newspaper. "When alone with my wife, I might not be as strong, and I might break down and cry and wonder how I'm going to deal with (the cancer). When you are with people you work with, it's easier to be strong."

Today he told South Dakota Public Broadcasting "the people of South Dakota would do anything for people who need a hand," and he knows that first-hand. And like Coach Knight, his players insist he teaches more than basketball. Take this description of the accident in a recent Sports Illustrated article:

When his players reached the car, Meyer was still conscious, but his left side was battered. Yet instead of panicking, the players summoned the poise that Meyer had already cultivated in them. One of them called 911. Senior captain Kyle Schwan asked a few veteran players to help the younger players form a prayer circle, then joined graduate assistant Matt Hammer and sophomore guard Brett Newton next to Meyer.

Schwan grabbed Meyer's hand, and the young men fell back on the slogans of the practice court. We've gotta be tough, Coach! It's the fourth quarter! Dead-ball breathing! Narrow focus! NBA! Next Best Action!

"They saved my life," says Meyer, who was airlifted to an Aberdeen hospital after a 30-minute wait.

"It's a testament to Coach," Schwan says. "In essence he saved his own life because of the way he taught us."

Meyer, 64, will coach in his wheelchair Saturday night. A win against the University of Mary gives him his 903rd of his coaching career, one more than Knight.

(Photo courtesy of Northern State University)

Carl Pohlad, the owner of the Minnesota Twins, has died, Twins officials said today.

Pohlad became a lightning rod for controversy while trying -- and eventually succeeding -- to get taxpayers to pay for a new baseball stadium. He died a year before Target Field opens.

While Pohlad is best-known for his ownership of the Twins, he built his wealth through a diverse set of investments including Marquette Bank (which he sold to Wells Fargo for $1 billion). As president, he bought up 30 other banks before selling it to FirstBank (now USBank). He also owns or has owned a Pepsi bottling operation, United Properties, and Mesaba Airlines. He also owned Twin City Rapid Transit, the streetcar and bus service of St. Paul, which was acquired by Metro Transit in 1970.

According to Forbes Magazine, Pohlad was the 78th 102nd richest man in America, and the 245th richest man in the world. His net worth was estimated at $3.6 billion. He ranked as the third-wealthiest Minnesotan, trailing Whitney MacMillan and Cargill MacMillan Jr.

"I had no experience dealing with reporters, especially sports reporters," he told MPR's Mark Zdechlik in 2001 on the subject of criticism of Pohlad during his bid to get public financing for a new stadium. "I don't want to see the Twin Cities without a baseball team and I've proven I want to keep them here." Find the old interview here.

But the public never warmed to a Pohlad image of baseball savior. He served on the committee that voted to eliminate -- "contract" it was called at the time -- the Twins during the height of public debate over public financing of the Twins stadium at the Capitol. Eventually, lawmakers voted to tax Hennepin County residents for the stadium.

Pohlad contributed a fraction of the cost, calling it "fair and substantial". One of his last public appearances was the groundbreaking for the new stadium in 2007. Pohlad was also the richest owner in baseball.

Businessman Irwin Jacobs, a close friend of Pohlad's, said "when Carl was hurting, he didn't want anyone else to know his pain. When someone else was hurting, he wanted to know your pain." He said Pohlad "lost a literal fortune keeping the Twins here. I told him, 'Carl, get out of it, if people don't appreciate it, move on.' and he didn't and if it was me, I'd have done it. I wouldn't have put up with it." ( Listen to entire interview)

Pohlad came from a poor upbringing. He was one of eight children during the Depression years in Valley Junction, Iowa. He served in World War II in the U.S. infantry, before returning to Iowa and starting a career in banking.

"Carl never lost sight of the fact of his roots and where he came from, "Jacobs said. "How many people are losing their fortunes today because they'd forgotten where they'd come from. He always evaluated risk."

Pohlad was the finance director for Hubert Humphrey's last Senate campaign, but his politics was hard to pin down. In the latest election cycle, for example, Pohlad contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaign and Norm Coleman's re-election campaign for Senate. He also financial supported DFLers Amy Klobuchar, Patty Wetterling, and Jim Oberestar and also Republicans Gil Gutknecht, Rod Grams, and George Bush.

His wife, Eloise, died in 2003. The couple had three children. They released a statement on their father's death this afternoon:

Carl was the leader of our family as well as the founder and leader of our family businesses. We've loved and respected him and are enormously proud of his accomplishments. And we will all miss him deeply.

We greatly appreciate the support and prayers of our friends, colleagues and the community. We especially appreciate the support of our employees throughout the Pohlad family of companies at this difficult time. We want to assure everyone that we will continue Dad's work and his legacy - just as he would have wanted and as he has prepared us to do.

On his last visit with Pohlad last week, Jacobs said Pohlad told him he was going to do "one more deal after the first of the year." He said there was no deal; he just loved the excitement of the possibility, Jacobs said. "I hope this community appreciates what Carl has done . They're such good people and they give so much. I just hope they treat the boys in the way they should be treated. This community should cherish the history of Carl Pohlad here," Jacobs said.

According to an official with the Minnesota Vikings, only 55 percent of season ticket holders have purchased tickets to the Vikes' playoff game next week against Philadelphia.

I always take these "Oh, dear, there may be a blackout" stories with a grain of salt. The TV stations that stand to make money on advertisements will eventually step in to buy tickets.

But it's possible that this will be a test of whether the poor economy has hit the football fan yet.

Sure enough, the UMD Bulldogs football team heads to Alabama for the NCAA Division II championship game and what do they get?

Snow.

It shouldn't bother them, though. Most of the kids figure to be ice-hardened alums of the Minnesota and Wisconsin gridirons.

Still, I have to imagine that a few of the Mighty Mutts were hoping for a reprieve from the cold. They should get it.

Game day figures to be partly sunny, with a high near 53 degrees according to the National Weather Service.

"Say the word 'snow' down here, and people panic," North Alabama senior Adam White said. "But in the summer we have tornado warnings two or three times a week, and people just blow that off because we're used to it."

Then again, a little snow might be an advantage against Northwest Missouri State.

(Photo by Brett Groehler / Minnesota Duluth for the Duluth News Tribune)

The Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota's most forlorn sports franchise, fired coach Randy Wittman today, according to reports, and put the man most responsible for the team's collapse -- Kevin McHale -- back in charge as head coach.

How tough are things for the Timberwolves? Since you're smart enough to find your way to News Cut on a regular basis, I'm assuming you're familiar with Wikipedia, and the nature by which the online encyclopedia is updated by people who pride themselves on being the first to add new nuggets of information to a listing within seconds of its occurrence.

Here's a section of the Wikipedia listing for the Minnesota Timberwolves:

Not only had Wittman's firing not been added (as of 12:17 p.m.), but not a word of any aspect of the current season had been added. The section on the team's "rebuilding" had not been updated in 14 months. No mention was made of the Timberwolves rookie draft last year, even though the team had the #3 overall pick (which McHale botched by trading it).

McHale is holding a 2 p.m. news conference, which could have a high entertainment value.

I'm sure I mentioned this back in the day when I was writing for Bleacher Bums, but the best baseball player in my family of five kids was my sister. I'm guessing if we dragged our aged bodies out to the diamond behind the family estate again -- we're all in our '50s, except for my brother who turns 60 tomorrow -- she'd still be the best player.

I'm thinking about this today because the Collins clan wouldn't think twice of this item in the news: Japanese 16-year-old girl signs professional baseball contract.

The Cruise are more like a farm team and a far cry from Japan's mainstream pro teams such as the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. But the 5-foot, 114-pound Yoshida has broken a barrier in baseball-crazy Japan, where women are normally relegated to amateur, company-sponsored teams or to softball.

Yoshida, who started playing baseball when she was in second grade, said she wants to emulate Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, who has built a successful major league career as a knuckleballer.

Ila Borders was signed by the St. Paul Saints as a pitcher. She wasn't very good, but so what? She was the first woman pitcher on an integrated men's professional baseball team. Eventually, she was shipped off to Duluth. She was also the first woman to pitch for an NCAA men's team.

At last check -- 1993 2003 -- she was training to be a firefighter.

When last we left Minnesota Timberwolf Stephon Marbury, he was sulking his way out of Minnesota where his chief complaints were -- in no particular order -- nobody realized he was better than Kevin Garnett and the pizza in the Twin Cities stinks.

The only thing a Minnesota sports fan hates more than a quitter -- are you listening Marian Gaborik? -- is someone who doesn't like Minnesota (pizza optional). Chuck Knoblach incurred the wrath, and so did Marbury.

But the kid who, in our most private moments, has caused us to think about what might have been with the Timberwolves, is in the middle of a huge soap opera in his native New York. The Knicks don't want him anymore and he's refusing a buyout. So since day one, he's been on the sidelines.

But with injuries mounting, the Knicks, according to the New York Times, asked Marbury to play this week and he reportedly refused. Today, the team suspended him for one game. So he won't play in a game he wasn't going to play in anyway. Tough love.

Miami, Boston, the Clippers and Dallas are said to be interested in taking Marbury off the Knicks' hands. Boston, of course, is where Kevin Garnett plays. But the city has good pizza.

The Minnesota Twins today announced plans for celebrating their final season in the Metrodome. Each game will feature at least one of 100 "Metrodome memories," throwback uniforms, and the naming of an all-time Metrodome team.

Let's hit the Wayback Machine:

There's a romance to baseball if it's played on grass on a sunny day or a nice evening. And you can't experience that in a football stadium, particularly not in a domed football stadium.

That was Jerry Bell, the chief Twins lobbyist for a new stadium in 1999.

Part of the reason for a new baseball stadium -- thank you, Hennepin County taxpayers -- was that the Metrodome, well, stinks for baseball. It was, conventional wisdom said, a sterile football stadium that had absolutely no charm.

Are we supposed to get misty eyed about it now?

Seldom am I inclined to start a post with "don't shoot the messenger," but don't shoot the messenger.

Sports Illustrated is out with its stadium rankings and the Minnesota Vikings do not do well, ranking 30th overall out of 32 venues.

The "atmosphere" at the Metrodome ranks 24 out of 32, partially because of its rating on "fan IQ," and SI highlighted this nugget as an example of the worst behavior at the Metrodome:

"At the end of a game, the throwing of plastic bottles and half-full beer cups at a Chicago Bears fan with Down's Syndrome who wasn't moving as quickly as others toward the exit doors. It was the most disgusting behavior I have ever personally witnessed at a football game."

The Dome also gets low marks for parking and finishes dead last in tailgating (there's no place to tailgate these days).

But perhaps the biggest insult was the best ratings the Vikings and their fans got was the quality of the team's play.

(h/t:Michael Wells)

College and professional sports franchises are trying to wring every last dollar from their stadium deals, what with naming rights and seat licenses and all.

Here's a trend we're hoping doesn't catch on. The University of Georgia boosters are unveiling an official team cemetery on Saturday:

"Bulldog Haven," a designated area of burial plots within famous Oconee Hill Cemetery next to Sanford Stadium reserved in death only for those that have worn the uniform, their coaches and their families. Now a Bulldog can come full circle," said Mack Guest, Letterman's Association president and one of the conceptual founders of the project.

A few months ago, Star Tribune writer Patrick Reusse wrote one of the most important columns ever written in the history of baseball. It revealed why we do stupid things:

"You have the ball in your hands for one second, and there are 100, 200, I don't know how many people, hollering in unison, 'Throw it back, throw it back,... I always said, 'I would never throw back a ball,' but the approval of the crowd is irresistible, I guess."

It was a column about Chris Fink of Minneapolis who threw Alex Rodriguez' 526th career homerun back on the field because the peer pressure was too much to resist. It's time expand the DARE program to Twins fans.

I've been a baseball fan as long as anybody, but throwing a homerun ball back as a sign that you're a real baseball fan is about as illogical as it gets. A real baseball fan has an appreciation for the exploits of its best players.

The thing is: it happened again last night. Ken Griffey Jr., who, if it weren't for injuries, would be the all-time home run champion in baseball, hit his 611th career home run.

Griffey is 38 and is, for the most part, finished. That home run may be the last one he ever hits, and it puts him in 5th place on the all-time home run list.

And somebody threw it back.

People, this isn't even a Minnesota tradition! It's a Chicago Cubs tradition. Throw a fish back! Better still, rip off one of you kid's T-ball "homers" and when you catch a ball tonight, throw that one back instead.

Your kid will never notice. And neither will anyone else in Section 112 212.

Lyman Bostock may be one of the best hitters ever to come through the Minnesota Twins organization. But he stands out in the history of Major League Baseball for another reason. He is the only Major League Baseball player to be murdered during a season.

It was 30 years ago this year. ESPN has put together a section on its Web site about Bostock.

My "bucket list" (things to do before I die) is pretty short now that I've crossed the impossible "see Cleveland Indians win a world championship" from positions 1 through 9, leaving only "catch a ball at a baseball game" on the list.

I came close once at Yankee Stadium in the '80s. A foul ball was hit in the row behind me and after a scramble, another guy came up with it. Typical of Yankee Stadium, however, a kid sitting nearby bent over and held his stomach, then collapsed into his seat. The section began chanting "give the kid the ball" and the guy had no choice but to hand it over to the kid, who then made a miraculous recovery. As he sat back down in his seat with the ball, I heard the kid say to his friend, "that's the second ball I've gotten this week that way.

But I've never been able to come up with one by any means.

So there's no joy in my neck of the stadium for this guy, who is getting some nationwide love this week for catching home-run balls on consecutive nights at Yankee Stadium.

What is it with Yankee Stadium? Last year, a fan caught two balls in one game.
What are the odds of that? 1/196,000,000 it says here.

But this guy is Zack Hample, who has beat the odds over the years by grabbing more than 30,000 3,000 balls at Yankee Stadium, some on the fly and some not.

It was happening. The ball kept coming. I could tell I had a chance to catch it, but that it wasn't going to reach the seats, so I jumped up on the chest-high railing (just as I'd done the day before to catch that BP ball tossed by Phil Hughes) and balanced on my stomach (cracked rib and all) and reached waaaaaaay out over the wall as the ball came shooting toward me, and BAM, just like that, I made the back-handed catch right in the pocket of my Mizuno glove. There was a guy on my left who made more of an effort to grab my legs to prevent me from flipping over the wall than he'd made to grab the ball himself.

Hample is making the rounds of the talk shows today wearing his "Baseball is Life" shirt. It is. And it's not fair.

The Minnesota Twins today unveiled their season ticket prices for their first season at "Expect More Pay Less" Park. Based on season ticket plans, the lowest price is $20. The luxury level will run you about $50 with an extra fee of at least $1,000.

See the particulars and what the view will look like here.

The new prices are roughly even with the what it cost to go to a game at the Dome.

Tangent time: Wrigley Field and the owner of a building across the street have taken their spat to a new level.

If Minnesota really is the state of hockey -- and as a native son of Massachusetts, I'm bound by genetics to insist it's not, though I know better -- then you'll know the name Jack Falla.

Falla, a former sportswriter for Sports Illustrated, is the guy who caused a tempest back in the '90s by insisting that the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame belongs anywhere but in Eveleth, Minnesota.

In 1993 the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame was described by its executive director, Ted Brill, as "a place of dignity and honor which all Americans should be able to point to with pride." Point to? Few Americans even know where the museum is. Perhaps that's because it's hidden away in Eveleth, Minn. (pop. 4,064), 200 miles north of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. While the area is popular for fishing, hunting, skiing and snowmobiling, the 23-year-old Hall of Fame is not, as Brill concedes, "a tourist destination."

Nor should it be, given the shabby state it's in. Last year the Hall drew about 10,000 visitors, most of them during the summer. The museum is located in Eveleth because the people there were the first ones to raise the money to open it, but now, sadly, it is a disappointing collection of broken exhibits, outdated and tarnished plaques, and an inappropriately violent video show.

The guy could write, but more important, the guy knew that what connects hockey to this land isn't the spiffy indoor ice arenas that have made "softies" of all hockey players in the state who play in them, but it was the backyard rink and the ice on the ponds of Minnesota and elsewhere. It was frostbitten toes and comic books stuffed down into the jeans as shin guards. There was no checking on a lot of backyard rinks because if you did, you really would knock the snot out of the other guy, sometimes with disastrous results.

If you've ever tried to build a backyard hockey rink, chances are good, you were instructed by Jack Falla. His own rink, born of years of frustration at trying to build one, became a pretty famous hangout for purists in Natick, Mass. He wrote a book about the emotional connections to backyard rinks (video). You folks reading this blog from outside the land of the frozen pond wouldn't understand.

He was one of the stars, sort of, of the documentary film, Pond Hockey, which was produced by a couple of folks with Minnesota connections who were, as Euan Kerr of MPR described earlier this year, worried that the roots of hockey were being lost.

Fallin died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack in Maine. One of his former students -- he also taught public relations and journalism at Boston University -- penned a nice tribute to him today on the Boston Globe's Bruins blog.

Two years ago, several days after Hana was born, she got one of her first birthday presents. My friend Jack Falla had mailed the stick, on which he inscribed, in his unique and horrendous handwriting, the following message: "Retaliate first. H. Shinzawa #1."

It belongs to Hana, but it means so much more to her father.

The stick captures everything about the man. His passion for hockey. His affinity for goaltending. His admiration for Montreal, the city more so than its hockey franchise, and his exploration of French-Canadian culture. His mastery of language. Most of all, his love for children and friends and connecting in a human way in which he had no equal.

Don't tell that to the folks in Eveleth.

It means "goodbye" and it's fitting now that the Olympics are over, for one last slideshow and diary from MPR's Melody Ng, who's been on vacation in China and providing us with a street-level view of the Olympics.

8-22-08 Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park. I have no idea what watching paddling is like on days that aren't hot and sunny, but it's wacky today. The less expensive tickets (80 RMB - < $12) give spectators access to bleachers facing the afternoon sun, and there's absolutely no shade in the stands. So anytime athletes aren't paddling, pretty much everyone (most people in my section are Chinese) abandons his or her seat for the grass outside the stadium, where the bleachers to their west provide some filtered shade. Almost no one watches the medal ceremonies from our side of the paddling course. (The other side of the water, presumably where the important people sit, faces east, away from the sun. Moreover, their bleachers are covered. Those people stay in their seats throughout the time we're there.)

We're late for the start of the competition - finals for men's and women's canoe and kayak. We didn't allot enough time for the half hour subway ride and nearly 50-minute express bus ride up to the venue, 30 km east of the Olympic Green. This means we spend more than 2.5 hours in travel for a total of about 5 minutes of sitting in the bleachers watching some of the best paddlers in the world vie for the gold. I choose to stay in the stands for the medal ceremonies and most of the breaks in between events because I want to make the most of my time there. My family retreats to the other side of the bleachers with everyone else.

My effort is worth it because I end up sitting (at least whenever an event is going on) just in front of several rows of grade school children. The races we watch are 1000 m long, and we're the first set of bleachers the canoes and kayaks pass. Each time the paddlers approach our section, some adult calls out: "Jia you!" ("Go, go, go!!!"), and the kids scream in response, "Zhong Guo Dui!" ("Team China"). This continues until the paddlers are way out of range to hear. Even at their closest, the boats are far enough away that I can't really make out which team is which. But if the Chinese paddlers can hear these kids, I'm sure it gives them a boost.

Minutes after the final event finishes, and well before the medal ceremonies begin, the bleachers on our side are empty of everyone but the cleaning people and the Olympic volunteers. But some people congregate in the entrance area, taking photos with a group of men who are decked out in China red and gold and waving huge Chinese flags. College student volunteers in their blue jerseys stand together singing chorus after chorus. Today's the final day of competitions at this venue, and the final day of their work here, until the Paralympics rowing begins on 9 Sept. They look beat, but happy, enjoying the satisfaction of a job well done.

MPR's Melody Ng is in Beijing on vacation and has been providing us a street-level view of life during the Olympics. Here is her latest dispatch.

8-21-08 Fulicheng (our apartment complex). Everyone agrees that the middle class in China is growing markedly. You can't miss it here in Beijing. Teens in supposedly mod hairdos and outfits text message and canoodle over fries and Big Macs at McDonalds and KFC. Kids zip around on these sleek, small-wheeled bicycles that can fold up to be carried onto the subway or up the elevator. Our local five-story mall has eight jewelry stores on the first floor, Starbucks (where a Frappuccino Venti costs 34 RMB, ~$5), Häagen-Dazs, a Merrell store, Quicksilver and Lenscrafters. Its lobby doubles as a showroom for Chrysler and Skoda. Hop into one of the vehicles to see what you'll look like behind the wheel; take the Jeep home for 450,000 RMB (~$66K).

Women stroll the grounds of our apartment complex trailing small fluffy dogs: American Eskimos, Pomeranians, Pekinese and miniature Schnauzers. Yesterday, I watched an elderly woman directing four skinny men pushing an upright piano on a wheeled platform across a large intersection, down the sidewalk, and across a couple other intersections into our complex.

We're staying in a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment on the 22nd floor of a large, high-rise apartment complex named Fulicheng, complete with private gardens and water features. Our apartment isn't anything special by U.S. standards, but it's by far the fanciest place I've ever lived in China. And the grounds of our complex really are impressive. Rent here is upwards of 6000 RMB/month (nearly $900). Pay extra for a membership at the exclusive, on-site gym and pool with floor-to-ceiling windows. I'd say this place is upper middle class.

Our first apartment, the one I described earlier in our trip, is probably more middle middle class. But then again, I'd say my former students, some of whom were college professors, who lived husband, wife and young child in a single room with unfinished cement floors, cooked on a two-burner gas range in a dark hallway, and shared a common bathroom with everyone else of the same gender on their floor were middle class, too. That, though, may have been true only in the old China of 15 years ago. Today, people who live in those conditions might no longer fall into the middle class.

Chinese people call regular people "lao bai xin," literally, "old hundred surnames." These are the common folk. The term used to mean anyone who wasn't a government leader or official. But now, its meaning may more be people who aren't middle class yet - the migrant construction workers, dumpling wrappers, street sweepers, ticket collectors, waiters, fruit sellers, and security guards - people we encounter every day and rarely think to converse with even though we benefit greatly from their labor. Many people have shared with MPR News their stories of feeling left behind, of the middle class no longer being financially stable.

Although Chinese people didn't have much in the past, I never had the sense that most were discontent with or anxious about their financial situations - perhaps because everyone (in the cities, anyway) made about the same amount. Today, I'd still say the middle class here seems to see themselves as doing well, or at least OK. They have a little disposable income. They can afford tickets to the Olympics (and are able to navigate the Internet well enough to have entered the ticket lottery).

What about the new lao bai xin? If the middle class is growing, then the working class must be shrinking. Are they feeling left behind? They've already endured generations of "eating bitter" ("chi ku" - a common Chinese expression for dealing with difficulties, or sucking it up). How much longer?

8-21-08 Outside the Worker's Stadium (football - i.e., soccer - venue): So much for cracking down on scalpers. I hope the police are as easy on those one hundred plus scalpers they arrested in that big bust earlier this week as they are on scalpers outside the soccer stadium this evening. As we walk the long block past Worker's Stadium on our way to dinner, we pass numerous fans heading to their seats, as well as dozens of men who are trying to sell tickets - and not so subtly either.

Some walk around fanning themselves with groups of six or seven tickets. Others stand with tickets peeking out of their shirt pockets. Many call out to passersby: "Want tickets?" or their selling prices. I hear people haggling over prices, and watch a group of students move from scalper to scalper seeking out the best deal. What astonishes me, though, is that two police cars and several officers are standing by the entrance to the stadium, within 50 feet of many of these transactions, and they are completely ignoring them.

A Taiwanese-American friend who joins us for dinner isn't surprised. She says that when she went over to the beach volleyball venue a couple days ago to try to pick up some scalped tickets, a police officer actually gave her advice to buy tickets not for that day's competition, but for the next day's. Overhearing the conversation, the college student Olympic volunteers standing nearby laughed at his helpfulness. My friend's really cute, and she speaks Chinese fluently, but honestly.

8-22-08 Bummed. Yes, the I.O.C ought to investigate thoroughly the allegations that gold medal Chinese gymnast He Kexin may be only 14 and not 16 as her passport, she, and Chinese officials have claimed. No, she and her team don't deserve their gold medals, no matter how good their performances, if they broke the rules of the Games. But I am so deeply saddened by the news of additional evidence that He and other Chinese gymnasts may be underage, because I don't want "China cheats!" to be what people outside China take away from this year's Games.

A few days ago, I asked my Chinese friend Alan what people are saying about other accusations of ... let's call it dishonesty - for example, the lip synching little girl at the opening ceremonies. Now my friend is an honest guy. But his attitude, and that of other Chinese people he's heard discussing this issue, is that China wanted to put on a good show, to make the opening ceremonies as perfect as they could be. So is it really a big deal that they substituted a prettier little girl for one who has a lovely voice but isn't as attractive?

Personally, I don't understand how any little girl could be so unattractive that she wouldn't be deemed fit for the big show, but Alan's point is that China wants the world to see it at its best. That's true of the government, who we can and should criticize for all the bad decisions they've made and continue to make (though we should also recognize the reforms they're trying to make). But it's just as true, if not more so, for the Chinese people.

Before I even walked on Chinese soil, I knew that Chinese people are proud of their country, particularly its rich history and culture. After all, I grew up with Chinese parents, who even though they left this country as young children and never intended to return here, were constantly mindful of their heritage, reminding me daily that I was Chinese, and therefore had to behave in a certain way that honored the standards of my ancestors. My childhood was full of "Chinese children do this" and "Chinese children don't do that."

In the fall of 1993, when I was teaching at the N.W. Institute of Political Science and Law in Xi'an, the I.O.C. chose Sydney for the 2000 Olympics. I'm not sure I was even aware that a host city was about to be named, but my students all came to class the next day tired (because they had stayed up late into the night waiting for the decision), and despondent (because they so desperately wanted the Olympics to come to China). It was on that morning that I realized how important these Games were for to regular Chinese people - even if they're an 18-hr train ride away and even if they likely wouldn't have the opportunity to see an event in person. And it was on that day that I decided that should China ever win their bid to host, that I wanted to be here to share in the experience.

Everyday Chinese people have given so much of their time and efforts to these Games - all those seniors in their white volunteer jerseys who are sitting out on the sidewalk all day long on what seems to be every block of the city, ready to answer questions and be of service, all those eager students in their blue volunteer jerseys who are finally putting their years of language training to good use, all those other hundred of thousands or millions (I've never been very good at estimating) of people who aren't recognized or repaid in any way for their contributions, but upon whose work the Games have been built and continue to run. These Chinese citizens are so proud that the Olympics are in China right now. And none of these wrongdoings, crimes, failings - or whatever you want to call the sins of the Chinese government - is their faults.

On the second day of competitions, my friend Alan was taking a bus up to the Olympic tennis venue to watch the first round of the women's doubles. Because he speaks English and is super thoughtful, he stopped to help an American family that was confused about which way to go. The signage was poor, and even the bus driver wasn't sure where they should get off, because it was early on in the Games, and (according to Alan) things weren't well organized. He watched the woman lose her patience as more and more Chinese people tried to cram onto the bus, as is common here. She started yelling at them in English that there was no more room and they needed to back off. He continued to try to get this family to where they wanted to go even as the woman was addressing his as "tennis guy" and saying if she had known what it'd be like here she never would have come to Beijing. He did this not only because he's terrific, but also because he wants the world to experience the best of his country.

Alan's wife, Li Jian, a journalist here in Beijing, said last week that she hopes people will understand that China's not going to be able to do the Olympics perfectly, that they'll make mistakes because this is their first time doing something like this. She asks us for patience as they learn. Lying about the age of your athletes so they can compete (if true) would be much more than a "mistake." But I echo Li Jian's sentiments. I hope people will remember so much more of the Beijing Olympics. And I hope everyday Chinese people will say good-bye to the Games on Sunday with their joy and pride intact.

8-22-08 One more thought on Chinese athletes. This may be highly unpatriotic, but although I love the U.S., I almost always root for athletes from communist/socialist countries at the Olympics. Our athletes seem to mostly have well-rounded lives, and something to look forward to beyond their sport. Think Shawn Johnson who's going back to Des Moines with a gold medal and three silvers. She hangs out with friends, attends dances at her public high school, tries to limit her training to 25 hours per week, and gets straight A's. Unless something goes horribly awry, she'll do great when she gives up gymnastics. Not so for Chinese athletes.

According to a 22 July story from NPR, an estimated 80 percent of China's retired athletes are destitute, ill/injured, or unemployed, reports a publication of China's Physical Education and Sport Committee. I'm not exactly surprised. I met a coach of the Chinese weight lifting team back in Beijing years ago. He steadied me on a crowded public bus when my heavy hiking backpack knocked me off balance as the bus sped up. He then helped me off at my stop, and carried my backpack for me a ways down the road as we talked. My Mandarin was pretty bad, but he was patient, and we communicated enough to for me to find out that he had competed in the 1984 Olympics in L.A., and was now coaching. He had a job, and he didn't look poor or injured. But later, I received a letter from him, and - just thinking about his letter now almost makes me tear up. I wish I knew where he is now - his handwriting looked like mine (nearly illiterate, me). It was big and blocky, like a kid's. It was clear that he had received little schooling. China's athletes deserve better. Maybe this gymnastics investigation will help.

Update Fri 6:45 a.m. - A few days ago, Melody promised to send pictures of her trip to the beach volleyball venue that a friend took. We waited anxiously. One arrived today. It was of the men's competition. They dress normally. Not that it matters, of course.

Minnesota Public Radio's Melody Ng is in China on vacation, providing News Cut readers with a street-level view of life in Beijing during the Olympics.

8-20-08 The Shuangjing Neighborhood (where we're living). We're off for baked goods this morning. My husband doesn't think our daughter has been eating enough. So we're forgoing our usual breakfast of steamed pork buns and sweet tofu pudding or rice porridge with thousand-year-old eggs, and heading to a Chinese bakery around the corner.

Bakeries of the sort with which we're familiar are new to China. Breads here are steamed, deep fried, or grilled on a flat, hot iron plate. Back when I lived in Xi'an, we also had these small, flat breads that were made by throwing round discs of dough up against the inside wall of what looked like a metal oil drum heated by coal, sitting out in the street. They'd stick to the wall until the bread was thoroughly cooked. So they were baked, but not in a conventional oven. I've never seen an oven in a Chinese apartment before, and I think even now in more modern China, they're very rare in homes.

This bakery has what I think of as Taiwanese style breads and pastries - light, airy pre-sliced breads wrapped in cellophane, and western-like pastries, but of more Asian flavors: almond, coconut, peach, green tea, and lots of red bean. A guy follows us around the small shop carrying a tray and tongs, and when we select an item, he picks it up and places it onto the tray.

I feel silly having this attentive service when I'm buying just two pastries, but it's obviously the way things are done here. The shop is empty of customers as it appears almost every time I pass by, but there are three other women in uniform standing around, on hand to wait on other customers should they materialize. Our puff pastry filled with cream is pretty good. My daughter digs happily into her sticky rice and red bean flat cake.

China's westernesque baking has come a long way since 15 years ago when my teaching partner Amy and I (incredibly stupidly - please don't try this at home!) stuffed a 10" birthday cake down her toilet because we couldn't eat it (it tasted like it was made of lard), and we didn't want our school staff to know we didn't eat it (because they had bought what was probably a very costly gift to celebrate Amy's birthday in the way they figured she was used to).

We, of course, plugged up the toilet and flooded the bathroom floor. I ended up having to take a broom handle to try to break the cake up, which was really difficult because it was so solid. And Amy's apartment smelled rancid for days.

8-20-08 An Olympic requirement. Hard to believe, but I think every cab driver in Beijing has now gone through six months of English lessons. At least, that's what our driver said on the way to the beach volleyball competition the other evening. Mr. Li has been driving taxis for about 30 years now. He's 51, and is looking forward to his forced retirement in four years when he turns 55. He says he speaks no English, that he's "too old" to learn, and that he hasn't needed it for work thus far. But for the past six months, after each of his 10-hour shifts, he's had to sit through two hours of English lessons in preparation for the Olympics and us foreign visitors. To him, that was the only onerous part of hosting the Games in his hometown, but now it's over. Classes ended with the opening ceremonies on 8-8-08 - a very auspicious day for Beijing cab drivers.

Can you imagine Twin Cities cabbies all having to take classes on civics and U.S. government (or the history of the Republican Party) to prepare for the RNC?

MPR's Melody Ng is in China on vacation. But nobody is allowed to go on vacation at MPR without sending material back to News Cut. Here is today's dispatch from Beijing.

8-19-08 Great Wall at Simatai. Liu Shuying is two years younger than I am. Her son is 12. Her husband grows corn on a small plot of land. And she climbs the Great Wall several times a day, following tourists, offering helpful (or not so helpful) tips on directions and vantage points, sharing bits of Wall history, and often, lending an arm to support ascent or descent of a particularly steep spot. She and her 73 colleagues may spend several hours of their time with a group, whether tourists want them around or not (it was the latter with us today), just so they can attempt to sell an "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt, fan, or pair of chopsticks at the end of the trip.

Liu Shuying is surprisingly upbeat about her situation. She's the third of four sisters. Her father farmed - back then it was more wheat (I'm petty sure that's the grain she was describing) than corn. He died when she was 23. She got married that same year, and had to move to her husband's village on the opposite side of the Great Wall - what, when the wall was built during the Ming Dynasty, had been the Chinese side (her family had lived on what was the outside side of the wall - the side that belonged to the barbarians of the north.)

Ms. Liu follows tourists around because she says she has no other way to make a living. There are no factories in the area, and farming their tiny bit of land yields little. She tries to be helpful (I'm convinced she's sincere in her efforts), but mostly ends up being a pest because the whole reason we choose to come out to Simatai, the most isolated section of the Great Wall near Beijing that's open to tourists, is because we don't want to be around a bunch of people when we're taking in what has to be one of the most amazing and beautiful feats of humankind.

When I visited Simatai 14 years ago, it had just opened to tourists, and was basically a partially restored wall with numerous intact guard towers, known for its steep climbs and lack of infrastructure that surrounds most Chinese tourist attractions. My friend Ben and I had to take a crowded long distance bus that locals use to travel between cities out to the Wall. It was January, gray and cold. We were the only people there other than members of an Air France flight crew that I thought were the most elegant people I had ever met. No one was selling entrance tickets. No one was selling anything. No one was even around. We climbed until we could go no further, and then realized that we had no way to travel the two hours back to Beijing, and Benny had a flight to Israel he had to catch that night. I still smile whenever I see an Air France plane because those kind people rescued us by standing up to the wrath of their Chinese driver and giving us a ride back to town.

Now Simatai (admission 40 RMB, or about $5.75 per person) has a cable sky cab line to speed your trip up, and a zip wire line to speed your trip down. It has vendor stalls, a post office, two guest houses, and a dam upon which you can take a "cruise." It has a delegation of persistent guide women like Liu Shuying. And now, during the Olympics, it also has an official information booth where blue jerseyed volunteers continually update Olympic medal counts.

As I speak with Liu Shuying this afternoon, I wonder (as I often do while people watching in China), how similar would my life be to hers if my great grandfather had not come to the U.S. to try to better his life? That thought usually helps me empathize with people that I find rude or annoying or worse. Today it mostly just makes me wish that Ms. Liu was carrying around better souvenirs in her bag of wares.

If you've been a faithful reader of Melody Ng's dispatches from China here on News Cut (previous versions here and here), you probably have a feeling for her. Yes, she's every bit as delightful as her prose would indicate.

"What do you think you'll want me to send from Beijing," she asked me last week.

"Whatever you find interesting, I'll find interesting," I said.

Today, she apologized because she's in two of the pictures in today's slideshow, which cracks me up. She's on vacation, visiting family, and apologizing to us.

She'll be sending her beach volleyball photos to be included the above slideshow soon. So please check back.

8-18-08 Thoughts from some Beijing folk about the Olympics. Had an opportunity to talk with some people today about the Olympics. Some of the thoughts they shared:

City volunteers (Forbidden City) - Met two Beijing college students, male, who were off from their volunteer assignments today (though still wearing their signature blue jerseys). They shared their crackers and dried haw fruit snacks with my daughter. Like all the other college student volunteers I've spoken with, they're thrilled to be hosting the Olympics in their very own country. They didn't sign up early enough to be part of the contingent of 70,000 BO COG (Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games) volunteers, what seem to be the most high status volunteer jobs. They're part of the 400,000 city volunteers who do anything from translating to giving directions to helping people who have medical problems. (Supposedly there are an additional approximately one million volunteers who are assigned other tasks - I'll get to that later.) To volunteer, they had to pass an exam on Beijing culture, Beijing landmarks and directions, and volunteering skills (these last questions might be something like: What do you say if you see a foreigner who looks lost?). Both admitted needing to study a little beforehand. But they passed, and they're honored to be able to be part of this historic occasion. They haven't felt any inconveniences due to the Games, and no Beijing visitors they've met through their volunteer work have been rude or unpleasant to them.

Cleaning woman (Forbidden City) - This young mom of a one-year-old has been sweeping and emptying trash receptacles in the Forbidden City for the past month. She says the job wasn't hard to get; one just has to "have the guts" to do it. She likes it. She likes the Olympics, too, as does her entire family, who live in Beijing. The Olympics haven't affected her life in any negative way. She believes the number of people visiting (and presumably the amount of trash she has to deal with) each day at work is about the same as other times - though I'm not sure how well she can compare since she's been there for only a short time.

Bottle collecting grandmother (outside the back gate, Forbidden City) - Many people in China dig plastic bottles out of trash cans and pick them up from the sides of roads to sell to recycling plants. It's best if you don't have to reach into dirty trash cans to get the bottles, so some people wait in crowded areas and ask passersby if they may have their finished bottles. This 70-something woman was doing just that with a companion behind the Forbidden City when we walked near. She says she has to collect bottles because her husband is dead and her son recently lost his job. Selling used bottles puts food on their table. Her face lights up when I ask how she feels about the Olympic Games. She watches competitions on TV; diving is one of her favorites.

8-18-08 Wangfujing Shopping District: A tale of two (or four, really) volunteers. Wangfujing, where we visited briefly earlier this week, is a giant pedestrian shopping area just a little east of Tiananmen. About half a block north of the McDonalds by the entrance to the area, a small placard stands in the street: "Need help? We speak Korean, English, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese." Young people stand around the sign; their white polo shirts say, "China loves you," and list off the languages they speak. I meet "Jenny" Zhang, 16, whose English is excellent. These volunteers all come from her foreign language academy for underprivileged kids in Guangzhou (southern China). 3.5 years ago, she was begging and collecting used plastic bottles to sell. She had to drop out of school because her parents could no longer afford the fees. Then her teacher rescued her from the streets, as he did all the other students. He houses and feeds them (I don't know how, because she says he's not working), and he teaches them the languages he speaks, and how to behave. Jenny and four classmates came up to Beijing to help with the Olympics. They aren't registered as official employees, but they stand in Wangfujing all day every day to help out however they can. (Several people speaking several languages stop by to ask for directions while I'm talking with Jenny.)

Near as I can tell, they get nothing for their work. But Jenny loves being able to be part of the Olympics in this way. She says they'll be in town through the Paralympics. They hope to travel to Sichuan Province later in the year to help with post-earthquake relief work.

I also meet three other people on Wangfujing. I've been wanting to ask some of the people I see wearing red arm bands stamped: "Public security volunteer," because I see these arm bands everywhere: a sidewalk bicycle repair man near the Dum Tower, a woman in charge of keeping public bathrooms clean in a hutong, a waiter at a famous dumpling restaurant where we eat lunch.

The first guy I see with a red armband is pouring the messy contents of a trash can into a trash cart he's been pedaling up and down the street. He says he's got too much work to do to explain, and pedals off. When I ask a guy behind the counter at a concession stand, he says the arm band's required - that he wouldn't be allowed to work here if he lost it. He can tell me nothing more about it. The street sweeper I sidle up to is by far the most forthcoming. He says that he's required to wear this arm bands (and the blue volunteer jerseys) during the Olympics. But he wasn't given any special training in security (even though the bands would make one believe he could help with security issues), and he's not even sure what the band means. It looks like a lot of people in the service industry were given these security volunteer bands to wear. Is it a big sham? Should I feel less safe now?

8-18-08 Beach volleyball men's quarterfinals. More Olympics tickets! Just after I hang up the phone after talking with Cathy Wurzer tonight, an American friend calls saying his mom and sister are too tired to attend the beach volleyball match in 40 minutes, and would we want to buy their seats? It's raining, but hey - how often will I ever have the chance to watch Olympic competitions? And no need to deal with scalpers (I read last night that a slew had been busted in a raid yesterday, Chinese and foreign. Was the guy who didn't show up at our sports bar one of them?). So I take the tickets, and my brother and I rush off for the stadium.

When we arrive (about 10 minutes after the first match started) things are looking deceptively unfestive outside. The queuing-up area is deserted, and there's just one vendor with the usual Chinese flag-themed merchandise. But volunteers greet us warmly, check our tickets, and send us to the metal detector. I also get patted down. The woman/girl makes me take everything out of my pockets (tissue paper, wet wipes, lip balm - which she makes me put on in front of her to prove it is what I claim it to be - and a lamb curry puff - which she doesn't make me take a bite out of) before letting me through.

We go into the stadium, and this is not at all what I was expecting. (No, I don't follow sports much.) Beach volleyball is raucous. I can't believe it's an Olympic sport. The music alternates between fraternity house party and sporting event tunes. The announcer is trying to hype up the crowd. He makes us stand and sit, clap, do the wave, stomp our feet, and yell "Jia you!" ("Go go go!" to the Chinese).

Two groups of young women in red bikinis are undulating to the beat at the ends of the court. One group looks Chinese, but with unnaturally deep tans for a people group whose beauty ideal is white skin. The Chinese announcer refers to them as "Shatan Baobei" - "Beach Babies." Three of the Olympic mascots show up as well. Unlike American mascots, they're not in furry, cloth suits, but in shiny, inflated plastic. They look like humongous, animated, blow up toys. (Guess that adage about never sticking your head inside a plastic bag has some exceptions.) I feel like we're at some MTV spring break beach party. It takes me almost the entire first match to learn to focus on the game and not get distracted by everything else going on around it. How do the judges do it? How do the volleyball players?

Our first match is Austria versus Brazil. Brazil wins, but I miss nearly every point. By the second match, U.S. (Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal) versus Brazil, I'm able to actually enjoy the game. But I still marvel that beach volleyball could be serious enough for the Olympics. Do people start off in regular volleyball and then "graduate" to the beach version? Is one more difficult than the other? The Brazilian fans stand out in their yellow and green. They're also united in their cheers, and sing cool songs. It seems we Americans (at least the ones here tonight) can manage only "U-S-A! U-S-A!" in unison, and only near the end of the match when we sense that our athletes need us to pull together. We don't sit together in the stadium, and we don't cheer together. Is this part of our heritage of independence and self-reliance? Now I feel badly that I'm not wearing red, white and blue, that I didn't even think to pack anything patriotic for this trip.

Gibb and Rosenthal play a good game, but lose (bummer). After the game, spectators start posing for pictures with people from countries other than their own. They also leave behind a lot, a lot of trash. The good and the bad of the Olympic Games.

It didn't take long for the conspiracy theorists to set up shop. A web site has been created to "prove" that Michael Phelps didn't really win his 7th gold medal at the Olympics.

The next picture in the series, however, shows a bit more -- Sports Illustrated has the photos.

Phelps' fingers appear to be bent back, as if bent back by the wall. The swimmer on the right? Not so much.

MPR's Public Insight Network guru Melody Ng is back in China on vacation and has just provided some pictures and commentary on life around Beijing.

Melody reports:

"This is the first time I've been able to get online. It sounds ridiculous considering what a developed city Beijing is, but it's been difficult getting Internet access. The two apts we've lived in haven't had Internet, even though they were supposed to (and we left one for the other to try to get Internet)."

Her fascinating diary is below the fold.

On the heels of the revelation that China faked the giant footsteps fireworks for its TV and stadium audience (Good interview with NPR media critic here), comes word of another bit of showbiz.

The Mail Online reports that the cute girl who sang the national anthem was a phony, too. She lip-synced -- not uncommon for a major performance, one supposes -- the anthem, but not because she couldn't sing, but because the girl with the actual voice wasn't pretty enough.

The Web site reports the kid who didn't sing is now a big star.

A new Olympic-watching past-time: Calculating whether Michael Phelps will win more gold medals than the number of instances of China faking something.

Of all the moments of breathtaking pageantry that made up the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing, the synchronized fireworks simulating footprints was a high point for many. They started miles away from the stadium and then, viewed from the air, created the appearance of giant footprints marching to the stadium.

"This is not some computer animation you're seeing," Bob Costas told us as we watched, amazed. And that's true. Well, except for the part about it not being a computer animation. (Update Tues morning: The NPR media critic this morning played the tape. It wasn't Costa. It was Lauer. His actual words were, "this is almost like an animation.")

Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence. Meticulous efforts were made to ensure the sequence was as unnoticeable as possible: they sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office as to how to recreate the hazy effects of Beijing's smog at night, and inserted a slight camera shake effect to simulate the idea that it was filmed from a helicopter.

"Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks," he said. "But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished."

He said the main problem with trying to shoot the real thing was the difficulty of placing the television helicopter at the right angle to see all 28 footsteps in a row.

The Guardian

Here are a couple of images from Saturday night's St. Paul Saints game. The Saints held a "bobblelection," giving away bobbleheads of the presidential candidates to see which was the most favored. Sorry, there was no Ron Paul bobblehead. I'll find out later who "won." I'm not completely sure this isn't a halfway decent way of electing a president.

It wasn't that long ago that the proposed solution to every sports team's ownership misery in Minnesota -- specifically the Twins and Vikings -- was to have Glen Taylor buy it. Back then, though, the Timberwolves were good and Taylor was "one of us."

Taylor is still "one of us" but the bloom is off the successful-franchise-owner rose and now the guy's personal reputation isn't so great either.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal details a lawsuit filed by four women against one of Taylor's companies, alleging discrimination.

The suits also allege that "sexual favoritism" at the company, where female employees were retained due to their appearance or personal relationships with managers, extended to two employees who had personal relationships with Glen Taylor. The filings say that "it is common knowledge in the workplace" that one employee is on Taymark's payroll because she bore Taylor's illegitimate daughter and that Taylor placed her with the company rather than pay her child-support payments. The daughter, now an adult, also is on the company payroll, the court filings say, adding that the two women were not "held to the same work standards as other employees."

It's a damning article about a court case whose allegations, we have to point out, have not been proven. The allegations alone, however, may expedite Taylor's fall from sports grace.

I'm not sure which MPR talk show gets the not-so-coveted News Cut talk-show-of-the-week award (it's never been awarded before). Midmorning's hour with the Cowboy Junkies and its hour with critics and cartoonists on the New Yorker satire are among the top shows of the week. But in the "tell me something I didn't already know" department, I give the nod to Friday's Midday segment with Carleton College's Roy Grow, who was on the line from Vietnam, but spent much of the hour talking about China.

In particular was the portion discussing the incredible pollution as the Olympics near. It's something the Atlantic's James Fallows -- who now lives there -- has been harping on for some time, although in a post this weekend, he's pretty sure he's seeing light at the end of the smokestack.

As bad as that picture from Fallows looks (click for bigger image), he says it's "not that bad" compared to previous days.

Grow's segment also contrasted nicely with a National Public Radio piece on Friday, in which some Beijing residents are said to be upset at the modern architecture that's taking over their city.

A near universally-ignored press release, brought to my attention today by reader Nathan Stohlman, announces a new corporate naming deal for the soon-to-be-former Midway Stadium, home of the St. Paul Saints.

The stadium will be renamed, Skinny Water Stadium.

For one week.

Skinny Water Stadium is set to be unveiled for their August 3-9 promotion. Skinny Water will have their name branded throughout the ballpark for one week. All facets of a typical stadium rights deal will be condensed into one week, with the addition of multiple new and creative twists on the concept. The team will sport new Skinny uniforms for their new stadium sponsor and fans will see the Skinny logo branded into the outfield, zero's around the pitcher's mound and homeplate, and of course sampling of Skinny water products.

It's an interesting concept. What if baseball parks give up the outmoded concept of a long-term naming rights deal, and change the name every week instead?

A prolonged team slump. Not a problem. Come out and see the boys play at Pucker's Mortuary Park.

The thing is, though, the Saints don't own Midway Stadium. The City of St. Paul does.

(Photo courtesy Hamline University)

The Olympics are approaching, the every-four-year period in which it's acceptable to say "stick it" on TV. But the Olympics occur against a backdrop of important athletic issues that cannot be ignored. Is prancing and tumbling around waving a stick with a ribbon a "sport"? Is hitting a little ball being thrown at you at 90 mph a sport?

Is ballroom dancing a sport?

Beer Pong?

What events do you think should be in the Olympics? What events do you think shouldn't?