I called Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation and author of Welcome to the Terrordome, for a reaction to Chicago’s loss of the 2016 Olympic Games to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Should Chicagoans be breathing a sigh of relief?
Absolutely. With all of the graft, gentrification and police misconduct that come with the Olympics—of course Chicagoans deal with this on the best of days—but the Olympics would have really sent all that through the roof. That’s why in polls people expressed their trepidation, and organizations like No Games Chicago, we should tip our hats to the work they did. I’m convinced that popular pressure and dissent is the main reason Chicago didn’t get the Olympics.

But you know who else should be breathing a sigh of relief? Barack Obama should be. I know he’s smarting right now, but he should be very relieved. I guarantee you, over the next eight years, if it had been in Chicago, every time there was a failed construction project that went in over budget, every time there was an incident of police misconduct, every time there was a public housing project pushed aside, it would have been Obama’s Olympics, Obama’s fault. And every time there was a failed project or a hole in the ground, I guarantee you Michael Steele, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh would have flown out to Chicago to stand in front of it and say, “See, this is a President who can’t get things done.” Frankly, in these very challenging times, this is one less headache. These would have been Obama’s Games and he’s lucky to be rid of it.

So you think it was the public pressure that did the vote in?
I think it was about public pressure, without question. But it was also about basic infrastructure. Unfortunately, this is part of the problem with the Olympics; they are far more comfortable in states with the capacity to be authoritarian. One thing about Brazil, it’s an emerging country, just like China; it’s a country that has serious issues with police repression, like China; and this is a country that is willing to do whatever it takes to put on the kind of party the Olympics expects. And when you look at Chicago, with its serious dissent, its neighborhood organizations and with Daley’s own 35 percent approval rating. As a city, it makes it less [authoritarian], not authoritarian enough.

You mention that it’s better for Obama, but not for Daley.
I don’t think it’s better for Daley. That’s the interesting dichotomy. Daley was saying, “The meters, you don’t like that? Soldier Field, you don’t like that? Well, guess what, it’s all about gearing up for the Olympics.” So he staked his legacy on the Olympics, being bigger than his daddy; it would have been known as the Oedipal Games. But this is now an essential part of Daley’s legacy, the guy who put all his chips on the table. Obama, if he gets health-care legislation done, no one remembers the Olympics.

So why couldn’t a corrupt city like Chicago work its magic on a corrupt organization like the IOC and get this done?
You really wanna know why? The unvarnished truth: Because the IOC is the Bruce Jenner, Carl Lewis, seven-gold- medal winner of corruption, the Michael Phelps of corruption. I’m sorry, but for all of the corruption in Chicago, this ain’t no putting a couple hundred dollars in a paper bag and sliding it under the table. That is not the type of corruption they expect.

In Salt Lake City, one of the things they found out when they were investigating the corruption, one of the members of IOC demanded and received $1,000 of Viagra for his time there that weekend. They expect you to not only outfit them with hookers and millions of dollars in pork projects, they expect you to outfit them with an erection. The IOC might have just taught Chicago a lesson about what it really takes.

Last night, in a game with some postseason consequences, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Fernando Perez got into a major league game for the first time this year. He pinch-ran for the anvil-footed Pat Burrell in the eighth inning, and promptly trotted around the bases as the first run to score in Evan Longoria’s two-run shot. I’d say it’s his second-most impressive accomplishment this week.

Today, Chicago’s Poetry Foundation posted Perez’s essay, “Para Rumbiar,” on the importance of poetry in his life (the essay appears in the September issue of Poetry). Perez is a Columbia University grad, earning his American Studies degree and completing the creative writing program. While it seems like Perez is just getting his feet wet as a major leaguer (though he has decent, projectable minor league numbers), he’s already an accomplished writer. In “Para Rumbiar,” the 26-year-old Jersey native discusses the isolation and other-worldliness of playing ball in Caracas and small-town America, and the way poetry fills a void for him: “Baseball has remained remarkably impervious to modernity, but is, like any modern industry, highly alienating. I turn to poetry because it is less susceptible to circumstance. I’m not especially touched when a poet deals with a ball game; I’m not especially interested in having one world endear itself to the other.”

I’ve long thought teams should keep Miguel Batista around, just because a clubhouse seems like the kind of place that could use the inherent long view of a novelist and the empathetic nature of a poet. Now I’m thinking more magazines could use the perspective of a ballplayer.

Don’t ever question Kenny Williams. He’s on it. Just a few days after I lamented that the Sox general manager had stacked the roster with too many aging players, Williams put Jose Contreras on a stagecoach to Colorado and Jim Thome on a penny farthing to Los Angeles. Age for youth, it’s the kind of trade a lot of fans wanted to see. Justin Fuller, the infielder we got for Thome, is 26 and still in single-A, not even flirting with a .300 batting average. But Brandon Hynick, coming over from the Rockies, was a savvy pickup. He pitched a (AAA) perfect game in June, and while his lack of strikeouts is worrisome, he has good numbers for pitching in high altitude and in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Plus, this guy loves him. And Sox fans have already hit Hynick’s website to welcome him to the South Side, the way only Chicago web lurkers can: “ur on the sox now so hopefully you throw some perfect games for us u cool guy.”

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I’ve been hard on Jose Contreras this year. He’s earned the criticism, of course, but at the same time, he is a 37-year-old pitcher who helped the Sox earn a ring four years ago, so my soft heart tells me he deserves more respect than I’ve given him (you should hear the unpublished stuff). But he is an easy lightning rod for what’s wrong with this year’s iteration of the Sox: They’re too dependent on history.

The most valuable asset the team has had over the past eight seasons has been general manger Kenny Williams. Half of you are probably laughing right now, but show me a more aggressive GM in the majors. He may not always pull out the most earth-shattering moves, but he’s creative and active, and persuading Reinsdorf to pay for Peavy and Rios must have taken some serious charm. Williams doesn’t have the bottomless checkbook that other major- market teams have, yet with the exception of 2007, the team has been at .500 or above for every one of Williams’s seasons, has made the playoffs twice and won the World Series once. Not bad for a very competitive division, not to mention league. From a fan perspective, Williams has delivered in substance (decent trades) and style (out-of-the-blue, broad-minded moves). As a fan, sometimes the latter is as entertaining as the former.

But I’m starting to think the Williams Method is wearing thin as the White Sox get older. Read more »

No, he’s not dead, but it looks as if his career may be. Word came down yesterday that Prior—who had been toiling in the minors for the Padres—had been released after it became clear he wasn’t making much progress. “Toiling in the minors for the Padres” should already have been a hint that Mark wasn’t coming back, but being cut by one of the majors’ lowliest franchises doesn’t exactly foretell good fortune. It’s hard to get a read on what Chicago now feels for Prior, the prodigal son who never returned. My sense is that he’s still caught up in that ill-will hangover called the 2003 playoffs, but I think it’s worth reconsidering his legacy, now that it seems he’s all but done.

This decade has been full of cataclysmic postseason meltdowns, from the 2004 Yankees to the 2006 Mavericks, but the 2003 Cubs feel the most tragic. Part of that is all the history and missed opportunity, part of it is the way the Cubs became the Zombie Cubs, sleepwalking through the rest of Dusty Baker’s contract, and turning to feed on ace broadcast crew Chip Caray and Steve Stone. The Cubs went from being a young, exciting team to a backbiting clan of also-rans. Worst of all, Prior was never the same. Read more »

If you have some time on your hands and love unequivocal equivocation, you’d do well to check out Jim Parque’s epic confession in yesterday’s Sun-Times. Parque was once a decent pitcher for the White Sox, and a mediocre columnist for the Sun-Times, if you remember. His name also popped up in 2007 Mitchell Report, which outed all sorts of Major Leaguers with needle tracks on their backsides. After he tore his labrum pitching for the Sox in the 2000 playoffs, Parque struggled to come back, was released in 2002 and could never get the magic back. That’s when he did what we all do when we’re sad—browsed the internet through tear-blurred eyes—but his next step was particular to pro athletes, though. He ordered what he guessed was some Human Growth Hormone—not yet banned by MLB—and shot that junk into his trunk a few times. He pitched a little better, stopped injecting, and then let up 23 runs in 17 innings for Tampa Bay. He hasn’t pitched since 2003.

A day removed from the confession, we’re having a hard time getting worked up about it (unlike the ever-ready Knights of Indignation). Morrissey and the like are always concerned that pro athletes shooting up will lead to more kids shooting up. But it’s a false connection. Read more »

We’ve seen athletes take out their frustration in all sorts of clichéd ways. There’s Zambrano and his Gatorade, and of course Carlos Quentin snapped his wrist when he slapped his bat out of frustration. But nothing was as cool as Sox closer Bobby Jenks’s furious, disgusting extraction of dip from his bottom lip after he finally saved the game on Monday night. As far as I can tell, it’s been scrubbed clean from any highlight videos by now, but it was something to behold: A man so angry with himself he couldn’t stand the taste of his own spit.

Jenks must be filling the spittoon today, after blowing the save last night in spectacular fashion. Read more »

It’s free agency time in the NBA, which means information leaks have sprung like a sprinkler in summer, and you can trust everything you hear about as much as you can trust a Drudge report. I’ve always thought the kind of people who Dick Cheney enlists in his secret ops should also negotiate major sports contracts. The combination of secrecy, misdirection and bungling is perfect resumé filler.

The latest scuttlebutt—depending on the minute—has it that Jazz power forward Carlos Boozer may be headed to the Bulls in a three-way deal with the Portland Trailblazers. The Bulls would have to give up Captain Kirk and Ty Thomas (who, I regret to report, is on Twitter leave) to make it happen, and the chattering class seems to think this is the answer. The Bulls have been aching for a low-post presence since some hyperbolic example of a long time ago, and Boozer is a beast in the post. But it’s a bad idea for so many reasons, and the fact that the Bulls would even be interested in it speaks to their toddling approach to building a team.

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I’ve done my best to posit the innate qualities of Chicago’s newest baseballers this season, whether it be the false promise of Jayson Nix or the outsize legend of Jake Fox (Tell me a little bit of your inner child didn’t die last night when Fox let that single skip under his glove. It’s okay to talk about.) But I have to admit that Sox third baseman/wunderkind Gordon Beckham has largely eluded me. Part of that is the nature of rising college players: They come into the league men ready to contribute, as opposed to the men-children drafted out of high school who need to be molded and manipulated them into organization men.

But just a few blinks in the Beckham force field are enough to give us what we need. Read more »

As TOC’s resident second-tier sports authority, I’m taking a break from persuading people to watch the Stanley Cup to talk World Cup soccer. Wait, where are you going? Come back!

The U.S. National Team is about halfway through round four—the hexagonal round robin of group winners and runners-up—of CONCACAF’s 2010 World Cup qualifications. Yes, that makes little sense to just about everyone. Basically, it means they’re playing five other countries twice—home and away—and need to win games.

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