The Lindsey Jacobellis Affair, aka, Snowboardgate

Rick Morrissey, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, recently climbed on the bash-Lindsey bandwagon. "It probably would be a good thing if somebody explained to the snowboarders that once they decided to sit at the adults' table, they made the tacit agreement to play to win," he wrote in a recent column. "They made the decision to act like Olympians, which now means to act professional. It means trying your hardest to finish first. And part of trying your hardest means doing whatever is necessary to win."

Doing whatever is necessary to win, huh? What is this, Sherman's March to the Sea?

I'd remind Mr. Morrissey and any other win-at-all-costs folks who then bemoan athletes who get caught up in things like, oh, say, STEROID SCANDALS, that the Olympics are NOT all about winning. As a matter of fact, the Olympic creed reads, "[the most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

Lindsey Jacobellis personifies that creed. She took part and she fought well, and in losing herself in the excitement and joy of her success, she made a mistake. For those of you not paying attention to the Games, and judging by the ratings that's most of you, Seth Westcott, the winner of the gold medal in Men's Snowboard Cross, pulled the same move that cost Jacobellis her gold. Only difference? He didn't fall over.

So I'd make the case that what certain people are getting so snitty about is that an American fell down and "lost us" or "cost us" a gold medal, not that she tried to pull a trick. And as for the "us?" I know I didn't do any training for these Olympics. Get over it.

The Baseball Situation in D.C.

This is a real headscratcher. To recap: D.C. gets baseball. D.C. loses baseball. D.C. kicks itself in the head and pursues baseball, on and off, for forty some years. D.C. woos baseball, and remarkably, baseball finally climbs back into bed. D.C. then goes Wile E. Coyote and tries to drop an anvil right on baseball's head. Unfortunately for all of us who like baseball and are sick of slogging our way up 95 to see a real, live Major League Baseball game, baseball doesn't seem to have the sense of humor that the Road Runner does. Baseball won't keep coming back for more, and even if these two malcontents can somehow make this work, there is no way humanly possible that Major League Baseball, led by Bud Selig and his favorite enforcer, Bob DuPuy, will ever forget the sleight of hand put on by the D.C. Council. The Council, in its infinite wisdom, has turned this debate from something that bordered on the sensible (do we REALLY want to put ourselves in hock to get a baseball team?) to something that belongs in Bizarro world (how can I best position myself in this $611 million debacle to win the upcoming mayoral election?)

DuPuy's latest response to the Council's latest skullduggery was a letter to Mayor Williams's office in which he wrote that the new legislation, "clearly contains conditions, restrictions and new provisions which go well beyond our previous agreements and raises a number of questions."

The Mayor's spokesman, Vince Morris, in response to the letter, was quoted by the Associated Press last week as saying, "It's a good sign. It shows MLB is just as keen to press ahead with the ballpark as we are. So far as we can tell, the late-night revisions made by the council do not jeopardize the deal and mostly reaffirm our existing plans."

All I know is, I'd hate to see what Vince would call a bad sign, but I have an idea. I see the Mayor and the D.C. Council, temporarily floating, motionless, above the Grand Canyon as their Acme Rocket-Sleds runs out of gas, holding up little signs that read, simply, "Uh-oh."