Friday, December 15, 2017

The Winter Olympics are Coming!


You can tell the 2018 Winter Olympics are getting close by the related stories creeping into the NBC nightly news, both local and national.  Any day now, I expect to see a piece on the Chicago connection to the snow and ice that will be used in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The winter Olympics have always been a hard sell for me, all that snow and ice part of a cold, white death.  (Note: I’m past the age of thinking a fall on the ice is a minor mishap.)  Ever since I was a kid, I’ve looked at the Olympics as a sign that spring training was near and nothing more.  Sorry, 1960 and 1980 U.S. hockey teams.

And with Sochi being the “PEDs Games,” what assurances do we have that 2018 will be any different?  And with Rio being the latest installment in the “bribe the Olympic officials to get the winning bid” saga, what assurances do we have that, two years from now, we won’t be reading the same about the games in Pyeongchang?

I know, professional sports have their own PEDs scandals, and who knows what betting scandals await as pro teams locate to Las Vegas?  But at least I can tell myself, and on a good day believe, that baseball is on the up and up, PEDs-wise.  On bad days, I can think about my daughter hitting the daylights out of baseball and softballs, no bribe required. 

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