Sam Mellinger

The Kansas City Star

LONDON — Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to London all that much. The Olympics, yes. This is a bucket-list event for me, always wanted to do it to be up close to the kinds of stories that only happen in the Games.

But London? Eh. It was just never on my list, never one of places I always wanted to go.

Well, that was stupid.

Too many of them have bad teeth — that stereotype is absolutely based in fact — and there’s a decent chance that this country’s insistence on driving on the wrong side of the road means I’m gonna get plowed by a bus. But other than that, it’s pretty cool.

London is lively, young, funny and friendly. They’re proud of their city, but not so much that they can’t laugh at it. There’s history here, obviously, but also creativity. They love beer, and their food is much better than they get credit for.

In fact, if you’re ever here, try the sausage at Angel and hopefully I’ll have more recommendations next week.

Anyway, today’s columns are on the harsh Olympic spotlight and the cold greed of the IOC.

As always, thanks for your help and let’s get to it.

@theGeneric1 What’s life like in the future? Ya know, besides dreary with warm beer, ugly teeth, crappy food, and no football.

I mentioned on Twitter the other day that NBC’s outdated tape-delaying ways are making me feel like Biff Tannen with the sports almanac. But I gotta say, the future’s pretty cool.

You should see what Missy Franklin is about to do, for instance.

@melbert331 #TT can you actually drink warmish beer or were you being PC to the host country when you said it wasn’t too bad?

I’d let you know if it sucked. I’m a Boulevard homer, and will be thrilled to get back to the States to not only see my smokeshow wife and badass dog but also a cold Tank 7.

The beer is different here. It’s smoother, much lighter on the hops. I don’t know enough about beer to tell you the science of it, but there’s something about what they serve here that makes it really good at something colder than room temperature but certainly warmer than you’d find, for instance, at Mac’s in Overland Park.

One funny thing about England…a lot of the pubs close at 11. This used to be the rule for all of them, and when I made a joke about the Brits not being able to handle their liquor someone told me it ends up supporting functional alcoholism — people stop at 11 so they can go to work the next day and drink until 11 the next night.

I still think it’s weird.

@thillsman #TT You get an hour to hang out with three current Olympians. Who do you pick and why?

Ryan Lochte seems like a lot of fun. Anybody whose Olympic career can get sidetracked by injuries from breakdancing and falling out of a tree (he was playing hide-and-seek) and then go on to win gold and laugh about it…well, that guy’s alright with me.

Usain Bolt, because I’d like to see how much of a head start I’d need to beat him in a race. My guess is 30 meters, but my hope is 25.

And Hope Solo, because it’d be fun to see who we’d pick a fight with.

@dougk1216 In the spirit of the 2016 Rio Olympics, I think you should begin to contemplate a single name to go by.

I thought we all agreed on Asshat?

@MoStateRCA How’s the food over there? Favorite dish?

There’s a Spanish place want to check out, and Bill Reiter — who’s thinking REALLY hard in the picture, isn’t he? — keeps talking about this bistro we need to try, but the best meal I’ve had was at Royal Thai.

The beautiful thing about London is how international the place is, so there are people from literally all over the globe who make a living here cooking food from back home.

@warden11 Better perk about London: Watching the Olympics or not watching the Royals?

My gosh they’re awful. Can’t wait to try to make sense of that fiasco when I get back.

@prezmike25 Why do the #Royals keep sucking? #TwitterTuesday

Well, obviously I haven’t been able to watch any baseball over here. All I have is you fine degenerates on Twitter and Bob Dutton’s increasingly epic game stories (this one’s my favorite).

But I do think we’ve reached a certain milemarker in suck when a team decides to ban its players from talking to the opposition on the basepaths.

I mean, this is just sad on a few levels. As many of you already pointed out, the best way to stop your infielders from talking to baserunners is to stop allowing so many damn baserunners.

Short of that, this just has the look of spraying a little air freshener at the landfill.

I understand it’s a bad look for Alcides Escobar or Eric Hosmer or whoever to be chit-chatting it up when they’re down 4-0, in last place, and have won exactly six of their last 27 games. But isn’t this worrying about the wrong thing?

It reminds me of the classic Bob Boone line about players-only meetings I’ve referenced on here a few times: winners win, losers meet.

Paraphrased: winners win, losers make silly rules about not talking to the other team.

@TheNumber65 Be honest, they sent you because there are no dentists in London to take care of Babb.

I see what you did there.

@mkomm w/ Bowe holding out, how do you think this will affect his production this season? Worse bc outta shape, better bc he wants $$$

Assuming he gets in with a reasonable amount of camp left, I can’t see too many problems. The guy, for whatever else you want to say about him, produces. He caught 81 passes for 1,159 yards last year while Matt Cassel mostly sucked for nine games and the Tricycle started four times.

We can sit here and say he’s only been a good soldier the last few years because of Todd Haley or the dream of a big contract, but two years is a long time to just “act” a certain way. He’ll be in shape, because he knows this is another big year. His next contract depends on it.

Look, this is a 10-win team if things go reasonably well. Scott Pioli has done a really nice job putting this roster together, particularly the long-term extensions to guys like Tamba Hali and filling in pieces like Eric Winston.

But if the Chiefs fall off, it’s much more likely to be because one of the ACL guys lost a step or Jonathan Baldwin knuckleheads it up or Matt Cassel goes frumpy or Brandon Flowers falls off or something like that.

As long as he’s healthy, there’s no reason to not expect another big year from Bowe, is what I’m saying.

@DannyParkins the Star can pay you to vacation in London but can’t foot the bill for a long distance Mellinger Monday call? #twittertuesday

It’s not that I can’t, Danny. It’s that I won’t.

@Thuettenmueller which franchise will change the improve of their team first? Royals and starting pitching or chiefs and quarterback?

Well, I’ll tell you this: it better be the Royals, or Dayton Moore may be out of a job.

The Royals’ first priority this winter needs to be starting pitching. Their second priority this winter needs to be starting pitching. And if they’re able to get those two things solved, then their third priority needs to be starting pitching.

And like I say here, David Glass needs to give Dayton reasonable support or else the whole thing has just been an enormous waste of all our time.

That said, the scoundrel Babb is right here: Cassel is running out of chances.

@mtanking Who is the most notable person you ever “fraternized” with?

Well, yesterday at gymnastics Dominique Dawes — responding to a direct question from Reiter — said I would get a six if I did all the routines with real Olympic judges.

“You get one point in each event just for showing up,” she said.

@abkck favorite Call Me, Maybe parody video? #twittertuesday

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

@bankmeister Since you have good taste in music, a) Where’re your seats for #phish at Starlight, & b) where’re you pre-partying? #TwitterTues

I do love me some music, but unless I’m forgetting something, the only concert in my plans the rest of the year is Springsteen in November. And I gotta say, it was a pretty weak summer for concerts in Kansas City. Still bitter the Black Keys skipped KC.

I choose to blame AEG.

@JaredSPalmer May be too early in the trip, but USA excluded, Mizzou/ksu/ku is which competing country and fan base? #TT

I like where your head’s at, but gimme some more time.

@gavinesq What’s the biggest deal in the Olympics we’re not hearing about so much over here? #TwitterTuesday

Depends on how exactly you mean the question, because pretty much anything that has to do with England is an enormous deal here. Like, picture the rock star treatment of USA basketball,^ and pretty much apply it every British team. I mean, just look at their crappy handball team.

^ One of my goals, by the way, is to not refer to them as the Dream Team. We only get one Dream Team, at least until we get a better one. And this one isn’t it.

But other than that, this is a hard thing for me to say because the Olympic bubble is pretty encompassing. I mean, if not for Twitter, I wouldn’t have known that Ryan Seacrest was annoying people on Olympic coverage.

@RealJEllis Any chance we could make all future Twitter Tuesday’s abbreviated versions?

No.

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