to other nations and U.S. authorities could take the same stance if Lochte is

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Simone Biles defied gravity. Simone Manuel defied history. Michael Phelps glared, still hungry. Katie Ledecky churned all alone. Meb Keflezighi did pushups. Allyson Felix anchored. Usain Bolt glanced at the heir apparent to his right and grinned.A distance runner helped an injured opponent to her feet. A sprinter dove in desperation. A hurdlers toddler son capered happily on the track. A wrestler wept. Thirteen water polo players, one after the other, carefully looped their gold medals around a treasured coachs neck.Neymar scored.Yet amid the giddy 17-day narrative presented in high definition, two low-resolution videos stood out. One caught young athletes with a careless disregard of consequences. The other showed an older bureaucrat in a bathrobe who may have thought he was beyond any consequences.Tone-deaf Ryan Lochte and three other U.S. swimmers are home, awaiting potential discipline. Patrick Hickey, the 71-year-old International Olympic Committee member from Ireland arrested at his Rio hotel and charged in a $3 million ticket-scalping scheme, is jailed until further notice.Author and academic Jules Boykoff had dinner with Brazilian friends after Lochtes inflated tale of victimization finally unraveled and unleashed so much rightful resentment.It was the one thing that did unite all Brazilians across the board, said Boykoff, who lived in Rio for the latter part of 2015 while finishing a book about Olympic politics. He treated the country as his own private spring break, south of the equator. It was a vicious satire of white male privilege.My friends told me, If you can understand our frustration with him, then you can understand how we feel about the IOC. They jet in, live a life of privilege and then jet out, never to be seen again.There were different degrees of misconduct and broken promises playing out in Rio these past three weeks, ranging from petty to venal and beyond. Still ahead are the Paralympics, whose push for greater status and exposure has been inexcusably undermined by lack of funding.The contrast between Olympic field of play and the world just outside the fences has never been so great, yet the Games carried on like an irresistible musical with a sketchy producer. Now that IOC president Thomas Bach has declared Rios absence of disaster a success, we can expect unabated entitlement and overburdened host cities to continue indefinitely.Brazil wore its issues on its bright yellow sleeve from the time the bid campaign began, but even the most pessimistic observers likely couldnt have foreseen the confluence of events that would follow.The economy tanked. The government heaved and shifted and continues to quake, and nearly every part of the social fabric is still swaying, depleting the crucial Olympic volunteer corps. The Zika virus spread, at first silently and then agonizingly out in the open when it was linked to birth defects.Contractors tasked with building venues and modernizing sewage treatment stalled and skimmed from the top. The stench that rose from the canal bordering the western edge of the Olympic Park was a daily reminder of a lost opportunity.Some ironies in these Games doubled in on themselves. Scattered reports of waterborne illness and debris from the athletes competing in the bay and lagoon and ocean trickled in, yet the most obvious aquatic issue surfaced in the contained space of the diving pool, when hydrogen peroxide accidentally and unbelievably dumped into the water turned it green. Organizers dosed it with chlorine and told the athletes to close their eyes.The iconic beach volleyball venue on Copacabana Beach and the settings for tennis, swimming and gymnastics throbbed with full-throated fans. They raised the roof at the Velodrome, where the memory of interminable construction delays was quickly eclipsed by brilliant and sometimes contentious racing.Track and field, orphaned far from the other venues, played out before swaths of empty blue seats that made Hickeys arrest for illicit ticket resales seem like ill-timed satire. In an ideal world, the sections yawning empty should have been filled with children from surrounding favelas. The reality is that there wasnt enough will to cut through Rios barbed-wire class system or its noxious traffic to get them there.Rio 2016 doesnt bear responsibility for the current chaos in the anti-doping system, although its on-site laboratory came with a dubious past and a recent suspension that led to a testing gap for Brazilian athletes in the weeks before the Games.The World Anti-Doping Agency and the IOC displayed a distinct lack of urgency from 2010 on, as evidence of organized doping in Russia made its way to them via informants and journalists. Eventually, WADAs own investigations forced action. The IOC punted the Russian eligibility question to international sports federations, sending a clear message that Russia and its sports bankroll were to be accommodated. Hickey, an active proponent of holding the 2019 European Games in Russia, was among the most outspoken on the subject.Nearly 300 Russian athletes competed here, winning 56 medals heading into Sundays final day. If recent drug sample retesting history is any guide, a disproportionate number of those medals will become hand-me-downs. Meanwhile, Russian whistleblower and elite runner Yuliya Stepanova and her husband, living in voluntary exile in the United States, have had to take further safety precautions after her online WADA account was hacked. In a coldly masterful feat of compartmentalization, Bach told reporters Saturday: We are not responsible for dangers to which Ms. Stepanova may be exposed.Distrust in the anti-doping infrastructure has magnified many athletes longtime distrust of one another. That boiled up in a number of interview sessions in Rio, sometimes driving a wedge between countries or even teammates. Something has to give. Either the suits who claim theyre running things need to fix them, or the men and women in the arena need to dare them by organizing and trying to negotiate their own working conditions.The diving pool, drained and refilled, returned to blue. The mosquito presence, as predicted by infectious disease experts, was low-key. Bullets may have been fired at an official bus, and a stray one fell into a media tent at the equestrian venue. For the most part, a heavy military and police presence maintained order for visitors. The inconveniences of erratic transit and scarce food for Olympic tourists so obviously paled before the raw, visible poverty in Rio that people largely shut up about them.Evacuating Rio feels different from Sochi 2014, another Games coated with a distasteful film that has only darkened over time due to geopolitics and doping. Sochis rotting remains are off in a remote and lightly visited corner of that vast country. Rios Olympic Park lies in the midst of urban sprawl. Venues are intended for repurposing or reuse, but they also could become a grim everyday reminder of misaligned priorities, as Boykoff put it.An unabashed critic of waste surrounding the Games, Boykoff does take heart from some by-products of Rio 2016. The protests here were largely peaceful. The trampoline effect of Olympic media exposure meant activists were heard. Amid the customary dislocation of poor people that precedes any Games, the Vila Autodromo favela next to the Olympic Park won its battle for existence, reduced in size but intrepid, in a massively lopsided power struggle, Boykoff said.Its not surprising that the athletes succeeded in lifting the Games and distracting us from the disillusionment and naked inequity around them. Most of them are professionals at this point, and that was their job.They train in empty spaces and in all weather, in countries with every form of government and cultural climate. They entertain, and in the best-case scenario, their stories are inspiring rather than being divisive or banal or fodder for embarrassing gas station surveillance video. The dysfunction in the Olympic industry that likes to call itself a movement is just another kind of pain they have learned to push through. Swell Bottiglia . Carey Price didnt, but he still came out on top against one of his rivals for the No. 1 job at the Sochi Games. The Anahim Lake, B.C., native was stellar in making 39 saves in his home province and Lars Eller got credit for a bizarre short-handed winner as the Canadiens defeated the Canucks 4-1. Swell Bottiglie . -- Catcher Brett Hayes has agreed to a $630,000, one-year contract with the Kansas City Royals, avoiding salary arbitration. http://www.swellbottiglie.it/ . General manager Jarmo Kekalainen told Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch on Friday that he wants to see Gaboriks contributions go beyond the scoresheet before considering a long-term deal for the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent. Swell Italia Offerte . -- Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson asked his players a simple question during Fridays morning shootaround: How many of them had ever been on a team 14 games over . Swell Bottle Italia . - The Washington Redskins have cut defensive lineman Adam Carriker and punter Sav Rocca. Lets start here: If I did this list again tomorrow, Id likely change my mind. The easy thing to do would be to just go to the Baseball-Reference all-time WAR leaderboard, plug in the top 10 names and call it a day.The problem with doing that is we get this: 1914, 1890, 1907, 1986, 1951, 1905, 1954, 1984, 1907, 1897. (And if we extended the list to the top 15, wed get 1915, 1907 and 1911.)Those are the dates each of the players began their major league careers, meaning nine of the top 15 players started before the United States even joined World War I -- more than 100 years ago. Yes, I have a problem with that. Does it make sense that the majority of the elite players in the games long history didnt play against black players, wore baggy wool uniforms and used gloves that look like something you use to take a turkey out of the oven with?Of course not. So my top 10 list includes players from all across the baseball timeline.10. Mike SchmidtHe hit just .267 in his career? As Bill James once said, if hed hit for a higher average, hed be the greatest player to play the game. Schmidt led the National League eight times in home runs and was first or second nine times in WAR among NL position players. He drew walks, won nine Gold Gloves and played on a lot of good teams. And, yes, this could have been Honus Wagner or Stan Musial or Lou Gehrig or Rickey Henderson or Mantle or Roger Hornsby. This wasnt easy! But none of them had the best cry ever.9. Greg MadduxThis spot was between Walter Johnson and Maddux (although I was tempted to put Pedro Martinez here because of his unbelievable peak level of performance, the greatest attained by a pitcher), but I went with the recent guy. For his career, Johnson averaged 6.4 WAR per 250 innings; Maddux averaged 5.2. But if you remove Madduxs terrible rookie season and the final two seasons when he was sort of just hanging on, he averaged 5.8 per 250 innings. Thats pretty close, and adjusting for the more difficult era Maddux pitched in, Im taking him over the guy who pitched 100 years ago and basically used one pitch for much of his career.8. Ty CobbYes, hes an old-timer -- but one whose game would have translated to all eras. He won 12 batting titles in the dead ball era and is one of the greatest base stealers to play the game. Cobb was also a big enough guy -- 6-foot-1 -- that I believe that if hed come up in modern baseball, hed have added power to his game. So you have a center fielder who would hit for average, power and steal 50 bases a year. Id take Mickey Mantle and maybe even Ken Griffey Jr. at their peaks over Cobb, but Cobb had the longevity those two lacked.7. Alex RodriguezAm I comfortable with him in my top 10? No. But this isnt a list of the most beloved player, and the man does have 695 home runs, more than 2,000 RBIs and 2,000 runs, more than 300 stolen bases and 3 MVP Awards -- and Juan Gonzalez stole the award from him in 1996, when A-Rod hit .358 with 36 home runs as a 20-year-old and we all dreamed of what his future would be like.6. Roger ClemensHe won his first Cy Young Award at 23 and his seventh one at 41. And, no, he wassnt the only old pitcher to be great in his 40s -- see Warren Spahn and Nolan Ryan, for example.dddddddddddd He led his league seven times in ERA and a bunch of times in a bunch of other things. If theres a knock against him -- well, other than his Vitamin B-12 shots -- its that he isnt the first pitcher youd choose for a big game. His postseason record wasnt as terrible as many have suggested -- 12-8, 3.75 ERA in 34 starts -- but he also wasnt exactly Curt Schilling or John Smoltz.5. Ted Williams Hes 14th on the all-time WAR list even though he missed nearly five full seasons while serving in World War II and then Korea. He was great enough to hit .388/.526/.731 at age 38. He was also indifferent in the field and on the basepaths and, like Bonds, a general pain in the butt. He also benefited from Fenway -- he hit .361 there, .328 on the road, although with more home runs on the road -- but you can argue that he, and not Babe Ruth, was the games greatest hitter.4. Babe RuthBlasphemy? Perhaps. No doubt, based strictly on value compared to peers, Ruth is easily No. 1 (plus he pitched!). Heres my issue: How would Ruths game translate to modern baseball? For example, in 1920 he hit .376/.532/.847 with 54 home runs while striking out 80 times. Thats not a lot of strikeouts by todays standards, but in 1920 the AL averaged just 3.0 Ks per nine innings. In 2016, thats up to 7.9 Ks per nine, an increase of more than 250 percent. If Ruth struck out at the same rate compared to his peers in 2016 as he did in 1920, wed be looking at 200 strikeouts. Hes not hitting .376 striking out 200 times a season. Maybe hed still be Babe Ruth, but maybe hed be Adam Dunn.3. Barry BondsPeople forget that he was on track to become a top-10 all-time player before his alleged performance-enhancing drug use began sometime after the 1998 season. From 1989 to 1998, he averaged 8.4 WAR per season (which included two strike-shortened seasons). He was the best position player in the NL seven times -- through 1998. Then, from 2001 to 2004, he exploded off the charts, putting up numbers wed never seen before. Considering Bonds defensive value and speed, however, I cant rate Williams (at No. 5) ahead of him.2. Hank AaronHis career numbers at the plate are nearly identical to Willie Mays -- .941 OPS for Mays, .928 for Aaron -- and, like Mays, he was amazingly durable and consistent, aging well into his late 30s. Aaron was a very good right fielder (and certainly would have been a capable center fielder), but Mays was a great center fielder, so ...1. Willie Mays... Willie is the easy choice to rank ahead of Aaron. Mays hit for power, average, was maybe the best defensive center fielder in MLB history and one of the games best baserunners: In 1971, at age 40, he led the National League in baserunning runs added. He was durable, playing 150-plus games for 13 consecutive seasons. So he won just two MVP Awards? Well, he probably should have won eight or nine, as he led the NL in WAR nine times. ' ' '