Well, well, well… I can’t attest to anything that happened before 10:00 last evening – I was out – but after that I can say, especially in the wake of Gabby Douglas’ gold medal, Al Trautwig actually kept a pretty tight lid on his torturous one-liners. Somebody at NBC must have been paying attention to the virtual uproar, or perhaps it was Mr. Trautwig himself.

Whatever the case, when Tim Daggett delivers the dopey line of the night, all is good.

I even checked with the misses who agreed that the ridiculousness was toned way down.

Good for you Al.

I’ll cop to liking gymnastics. I like the guy’s gymnastics because it’s all about strength and power. I like the girls gymnastics because it’s all about grace, fluidity and beauty, though I do take issue with the wasted and usually ridiculous dance moves in the floor exercises – rarely does that come off well and usually it’s plain old ugly. Gabby Douglas’ routine last night stuck out to me. The tumbling passes were beautiful and amazing, while the dancing moves looked a bit more like flailing about dramatically.

That notwithstanding, it’s the commentators that have driven me up a freaking wall since the late 1980’s. In their groping to deliver the best one liner of all time, as if their comment would somehow end up on a Wheaties box or immortalized in some other way, they end up saying some of the dumbest sh!t known to mankind. Jim Nantz is king, but last night was no disappointment. Even Mrs. BigDaddy Jim let out a hoot of disbelief or two and an “oh, please” on at least three occasions.

My absolute favorite to hate was Al Trautwig’s, “champions walk together” line. It sucked bad enough the first time Al, you boob, but to say the exact same thing seconds later, as if everyone missed its profundity the first time, was just stupid. What the hell does that even mean? Walk together my eye. What a dope.

Runner up, again the estimable Al Trautwig with, “she may be going from the abyss to the mountaintop”, in reference to Jordyn Weiber’s floor performance (I believe – the bad commentary was all a scrambled haze last night). A comment on Al’s commentating: Shut it Al. In fact, just to be interesting, I might create a filter that sends everything Trautwig says from the mountaintop of his having a captive audience to the abyss of silence – or better yet, white noise… “Tsssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhht”… Tim Daggett says something worth hearing, Elfie chimes in… Tssssshhhhhhht…

I get all of the sob stories, I understand the sacrifice of getting up at 6 in the morning to get to practice – oh wait, I wake up at 3:30 to do nothing more than work. Sheesh.

And as a final comment on the Olympics commentators, or in this case an interviewer – I’d like to point out how much more a grown-up Michael Phelps is than Andrea Kremer. After a blind-side attack question following Phelps’ silver medal performance two days ago, Phelps actually showed a lot of class in the interview yesterday after the US 4×200 relay gold medal performance… If I were Phelps, Kremer would have gotten a snub. In fact, Ms. Kremer once said this: ““The vitriol that is spewed forth about women, women in sports TV, female sideline reporters is just so out of control,”. Andrea, you pampas ass, the vitriol spewed forth is not about women in sports TV or female sideline reporters (unless we’re talking about Michele Tafoya – good God make that woman stop!). It’s about you asking dumb-ass, vitriolic questions. Stop it, and the vitriol aimed back at you will stop, you dope.

I feel much better now. Thank you.

By the way, if you haven’t heard about the badminton kerfuffle, where several teams tried, rather horribly, to throw their matches to get better matchups later on, check it out here. It’s abhorrent. Come on ladies, at least make a show of it, yeah? I hope they’re sent back home.

UPDATE: Where are my manners to our special friends across the pond? A thousand apologies. Congratulations to the Brit’s Men’s Gymnasts on an incredible performance down the stretch to medal – that was truly awesome to watch.