Phelps fatigue, feuds and flaps mean Olympics can't end soon enough

No slight to rhythmic gymnastics, Taekwondo, trampoline, table tennis, BMX biking or any of the other Olympic sports we normally see performed exclusively by kids in strip mall storefronts, rec rooms and backyards across the suburbs, but I'm ready for one of my favorite parts of all Olympic Games - the Closing Ceremony.

I just feel silly watching a trampoline performance by anyone who isn't constantly yelling, "Hey, Mom, Dad, look at me! Watch this!" Michael Phelps is great and all, and I love the family values he learned while being raised in a broken home headed by one of those divorced career women, but I'm suffering from Phelps fatigue. Phelps told us he was "at a loss for words" somewhere between gold medals one and three, but that didn't stop Bob Costas from jumping into the interview pool after every race, and every replay of every race. You'd think the effort would be enough to give Costas gray hair, if that were possible.

That uplifting goodwill and international spirit of the Olympics started to fade for me this week about the time gymnasts started bickering, and baseball pitchers turned into headhunters.

While the Olympics have been a great distraction, as soon as it ends we'll have more time for important stuff, such as the Cubs and Sox. (Hey, we get an Olympics every two years. We haven't had such serious World Series talk on both sides of town since 1906.)

Most importantly, I love the Closing Ceremony. The Opening Ceremony is the pressure-packed, over-the-top spectacle choreographed to the smallest detail - such as getting a cutie-pie stand-in for the young singer deemed too imperfect to be the face of China. The Closing Ceremony is a casual and heartfelt goodbye. It seems more like a giant block party open to all - even the imperfect. Athletes, stripped of all the pressures of expectations, can mingle with participants from other nations.

A first-time medal-winner in his ninth Olympics, 61-year-old Ian Miller of Canada's silver medal equestrian jumping team (how many equestrians would he have needed to jump to win gold?) can stroll alongside Chinese gold-medal gymnast He Kexin, whose age is listed at 16, but who wouldn't get carded if she tried to take advantage of this weekend's "kids 12 and under are free" promotion at Medieval Times.

Athletes are celebrated just for competing. Russian gymnast Anna Pavlova, who recorded an imperfect 0.00 for one of her vault attempts, could try to land a photobomb of herself mugging in the background of all those photos that will be taken of Phelps lugging around his gold.

It makes me wish other parts of life had a Closing Ceremony. It might help people laid off in this economy if they were allowed to parade before an adoring crowd before their work flames were extinguished.

On a personal level, the Closing Ceremony will end my spirited nitpicking that comes up every Olympics. My wife thinks I sound like a jingoistic Neanderthal because I like sports where the winners and losers are obvious to viewers. Olympic sports are beautiful and the athletes who do it are the world's best, but after a little girl does her thing on the uneven bars, I don't like having to wait for a committee to tell me if she won. It leaves everything open to debate and scandal.

When the Cubs beat the Reds, it is obvious. The umps don't get together and award the Reds extra runs because of the degree of difficulty involved in batting against Rich Harden. Even in soccer - an Olympic game I once derided as cross-country with a ball - they keep score. (Although, in another moment that fueled my annoying Olympic bashing, I thought the U.S. posted a 2-1 upset win until "extra time" kicked in, allowing the Netherlands to score the tying goal before the only official with a watch decided the game was over.)

And why do those two-women volleyball team members wear bikinis while the men do just fine in gym shorts and tank tops? Do the Brazilian women who hone their craft on the topless beaches of Rio think they are overdressed in the bikinis? Do they at least complain when guys like me snicker because it says "BRA" on the Brazilians' bikini tops?

Even the fuss about Phelps' eight gold medals seems a bit odd to me. Yes, he can jump in a pool and swim to the other end faster than anybody. But I don't understand why he gets to do each race over using different strokes. If the track people did this, Jamaican Usain Bolt (winner of the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes) would be able to multiply his gold booty by running the same races again using different running styles - the 100-meter skip, the 200-meter backward or a medley of running, skipping and crawling on his hands and knees to the finish line.

But I shouldn't jest. By the time the 2016 Olympic Games come to Chicago, some suburban kid might be favored to win the gold in synchronized skipping.