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For a forgotten Olympic Games that truly were of singular importance, I refer you to the research of my friend A.E. Eyre, which I discussed in a 2003 Hot Type. Eyre makes an irrefutable case that the oft-maligned 1904 games in Saint Louis (my hometown) were actually The Games That Made America. Because 533 of the 625 competitors were Americans, who won 238 of the 282 medals, the rest of the world ridiculed the Saint Louis games as meaningless. That’s when, according to Eyre, America realized that it didn’t care what the rest of the world thinks and that if the rest of the world didn’t even show up that was fine with America. Ninety-nine years later America invaded Iraq. Coincidence? Eyre doesn’t think so.
The highlight of the 1904 games was the marathon, whose winner, it turned out, rode 11 of the 26 miles in an automobile. Ninety-four years later Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs as a Saint Louis Cardinal. Again: coincidence?
When drunks brag in bars, they make a lot of sense to themselves.
