TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Lance Armstrong and Double Standards
One interesting aspect of this entire BALCO mess is that some San Francisco writers are circling the wagons around Barry. Kind of like "yeah, he's always been a jerk to me, but at least he's my jerk." Gwen Knapp recently wrote a very interesting column.

Here's the long and the short of it for people who are too lazy to click on links (then how did they get here?): In the past 13 months, seven professional cyclists have died under mysterious circumstances, mostly due to heart problems. One of the side effects of one of the more popular chemical forms of cheating is that the heart becomes "too efficient" and as a result doesn't pump enough blood when a person is asleep. So it would appear as if cycling has a very serious drug problem. Who is the world's most famous cyclist? None other than Lance Armstrong. Like Barry, Lance has some shady associates. His trainer, one Michele Ferrari, is on trial in Italy for providing performance-enchancing drugs to cyclists. Of course, journalists are far too honorable to assume guilt by association, so this never gets brought up. Armstrong has passed hundreds of drug tests. Of course, this does not convince French cycling fans, who believe that Armstrong simply had the technology to evade the drug screenings; no doubt if and when Bonds comes up clean, there will be a contingent that will claim the same.

Note that in the cycling world you have a situation where the organization spends lots of money, the privacy of the athletes is violated left and right, and yet the bad guys still get away with cheating, and because the cheaters can stay ahead of the game, serious fans still suspect the top guys. More or less the casual fans feel better about the entire thing, but the real issues aren't resolved at all. Sigh, that's exactly what baseball is looking for.

Who knows where this will all end up? If at the end of the day Bonds is somehow shown to be clean, I hope he remembers the members of the media who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; that's more than he normally gives them.

Meanwhile, the politicians are getting some free airtime out of this mess. Call me a little crazy, but maybe the government should be little more concerned with some of the business scandals we've had recently. Let's have another few rounds with the Enron execs before we worry about sports. For that matter, if steroids are such a hot-button issue, they have a target in their own ranks. Somehow Arnold is like Lance Armstrong, and gets a free pass.

posted by David 2:47 PM