Date posted: May 25, 2007 - Friday
Title: Sometimes a black shirt is just a black shirt.
Current mood: incredulous
I have always found sports to be amusing.
No, not watching the actual sport itself, but all the hoopla and rigmarole surrounding sports.
Now there was a time when I took it all seriously. I watched football with such a passion my family would not want to be around. I would swear and sweat and strain and live and die with the fortunes of my team.
All that changed several years back. Salaries got out of control. Egos were even worse. Touchdown celebrations got to the point where they should have been served with a huge jar of mustard (yep, too many hot dogs dancing in the end zone). Trash talk between players became the norm rather than the exception.
Then the world of sports entered the era where players were spending as much time in court as they were on the playing field or court. Drugs, assaults, shootings, sexual assaults, you name it and some athlete, pro or amateur, was defending himself against the charges; or trying to weasel out of them.
So, over the last few years, sports has provided a seemingly unending series of occasions to stretch the boundaries of credulity. I can't even begin to enumerate the stories here of the transgressions. Football and basketball players seem to be trying to outdo each other to see who can commit the most egregious act.
It is the newspaper stories and television reports about these incidents that have provided the source of my amusement. Just reading the weak excuses and outlandish explanations for the actions of these players is better than some standup comedians.
This week the hilarity expanded itself into the world of cycle racing. There was an arbitration hearing being held on the case of Floyd Landis. He is accused of using a performance enhancing substance during his win at the Tour de France last year. His urine tested positive for testosterone in amounts that would have made him the horniest man on the planet.
OK, so let's overlook the absurdness of even having an arbitration hearing. It seems pretty black and white to me, but for the sake of argument let's say the lab results could be called into question.
So the testimony should have revolved around things like scientific evidence, expert medical witnesses and the chain of custody of the samples. Was this the basis of the hearings this week?
Nope.
First we get another cyclist dragging up alleged conversations where Landis either did or did not admit he had used the drugs. Then the cyclist, Greg LeMond, claims he was intimidated by some of Landis' management people in an attempt to make him refrain from testifying. Finally he drags out molestation charges from his own childhood as the basis for the alleged blackmail.
This is followed by the firing of the management person who made the intimidating phone calls.
Finally Landis takes the stand. He testifies under questioning of his own attorneys and disputes much of the testimony of others against him. But it is his cross examination by opposition attorneys that is the 'high' point in this little soap opera and provided me with the biggest laugh.
Matt Barnett, the attorney for the Unites States Anti-Doping Agency, took the tone of the hearing from high drama to low comedy.
His line of questioning was supposed to deal with Landis' character.
First of all, what the hell does his character have to do with whether or not he tested positive for a banned substance? He could have had the best character in the world and still cheated. He could have had the worst character and been clean as a baby's bottom. Second, if you were going to stray from the main point of the hearing (the validity and accuracy of the drug testing) shouldn't you at least concentrate on facts about the phone calls outing LeMond as a child abuse victim?
But Barnett seemed to become with Landis' clothes. Yes, I said his clothes.
Landis had worn a yellow tie to the hearings every day up until that day. (Symbolic of the yellow jersey the winner of the Tour de France wears.) This day Landis chose to dress all in black and Barnett seemed to pounce on this like it was the most damning piece of evidence in the whole hearing.
I had to hold myself to keep from rolling on the floor in laughter.
This arbitration had little credibility in my mind in the first place. And I will admit I couldn't care less if the
