May 17, 2007
The Floyd Landis Case Will Not Go Away !
A court is going to decide whether or not Floyd Landis should be stripped of his Tour de France title because he had excess testosterone in his system or if the testing procedures used to make that determination were sufficiently flawed to render them useless. Please notice what the court – in the form of a jury of Landis’ “peers” – is going to try to decide; they will not decide if he took an improper drug; they will not decide if he took such a drug knowingly; they will not decide if he was framed by some unholy cabal of French cycling maniacs who cannot bear to see another American win the Tour de France. This jury, which I have to believe has been carefully weeded to assure it has no scientists or medical technologists on it, will make a determination about something they know absolutely nothing about.
The theory is that because they know nothing about any of this stuff, they will be objective in their decision-making. The reality is that because they know nothing about any of this stuff they will be ignorant in their decision-making. And I can’t find a whole lot of dictionaries nor thesauruses that make “objective” and “ignorant” into synonyms.
I point this out so that no one gets any sense of closure or finality from whatever comes from the jury. Neither side should be a winner here. The anti-doping agencies and sport governing bodies have blundered through this matter as badly as someone on Dancing With The Stars in clown shoes; Floyd Landis has had umpteen explanations for how such a bizarre test result may have happened and all of them fall either into the category of “the dog ate my homework” or “there’s a vast right wing conspiracy out there…”
Speaking of juries, there is a legal concept called jury nullification. As I understand it, this happens when a jury hears a case and believes that the defendant is guilty of the charges in the case but decides to exonerate the defendant anyway because the jury feels the law is “inappropriate” for some reason. [I’m sure that description would not suffice on a final exam at Harvard Law School, but I don’t think I’ve done huge violence to the concept either.] The NBA needed a “jury nullification” decision earlier this week regarding the Phoenix Suns leaving the bench area during an on-court altercation. David Stern’s ruling was absolutely correct in terms of the letter of the law; what the Suns’ players did was clearly in violation of the rule. However, they did not enter the fray; they did not incite any further problems; their dismissal from Game 5 could be a pivotal part of the series and that would reward the aggressor – and his team – in the incident. The NBA needed jury nullification but when the ‘jury” is the same guy who pushed to get the rule passed in the first place and who is trying to be tough on actions that damage the league’s image, it’s hard to get him to think in terms of “nullification…
Dwight Perry had a great item in his Sideline Chatter column in the Seattle Times yesterday:
“Q: What to you call the two police officers who escorted ex-NBA player Marvin Barnes into court to face charges of cocaine possession?
“A: Bearers of Bad News.”
I am not one who advocates or minimizes the severity of DWI situations. Nor do I think that baseball teams who stock their clubhouses with beer for players to drink after games – prior to their driving home – are just “taking care of loyal employees” and giving them a treat. Having said that, I think that the rush to ban alcohol from locker rooms and club houses has a hollow ring to it when you consider that those same baseball clubs will sell virtually all the beer that a fan can buy knowing full well that most of those inebriated fans are going to leave the park and get in a car and… Pardon me if I reserve my hosannas of praise for the time when teams ban alcohol from their clubhouses AND they limit beer sales in the grandstands.
And back to the NBA for a moment here… The league said that Don Nelson may no longer bring a beer with him into the post-game interview setting. He’s been doing that for decades and there was never a problem. It’s almost as if the NBA is trying to deny the existence of beer with regard to its product. Now, I wonder what might happen if Nelson were to take an empty can of whatever soft drink is the NBA corporate partner, poured a can of beer into that soda can, and took the soda can into the post-game interview setting…?
Al Capp had a character in the old L’il Abner comic strip called Joe Btfslpk. He was the world’s most unlucky person; wherever he went, there was a cloud over his head and it was raining on him; he was so unlucky, he didn’t even have a vowel in his name. Joe Btfslpk needs to meet the NCAA’s new Vice President for Education Services, Robert Vowels. They ought to have about five things to talk about…
Every once in a while, I’d love to be able to listen in on the conversation between an agent and his client after some kind of bad news has just been delivered to the client by the employer. One such circumstance presented itself earlier this week when ESPN announced that SportsCenter anchor – and often annoying presence – Stuart Scott will be part of the coverage of the National Spelling Bee in the role of a “sideline reporter”. Even for the most important sporting events, sideline reporters are about as useful as a catsup stain on a silk necktie; for the National Spelling Bee… I’d love to have heard the conversation between Scott and his agent just after that decision came down.
Finally, Sir Charles Barkley had this to say on TNT regarding his ongoing struggles with his weight:
“I bought a StairMaster. I stare at it every day.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…