Much That Is Hidden

Many of you know I am a fan of cycling, and had cause not too far back for celebration when Floyd Landis won the Tour de France. Well anyone with a TV or radio has likely heard of the predicament Floyd is in with allegations of doping and his team canning him and losing his title because of it.

I saw Floyd on the Today Show this morning and it was tough to read him. He came across slightly as a defendant who is guilty but hangs in there for the hope that the jury may acquit him. It all has shades of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a baseball player who by all accounts was one of the best in the history of the game and loved it so much he would've played for free. In the midst of the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" World Series fixing scandal, there is the anecdote of a young fan shouting to a dejected Jackson exiting the courthouse, "Say it ain't so, Joe!"

There's a lot going around about it, and the hottest conspiracy theory is that Floyd is a victim of sabotage by the French (or someone sympathetic to them or moreover jealous of another American spanking in the Tour), and I do not deem that implausible. The substance in question found in both of Landis' urine samples is synthetic testosterone. The level found is only recently above the permitted threshold, and aside from that a doctor friend tells me that a one-day dose of testosterone would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to improve an athlete's performance. Landis tested clean on all other occasions prior to the failed samples.

I hope my enthusiasm for cycling doesn't go the way of my baseball fandom. I haven't been to a major league game in at least eight years - I just don't have the desire to go see a bunch of overpaid dopers (and I'm talking cheating, not recreation, FYI). The problem is that it has become status quo, so newbies have to catch on to catch up. Say it ain't so.