Reality is Messier Than Fairytales

Why would a man with all of this risk it all by a cheap fling (or ten) with another woman? I don't pretend to understand the rationalization of adultery and infidelity but then I have an automatic risk vs. reward calculator hard wired into my brain and the risk far, far outweighs any momentary reward where infidelity is involved. A momentary pleasure against that moment ever becoming public is a stupid risk.

So there is the near non-stop Tiger Woods' "accident" coverage on sports shows these days. The accident is looking less and less like a real accident and more like a crash while trying to flee a severely pissed off wife with a golf club. There has already been a pseudo-press event of Woods' alleged mistress arriving at LAX with celebrity whore/lawyer Gloria Allred by her side. There has already been the hiring up of big gun expensive lawyers by Woods himself. There have been discussions about the logic or illogic of the explanation of the accident and how there is simply no way Elin Nordegren would have been physically able to pull her husband out the back window from the front seat.

From the outside, Tiger Woods lives an amazing life. He's the best golfer ever, he's married to a pretty ridiculously smoking hot woman, he is the highest paid athlete in the world, he's got endorsements coming out his backside and really he can do almost anything he wants. But those are just appearances and the reality of his life, as we are learning, is not quite so idyllic.

His smoking hot wife may also be a nutcase vengeance driven scorned woman who attacked her husband upon finding out he'd been banging some floozie. The injuries sustained to Tiger's face are inconsistent (supposedly since he's gone all Greta Garbo since the accident) with a car accident and are supposedly a lot more consistent with a pissed off wife scratching and hitting you for being a cheating sleazebag.

And Tiger's latest statement will do little to ease his problems. Yes, he apologized for his transgressions but then he took the opportunity to take a swipe at the culture that made him rich beyond imagination because he "deserves" his privacy even though he's been constantly portrayed as a role model for kids. The problem with his mindset is that he wants it both ways, he wants accolades, fame, money and all the good stuff but doesn't see that there is another edge to the sword. You won't be able to get away with one without the other.

But yes, his marital infidelity isn't my problem, sure, I'm interested in it because I'm a married man and I am, or was, a Tiger fan even though I tend to find televised golf more tedious than trying to watch Glenn Beck without puking.

I don't get it and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

The Crippler Becomes the Needler

Chris Leben tests positive for steroids and is suspended for nine months after UFC 89 loss.

I've been a fan of Chris Leben's for a few years now. I liked how he carried himself, I liked his heavy, heavy fists that can knock out anyone at any time (see: Martin, Terry for a fantastic graphic example).

But I'm going to really have to re-evaluate my admiration and respect after he was busted for cheating. I can't stand cheaters and I really hate it when cheaters win. Which Leben did not do when he used steroids in his fight against Michael Bisping a couple of weeks ago.

I do have to give props to the UFC for instituting its own drug policies and enforcing them. There is no governing body forcing them to drug test their fighters, they do it of their own accord and that is pretty damned admirable.

NY lawmaker urges FBI to drop Clemens probe, saying pitcher has suffered enough - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

NY lawmaker urges FBI to drop Clemens probe, saying pitcher has suffered enough even though he hasn't even admitted that he's a big, fat freaking liar who's been using performance enhancing drugs for a long time.

Suffered? He's made millions upon millions of dollars from his lies and cheating.

Investigate him, force him to tell the truth or throw his ass in prison.

Anthony Weiner presents a false dilemma in his reasoning for dropping the investigation, that of the FBI having bigger fish to fry. The falseness here is that the FBI can only do one thing at a time and that they should be pursuing "real" criminals. The reality is very different in that the FBI is a HUGE organization simultaneously performing hundreds of investigations across all strata of society and criminal element. If the investigation of Clemens was exposing our country to a terrorist attack then of course I'd say drop it given that lives are far more important than a cheating baseball jerk. But the patent reality of the situation is that there are plenty of FBI agents to secure our nation AND investigate major cheating and lying in the huge business of professional sports. To say otherwise is to try and obfuscate the truth of the situation.

Letting Clemens off the hook without even his admission of guilt sends a deeply flawed message. To other cheater baseball players, to youth baseball players who looked up to him, to owners who profited from the drug era, to fans who want an honest game again.

Clemens needs to come clean, he needs to admit his guilt, admit his cheating and only then can any kind of relief be discussed.

Calling for the investigation to be abandoned would be damaging to the integrity of baseball and it would be condoning every single microgram of steroids and growth hormones injected into his ass.

Clemens knows the truth from what his twisted and totally unbelievable story has become. He knows he's lying, he knows that what he is doing is underhanded and dirty. Letting him get away with it would taint us all.

Investigate, prosecute, punish, forgive. The crucible that baseball must pass through won't be fun and some stars will be sacrificed in the cleansing, like Bonds and Clemens.

Going to Prison for Pride

Well it would appear that Roger Clemens is going to be investigated for lying to a grand jury, about the most avoidable crime going these days, and may end up in jail for his bloated pride and inability to admit that he's a drug using cheater.

There is very little doubt in my mind that Clemens has been juicing himself to stay competitive and dominant. The witnesses and testimony against him have been damning and directly contradict Clemens' own hard to believe tale and bizarre explanations.

I'm sure of my readers will be thinking about how this relates to my defenses of Barry Bonds in the past. And they'll have a reasonable point. I've long been a defender of Bonds as a fan and as a devil's advocate. But I honestly believe I'd have a different take if Greg Anderson, his trainer, had testified against him, if he'd had corroborating witnesses to contradict his stories and to catch him in lie and fallacy after mistruth.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all but positive Bonds cheated, just like the rest of the universe. But the body of evidence against Bonds and the body of evidence against Clemens are two very different animals but they excrete the same PED poop.

If either player plays another game in MLB then I will surprised. Though I'd bet Clemens is the more likely of the two to get a contract even though he is deeply tainted goods at this point.

I admit that I'm rather enjoying watching Roger squirm and try to convince the world that he's right and everyone else is wrong, the evidence is wrong, everyone else's memories are faulty and that he's never even so much as seen a performance enhancing drug much less had multiple injections to revive his flagging power as he aged.

Amy linked to a refutation of the statistically false Clemens Report by the guys who wrote Freakonomics and it pretty clearly and capably shreds the Clemens Report for the tripe that it is. The thing with stats is that it is really easy to see when someone is fudging data to serve their own foregone conclusions, in this case Clemens conclusion is that he never cheated so his defense team massaged and then beat the data until it served their purpose. The only thing is that it is really easy to blow selective data apart with a valid sample, as the Freako boys have done.

Clemens is a cheater, a liar and an underhanded head throwing scumbag. I hope he twists in the wind and then spends a chunk of time behind bars for his ego, pride and patently obvious lying.

Rocket Gets Shot Down by Smoking Syringe

McNamee's lawyers say physical evidence confirms Clemens' use of performance-enhancing drugs. Namely McNamee saved the syringes and towels he used when he injected Roger Clemens with PEDs (that's performance enhancing drugs) in 2000 and 2001.

Clemens is still denying all of it in spite of now physical evidence that has his blood, may still have DNA and steroids or HGH in it.

That's what we call GAME OVER. You weren't convincing anyone before and now there's nobody that believes you're clean, Roger. And, because you just testified at length yesterday that you've never, ever done PEDs, you might even be facing an indictment for perjury. Which would be sweet.

Clemens' legacy is already tainted and he's pretty well assured of going down in the Asterisk Wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. And he deserves every bit of smackdown he's going to get.

I bet he wishes he'd stayed retired now.

The Mitchell Report: Alot More Than Just Barry Bonds

Sources: Mitchell Report to name MVPs, All-Stars, won't address amphetamines and here's a link to PDF copy of the report.

Names like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jason Grimsley, David Segui, Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons. Of course, it has just been released so the flood of alleged cheaters will be coming out for the rest of the day and, probably, into next season.

On KNBR they were talking about names that might be on the list but may not be. Guys like Jason Schmidt, Paul O'Neill, Marquis Grissom and a whole bunch of others.

Let's face it, the great American pastime is rife with athletes taking performance enhancing drugs. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. Major League Baseball has a serious drug problem but it isn't just the athletes that are guilty, the owners, managers, trainers, pals and other assorted support personnel are as guilty but will, largely, go unpunished.

Does it diminish my love of the sport? Yeah, maybe just a little bit. Do I hope this is the first major step to cleaning up the game and re-levelling the playing field? Heck yeah.

Not only because PEDs undermine the integrity of the game, which is a big deal, but more so because younger players and kids look up to big leaguers and are getting the wrong message about drugs from them. They are getting the message that using PEDs is okay, that cheating to win and get that big contract is not only acceptable but encouraged. And that goes a long way to undermining the future of sport in America.

If some legacies have to be torched to clean up the sport then so be it. But let's not let the managers and owners get off scot-free. Let's punish every level of guilty party from the minors to the front office.

[Update: The player list originally sent over by my cousin is not the actual player list. I have a copy of the report and will add the named players when I get a chance.]

Marion Jones: Cheater and Fraud

Marion Jones Admits Doping for 2000 Olympics and Olympic winner Marion Jones now loser after doping plea

Which, effectively, deletes her life in professional sports. She's an admitted cheater, she should lose her medals, lose her endorsements and be subject to lawsuits for fraud. Oh yeah, and all of her race results should be voided.

I watched her admission, apology and retirement and felt some pangs of sympathy for her as she basically came as clean as she could. And then I remembered that she was one of the loudest deniers of steroid use back when it was alleged, she swore up and down that she was clean, she profited wildly from her lies and fraud and then any sympathy I had for her is gone.

The worst part isn't the fact that she cheated and won, well maybe it is, but it is intensified by her loud and vociferous denials. Her public outrage at being accused even! And now we learn the truth that she was just another cheater all the time.

I hope the winners who got cheated out of their medals in 2000 sue her for damages and lost opportunities. I hope her life becomes a cautionary tale of what not to do. I hope someone somewhere, who's wavering on the fence about doping to win, sees her personal agony and public humiliation and says no to the needle and the cream. And just tries harder.

History will not and should not be kind to Marion Jones and her deceit.

Tour de Cheat

I find it an interesting contrast between the fervor surround Barry Bonds nearing the home run record and, yet another, Tour de France being completely swamped by doping.

After last year's Landis miracle and subsequent positive drug test, you'd think that the riders would try to do it clean. But nope. That'd be too much like thinking or something. Anyway, rider #2 has failed a drug test. Bye now, Christian Moreni. Was it worth it?

At least he was honest enough to admit he cheated and not pretend like he never did anything wrong. That says something.

[Update: The Leader Gets Sent Home for violating team rules and missing two drug tests. Will cycling be the first professional sport to just give up and embrace cheating?]

Paying to Clear Your Conscience is a Mindtrick

I came across a site and service called CheatNeutral that attempts to do for infidelity what the carbon neutral folks are doing for pollution emissions. That is, cheaters can buy a clear conscience by paying someone else to be monogamous.

Yes, you read that right. Men or women who sleep around on their spouses can pay off their guilt.

To which I'm going to have to shout at the top of my lungs, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?

I'm sure they are doing a brisk business though since guilt is an even easier sell lever to pull than impulse or impotence. Guilt sells more flowers and chocolates than joyous sentiment (actually it probably doesn't but I'm feeling cynical so bear with me). Guilt makes the purchaser feel better, like they are cleansing themselves of the reason they should feel guilty.

So purchased clear consciences for morally bankrupt people who sleep around behind their spouses back makes perfect, albeit nauseating, sense.

Here's a tip for any cheaters who happen to be reading this. If you want a clear conscience (pay attention now) then stop screwing someone you're not supposed to be screwing.

Purchasing guilt removal like this won't resolve your guilt, it'll just lighten your wallet and you'll still be a piece of shit cheating scumbag. Also, if you charge it to your credit card and your cheatee spouse sees it then you are sooooo totally busted.

[Update: Easy and his investigative team have revealed that the site is a farce and is really a big joke. Actually, he just read the site. I have eggs on my face but I'm headed into the shower now so I'm not overly worried. It is a pretty good mock up job. Check it out, Cheat Neutral.