Clay Travis v. The NFL

If tough cases make bad law, then misguided opinion makes bad argument.

Clay Travis is guilty of a gross misunderstanding of the law, the rights of individuals, and the rights of businesses to regulate themselves under the law. In an opinion written for CBS Sportsline.com, Travis has taken NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to task for his recent handling of Adam “Pac-Man” Jones, and warns the commissioner not to take the same approach with regard to Michael Vick or others.

In particular, Travis said, “Even now, I would implore Emperor Goodell to clarify his new personal conduct policy and announce that the NFL simply will take no action against players, coaches, or employees until the American judicial system has rendered judgment on these cases.”

Travis’ main contention is that the commissioner is acting imperially and unfairly with regard to players who have not had their day in court, and that Goodell may be opening up the NFL to a lawsuit the size of the tax code.

He could not be more wrong.

In fact, one wonders if he slept all the way through Civics, or just the parts in the Bill of Rights that bored him.

The NFL is a privately owned business. As such, it can demand whatever it wants of its employees, provided it does not demand something illegal or immoral. Those employees can choose to follow the guidelines of the NFL, or they can seek employment elsewhere. A code of conduct that demands a high level of personal accountability, even a higher standard than that required by the law, is perfectly within the NFL’s purview.

In other words, if the commissioner tells players that even being arrested is enough to warrant suspension, then those players can either avoid all appearance of improper activity, or they can seek employment elsewhere.

And this is the larger point that Travis misses. Playing in the NFL is not a right guaranteed under the Constitution, but a privilege. Players don’t have to play in the NFL. They can take their college degrees (snicker) and find employment elsewhere. Of course, finding a job that carries the pay and perks of the NFL may be a bit more difficult than the average nickel back thinks, but I digress. The point is that individuals in this country are free to seek employment with whoever will hire them. If they choose to work for the NFL, they will follow the new code of conduct or they will be unemployed.

Roger Goodell is the custodian of a multi-billion dollar empire on which the sun never sets, and the reason that the league is so huge is because it is rightly concerned with its image in the public eye. Goodell’s job is not to be concerned with the workings of the American judicial system, which may or may not mete out swift judgment – one might recall a certain defensive tackle for the Bears being allowed to play in the Super Bowl before being sent to the hoosegow – but to run the NFL and protect its image at all costs.

Amazingly, Travis fails to take into account that the NFL is an entertainment business which relies upon the public for its livelihood. The NFL is accountable to the public that pays for overpriced game day tickets, felonious seat licenses, publicly-funded stadiums, exclusionary broadcast tactics, exorbitant image and licensing fees, and any number of other schemes to separate Joe Fan from his dollar. (Somewhere, P.T. Barnum is weeping with pride; here’s a league that gets it.) A league that lives by its image cannot allow for bad publicity.

Of course, if Travis had done a little homework, he might have known that this situation is not without historical precedent. In 1919, the wake of a betting scandal involving the World Series that would have killed the sport, Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed as commissioner with an eye to cleaning the sport up. The first thing the former trust busting federal judge did was kick the lot of them out indefinitely, pending the outcome of their trials. You’ll note that he didn’t wait for due process either, deeming the image of his sport more important than court proceedings, and he was right to do so. Then, even when some of the players in question had been cleared of charges, Landis had the testicular fortitude to issue the following statement:

“Regardless of the verdicts of juries, no player who entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player who sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed and does not promptly tell the club about it will ever play professional baseball again. I don’t know that any of these men will apply for reinstatement, but if they do, the above are at least a few of the rules that will be enforced.” – Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, August 3, 1921.

If, as Travis erroneously suggests, Goodell needs to be a jurist as Paul Tagliabue was, perhaps he should consider the fact that Landis was the federal judge who threw the book at John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil in the early 1900’s. It is particularly telling that a former lawyer and judge would use this kind of language because, as Travis says of Goodell, “…its very sweep is so astounding.”

That is precisely the case. We are dealing with an astounding sweep here, because the issue is not the rights of one individual player but the perception of the league as a whole. When Landis made his decision, the point was clear to even the dullest of players: be seen in the same room as a gambler, find another job.

Goodell has taken a similar stance and it is the right stance to take. No one is saying that a grown man can’t go to a strip club; millions of grown men do. However, millions of grown men manage to go to strip clubs every year and are not involved with shootings that paralyze a man from the chest down, as Pac-Man Jones is. No one is saying that a grown man can’t own a pit bull. However, everyone who owns a pit bull does not train the animal for fighting, as it is becoming rapidly clear that Michael Vick does. Goodell was right to drop the hammer on Pac-Man, and he’ll be similarly right to drop the same hammer on Ron Mexico.

While Travis is concerned with the rights of these individuals, let me assure him that they are protected by law. In fact, he sounds like those knuckleheads who cry about free speech whenever someone is fired for saying something stupid. All freedom of speech guarantees is that there will be no charges for speaking freely. It doesn’t mean that a company is bound to continue employing someone who keeps spouting off. In the same way, the NFL is not bound to keep employing players whose names keep showing up on the police blotter, pending outcomes be damned.

(And, while I'm at it, let me remind Travis that an acquittal does NOT mean that the accused is necessarily innocent. Acquittals are granted for a number of reasons, many of which are procedural in nature - misplaced evidence, failure of a witness to testify, plea agreements, hung juries, etc. Anyone can get acquitted; just ask O.J. Simpson.)

Roger Goodell has every right to set the code of conduct for the NFL as high as he likes, and the employees of his league can either follow that code or get another job. Clay Travis is just wrong.

Too bad he doesn’t know it.

Tour de France Bombshell

Just when it couldn’t get any worse for Floyd Landis, also known as Pond Scum Emeritus, comes this bombshell from out of left field: Bjarne Riis, 1996 Tour de France winner and the lone Dane to take the yellow jersey, openly admitted to doping during his career, including his Tour victory.

As reported by Jan Olsen of the AP, Riis made the following statement: “I have taken doping. I have taken EPO.” Riis went on to add that he’d also used cortisone and human growth hormone, and that the only side effects he’d ever noticed were that they made him ride faster.

For anyone thinking that perhaps I’m making a bit too much of this issue, here’s a comparable situation: someone uncovers a film reel of Babe Ruth admitting that he swung corked bats.

This is enormously significant. In a smaller but no less important context, it practically forces Floyd Landis’ hand. A recent former champion of the Tour has openly admitted to using drugs to compete. The Duck-And-Cover defense will no longer suffice for the Landis camp. One might think that there are no other alternatives left the disgraced rider, except that this is the same man who attempted to use Greg LeMond’s personal tragedy against him in an effort to protect his own drug-enhanced skin. While there may yet be some small expiation of guilt available to him should he recant his bogus testimony, the fear here is that Landis will so something stupid in response. After all, that is his modus operandi thus far.

But in a much larger context, say this much for Riis: he single-handedly opened up a seething can of worms where the Tour is concerned. Now we must rightly question the ability of anyone in the past eleven years to win the race completely clean, even as his confession amounts to public self-immolation. (Lance Armstrong, please pick up the white courtesy phone…) If a former Tour champion can come clean about using human growth hormone, and if a current Tour champion stands guilty of having tested positive for using performance-enhancers, what are we to believe of the winners between 1996 and now? I’m sorry, but I only had so much benefit of doubt to give out, and none where sports are considered. Count me among those who must now openly wonder about Lance Armstrong and his seven consecutive Tour wins. The Tour was testing in 1996 when Riis was using; I’d be a fool not to believe that racers have not improved test-beating techniques since then…and there’s STILL no reliable test for HGH, which means that, short of an open and public confession, we’d have to have videotaped evidence of Michael Vick at a dogfight helping Jose Canseco inject a guy in the buttocks before we could believe it.

And what does this now mean in light of Jason Giambi’s recent assertion that he was “…wrong for doing that stuff”? The 2000 AL MVP admits to having used performance enhancers. The 1996 Tour de France winner now openly admits to having used EPS and human growth hormone. The feds have Jason Grimsley and Kirk Radomski, with more to follow.

It sez so right here that we are in the midst of the sports version of Watergate, where as more light gets shed, larger rats get exposed. Bjarne Riis came forward of his own accord.

More will follow.

Floyd Landis: Coward

There are few words to describe Floyd Landis now; at least, there are few words that don’t involve “the seven dirty words you can’t say on television.” But, for the sake of catharsis, let’s try some anyway.

In my best Bronx: “Floyd Landis is a rat bastid.”

No, I can’t say that; unfortunately, it slanders all the other rats of questionable parentage.

Floyd Landis is the stuff that runs out a pig’s sty after a heavy rain, but worse.

What kind of man, to further his own ends, would use a dreadful childhood secret against another man? Apparently, the kind of man who would cheat to win the Tour De France.

Here’s where we are. Floyd Landis was caught using steroids after Stage 17 of the Tour; for those who remember, he utterly imploded in Stage 16. Thus, his surge from peloton fodder (8:08 behind the leader) to 30 seconds off the overall lead was nothing short of miraculous. He even had the nerve to credit “the beer” he had the night before Stage 17.

So, let’s see: beer makes me funnier, irresistible to hot women, ten feet tall and bulletproof in any bar brawl, and able to win the Tour de France.

It’s bad enough that both samples have come back positive for levels of testosterone that one normally finds in the New York Mets clubhouse; it’s worse when one resorts to intimidation to keep a potential witness from testifying.

Greg LeMond, the first American Tour winner and three time overall champion, had a private conversation with Landis, urging him to come clean if there were anything to tell. LeMond then related an ugly personal secret about a childhood incident involving his uncle, telling Landis that keeping something like that a secret can tear one up inside.

LeMond’s motives are clear: he was trying to help a fellow American and competitor. He thought that if he showed some personal courage, Landis might follow suit.

LeMond’s mistake is that only human beings can show courage.

Instead, Landis’ “former” manager, Will Geoghegan, makes a phone call to LeMond purporting to be LeMond’s abusive uncle, and threatening to be in court when LeMond was scheduled to testify.

There is no way that Landis is not directly complicit in this vile deed. Reports indicate that Landis was even in the room when Geoghegan made the call. At the trial the next day, Geoghegan was present with Landis while LeMond related the sordid affair on the stand.

Only after it came out in testimony did Landis “fire” Geoghegan, who has since entered rehab.

And Landis has the unmitigated gall to take the stand and claim to be an honorable man.

For those keeping score, this isn’t the first time Landis has been accused of doping. This is, however, the first time that he won a bicycle race and lost the human race.

Bring on the invective; nothing is too low for this paean to honor.

In an ironic way, an overabundance of testosterone helped him win the Tour. Perhaps if he’d had the normal amount in the normal place (inna fork, as the Brits say), he’d have never tried to use another man’s pain to cover his own shame.

Craven, pusillanimous Floyd Landis.

At least O.J. now has some company at the “Most Vilified Athlete” Table.

Jason Giambi and The Truth

I saw an interesting piece in USA Today about Jason Giambi and steroids. If nothing else, while I can appreciate Giambi’s candor and honesty in discussing the great There/Not There of MLB, I still believe that he did not go far enough.

While talking to Bob Nightengale, the 2000 AL MVP offered what should be considered the only acceptable mea culpa of the steroids era: “I was wrong for doing that stuff…(w)hat we should have done a long time ago was stand up – players, ownership, everybody – and said: ‘We made a mistake.’ We should have apologized back then…”

Giambi deserves no small amount of credit for this statement, even as it does appear to restate the obvious. The fact is that MLB – “players, ownership, everybody” – has engaged in systematic collusion, obfuscation, and stony silence. Someone of his stature should have spoken up like this a long time ago, but various reasons have been given, and none of them wash. Managers pretend that they have no idea what’s going on in locker rooms; owners have no idea why their star slugger’s helmet size continues to change; and players both former and current cite the spurious “code of the locker room,” as though locker rooms are exempt from the law of the land.

Giambi, without naming names, without betraying confidences, still said what we, the public, have been wanting to hear for years: yes, they were doing it. Yes, they were wrong. And yes, something should have changed years ago. After all, isn’t sport supposed to exemplify outdated concepts like “fair play?” Don’t we teach our kids that cheating is wrong?

But an exchange near the end of the article between Nightengale and Giambi illustrates the great gulf between perception and reality that still exists with regard to steroids.

Giambi says, “That stuff didn’t help me hit home runs. I don’t care what people say, nothing is going to give you that gift of hitting a baseball.”

Nightengale asks, “So why did you take steroids?”

Giambi responds, “Maybe one day, I’ll talk about it, but not now.”

This is exactly the problem. Giambi, on the one hand, appears to be honest, and within the space of the same interview, reverts to classic MLB disingenuousness. Nightengale’s question is THE question of the steroid problem: if they don’t help, as so many major leaguers aver, then why take them?

We are supposed to believe that being stronger doesn’t help one hit home runs? We’re supposed to believe that maintaining one’s strength throughout the marathon that is a baseball season doesn’t help one hit home runs? OF COURSE THEY HELP. No one is suggesting that steroids help eye-hand coordination. However, if strength is the issue, then steroids become a must for baseball players trying to make the big club, because strength is the difference between a seeing-eye single and a 6-3 put-out, or the difference between a fly ball at the warming track and a home run.

Let’s put it in even more practical terms: over 500 at-bats, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .250 hitter is only 25 hits. That’s it. Are we not supposed to believe that being a little bit stronger won’t make a visible difference over that crucial 25 at-bat window?

Steroids increase strength, which means that balls are hit harder, which means that guys on steroids have a clear advantage over guys that are clean. No competitor wants to go into a contest at a distinct disadvantage, which explains why steroids are so rampant in the big leagues. A guy at Triple A will not sit idly by while some wunderkind with a syringe gets a May call-up; he’s going to call Dr. Feelgood as well. The 23rd man on a major league bench is not going to let the wunderkind from the farm take his job, so he calls the dope man as well. The hotshot first baseman, in his walk year, is not going to give up a possible MVP and a New York Yankee payday because steroids don’t help one hit home runs.

Once again, when were you taking steroids, Jason Giambi? Oh, that’s right, it was during that magical 2000 season when, as a free agent-to-be, you won the AL MVP and then cashed one of George Steinbrenner’s immense checks.

But they don’t help.

Not much.

When Hitters Aren't Hitting

Remember all those wiseguys and talking heads making jokes about watching to see who would struggle at the plate this season as more steroid allegations became public? Remember sports columnists and observers wondering if the threat of federal prison time might affect the timing in a guy’s swing?

I present the following for your consideration. You’ll note that every statistic below is after Kirk J. Radomski’s arrest and subsequent spilling of guts went public.

Pop quiz, hotshot: which former batting champion is currently hitting 65 points below his career average?

If you said Manny Ramirez, you win.

Bar Bet Number 2: which former 40-home run sluggers are both currently well below the Mendoza line?

If you said Richie Sexson and Paul Konerko, you win again.

Double or nothing: of Sexson and Konerko, which man is hitting a cool 80 points below his career average?

Okay, it’s a trick question. They both are. Sexson is cooling the infield at .183, some 84 points below his career average, and Konerko couldn’t hit sand if he fell off a camel at .194, a mere 87 points below his career average.

It gets worse. Carlos Delgado, at .212, is hitting 69 points below his career average. Jim Edmonds, at .218, is hitting 70 points below. Bobby Abreu, at .236, is 65 points below. Jermaine Dye, at an anemic .203, is 72 below. Pudge Rodriguez, at .239, is 64 points in arrears. Scott Rolen, at .216, is beating the air at 67 points below his career average.

And Albert Pujols, the finest hitter in a Cardinal uniform since Mr. Musial, is hitting .239, an amazing 90 points below his career average.

What are we to make of this? Is this just some statistical anomaly found by a pajama-clad loony? Or is it evidence of something more?

I’m just going to say it out loud. At no point in BASEBALL HISTORY will you find ten of the games top sluggers scuffling this badly at the same time. Except for Ramirez, not a man among the aforementioned is hitting over .240, and we’re a quarter of the way through the season already. Just for funsies, I looked some stuff up. While it is true that one can find evidence of men like Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Al Kaline, Willie Mays, or Duke Snider hitting well below their career averages after 40 games, you will not find them all at minus 65 or worse at the same time in the same year.

Maybe they’re all just injured. At the same time. And no one has reported it. In this day of 24-hour sports reporting and up-to-the-minute fantasy baseball stats, that hardly seems likely. If nothing else, the wiseguys would put the injuries out there to get a better number. No, this is all just a little too cute for me. It makes me wonder.

It makes me wonder if they have gotten subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in connection with Kirk J. Radomski’s testimony. It makes me wonder if they are already lawyered up in anticipation of a media firestorm the likes of which will make the O.J. trial look like something on C-SPAN. It makes me wonder what they know, and what they are afraid others might know.

I am not accusing any of the above players of having taken steroids, but, in this day and age, one cannot help but to be suspicious. I’m not taking anyone’s word about anything because the sweater is still unraveling, but faster now. Names have been named. Checks have been signed. Deposits have been made. Phone numbers have been collected. Radomski’s testimony, sung in four part harmony with the hope of a drastically-reduced federal sentence, will only give the investigators that many more doors to open with search warrants, and that many more bank accounts to examine, and that many more cell phone numbers to collect, which will lead to more names and numbers and bank accounts, because people will talk with a stretch in Club Fed facing them.

Yogi Berra once said that you can’t think and hit.

I wonder what these ten guys are thinking about.

Below The Radar

The NFL is still on everyone’s radar, what with the draft, Pacman, Michael Vick and his dogs, Brett Favre’s mouth, Donovan McNabb’s mouth, and, of course, T.O.’s mouth. And somehow Randy Moss ended up playing for the New England Belichicks. Allegedly, this is the NFL’s “off-season.”

We got Pistons-Bulls in the NBA playoffs, and if it’s not the bloodsport that it was in the Jordan Rules days, it’s still compelling basketball. The Spurs and the Suns are slapping each other around out West, and Jerry Sloan is getting some old school love from guys like J.A. Adande as his Jazz look to advance to the Western Conference finals. And we haven’t even mentioned the fact that the Cleveland LeBrons are one game from the Eastern Conference finals.

MLB? So many topics, so little time…let’s see: there’s Barry “The Vilest Human Alive” Bonds and his tainted pursuit of St. Henry’s home run record; there’s Kurt Radomski, hidden by Eraser Arnold Schwarzennegger, spilling his guts for every recording device known to man; there’s The Rajah, The Rocket, the best part-time pitcher in history, Roger Clemens, returning to the Yankees for a prorated salary that would pay every Devil Ray in history, Dice-K in Beantown, the Mets on top of the world, J.J. Friggin’ Hardy in Milwaukee…yup, the Grand Old Game is doing just fine, and I haven’t even insulted Tim McCarver yet.

What’s missing? Horse racing? Nope, some two-year-old just won the Derby, the first one since Spectacular Bid (and all you degenerates know that horse…). Boxing? Didn’t one of the Mayweathers fight Oscar De La Hoya, or did they all just whup each other in a Fatal Three-Way at Caesar’s Palace? Hell, we even had a Wrestlemania, with the Undertaker winning the World Heavyweight Championship after defeating Batista (and by the way, the Dead Man remains undefeated at Wrestlemania…not that I’m counting or anything…).

Something is missing…hey, didn’t Little E tell the Stepmonster where to put his dad’s sinking company? That’s right, Dale Earnhardt Jr. told Theresa (I Married Into Money) Earnhardt to take DEI and shove it. If he can’t have the company with his dad’s name, he’ll take his dad’s name and genes to a company that will actually build a competitive NASCAR racer, perhaps Richard Childress (ooohhh, the very thought of Little E running the Number 3 car for Richard Childress seems like scripture…).

What have I forgotten? No, the oven’s off. No, my keys are in my pocket. No, I paid that bill and I have the receipt in my barbecue-stained fingers. No, the doctor said that it wouldn’t spread if I kept putting the cream on it…er, never mind…

OHHHHH…now I remember. Somewhere, in agate type, amid the box scores and meaningless NFL transactions, somewhere on cable channels that only insomniacs, schizophrenics, and Republicans watch, the League Formerly Known As The NHL is having a little playoff. Something about a Cup…?

I’ve forgotten already. Besides, Ray Buchanan and Chris Landry are having a urinating contest about Michael Vick’s dogs…

When Athletes Play General Manager

When last I checked, Brett Favre’s job description with the Green Bay Packers did not include the words “general manager.” And unless there is a hidden contract provision in Donovan McNabb’s deal, he has no say-so in player personnel matters. But that didn’t stop either of them from openly questioning their team’s moves following the draft.

Favre, quoted in the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald, said that Randy Moss “was going to wipe his contract clean and sign for $3 million guaranteed…” The fact that Favre made this statement publicly should be further proof that concussions are a much larger problem in the NFL than we suspect, because this statement is just plain stupid.

In fact, Randy Moss was not going to wipe his contract clean, because had the Raiders not been able to swing a trade for the perpetually disgruntled receiver, they would have cut him before taking the cap hit for his enormous salary and shrinking production. Further, any potential trading partner wasn’t going to pay Moss the remaining $9 million on that deal either. If Moss wanted any money at all, he was going to “restructure” his current deal (read: take whatever he could get). That’s the reality of non-guaranteed contracts in the NFL: just because the money is on paper does not mean it’s in the bank.

But Favre would know that if he were a general manager, and not just a pop-up target behind a porous Green Bay offending, er, offensive line.

And in McNabb’s case, one wonders why he would ever claim to be shocked about the team drafting a quarterback, the position he occasionally plays when something isn’t broken. Three times in the past five seasons, McNabb has been injured and unable to finish the season, most recently with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his right knee that likely needs 12 months to heal…which makes one wonder about his availability for 2007, especially considering how quickly Daunte Culpepper has bounced back from a similar problem.

On top of that, McNabb turned 30 last season. So, let’s see: the franchise QB is fragile and getting old. Nope, I can’t see why the Eagles took a flyer on a signal caller in the second round either...

Quite frankly, both men sound like the guy on the next bar stool, except that they are supposed to be better informed. The New England Patriots are admittedly taking a risk on Randy Moss, a man that Sports Illustrated writer and Hall of Fame voter Paul Zimmerman unabashedly calls a “dog” for his penchant for taking plays off. Given Moss’ somnambulism of the past three seasons, and given that Moss’ addition wouldn’t help the league’s 26th ranked defense, the Packers can be excused for not picking him up.

The Eagles are not forgetting McNabb’s brilliant play on the field, but they also are more rightly concerned with the future of their franchise. Drafting a quarterback was eventually going to happen anyway, and doing so now is actually very smart because the kid doesn’t have to play right away…or, at least that’s the hope. If McNabb returns to his Pro Bowl form, the Eagles have the luxury of grooming the new guy until McNabb’s retirement. Considering his recent bout with injury, it sez so right here that McNabb’s career will not be as long as Vinnie Testaverde’s.

Meanwhile, both Favre and McNabb simply need to play football and leave the personnel decisions to the adults.

Reasonable Doubt, Dogs, and Michael Vick

It has been said that those who love either sausage or politics should not watch them being made.

This is where we find ourselves with regard to Michael Vick and the growing cloud of smoke coming from his Virginia residence where malfeasance may or may not have occurred.

It has been alleged that Vick is engaged in dog fighting. For the sake of any future trials in real courts, I must use the word alleged...because it hasn't been "proved" in a court of law yet.

See, in the Court of Public Opinion, where I am Judge, Jury, and Executioner, I am allowed and encouraged to take the following stands as scripture: where there's smoke, there's fire...and if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it's probably a duck. In the Court of Public Opinion, reasonable doubt is not the standard: reasonable "how the hell could it be otherwise?" is the standard.

Thus, when I hear about a website that promotes a breed of dogs known for fighting, and when I hear about a property in Virginia where upwards of 70 dogs were found emaciated and wounded, and when I hear that the same property in Virginia also revealed evidence of the kinds of equipment used to train fighting dogs, and THEN when I hear that all of the above are owned by one Michael Vick, and that one Michael Vick is always at the property, me being somewhat simple about such things, I'm thinking that Michael Vick is guilty of all of the above.

Here's where it gets twisted.

As Alonzo Harris of "Training Day" could tell us, it's not what you know, it's what you can prove.

By prove, we mean "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Enter prosecutor Gerald Poindexter.

Because he works for the state of Virginia, at the largess of the voting public, Mr. Poindexter keeps his job on the basis of his won-lost record. In other words, prosecutors who are at or around .500 in the pursuit of their sworn duties are probably not sworn in a second time...and, considering that prosecutors often have higher political goals in mind (one William Jefferson Clinton was once an Attorney General), most will only seek to prosecute those cases which are, and you'll pardon the sports jargon, "slam-dunk" cases.

But, you'll say, what the hell, he owned the property; he owned the dogs; he owned the training gear; and he even had a website, for (sexual activity)'s sake.

To which Gerald Poindexter might say: "All too true; however, unless we can incontrovertibly show him on the grounds and visibly abusing the animals in question, forcing them to perform acts which are illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we cannot prosecute him."

In other words, we need a Gil Grissom explanation, or we need video a bit more explicit than Pamela Anderson's...or Paris Hilton's...or Chyna's...or that chick from Survivor...or Kim Kardashian's...okay, I got a little sidetracked, so blame a guy...you get the point: we need the kind of evidence that NO ONE could say was fake...like that news lady one...okay, okay, I'm all better now.

We need the kind of evidence that a prosecutor looking for a promotion would try in a court of law...in other words, the kind of evidence that just doesn't exist outside of a movie on Oxygen.

Of course, Mr. Poindexter will go through the necessary motions, because heaven forbid that he appear to be less than diligent in the pursuit of his duties. He'll assign stolid men to the case, men who aren't at all swayed by fame, fortune, and the occasional bribe, and, by coincidence, haven't left their desks in over 17 years. They will bring him back a report that indeed confirms the malfeasance that has already been plastered on the covers of sports pages everywhere, and Mr. Poindexter will then proffer charges to someone we've never heard of.

Worse, you'd have an easier time connecting this person to Kevin Bacon than Michael Vick.

Thus, justice will be served, or at least greeted politely before being seated in the back, and Ron Mexico will continue to frustrate fantasy football owners the world over.

I wouldn't waste something like that on a dog.

You Are Ricky Williams

You are Ricky Williams.

You could have been one of the all-time great NFL running backs.

You came out of college as that rarest combination of size, speed, and sheer power that comes along once every Earl Campbell…

…except the Tyler Rose chose a weed of a different sort, one that is sold legally in little green cans, right next to the cigarettes.

Skoal brother, indeed.

You chose a weed of a different choice.

You are Ricky Williams, and you are possibly the dumbest S.O.B. not yet in captivity.

Oh, you’re stupid, alright, and I can prove it. In fact, I can give you a little over 8 million reasons why you bring trailer park IQs down…just ask the Dolphins. See, they want that signing bonus back, the one that you smoked up, because you didn’t render services as expected. And this, by the way, was after the Saints traded an entire draft to get you and then washed their hands of you when they picked up one Deuce “I Don’t Smoke Reefer” McAllister.

And all you had to do was put the Buddha down.

See, I don’t get that part. What is there about smoking an illegal drug that would make you lose a fortune?

Okay, honest admission time: I may have indulged while in college.

And so have a lot of us.

This doesn’t make it right. This just means that you aren’t the only one who has known someone who smelled like patchouli.

The difference is this: when we were graduating, and going to jobs that would give us the kind of urinalysis that NFL players regularly beat, we did something rather rash: we stopped smoking dope. We cleaned our systems out, we threw out the number to the hook-up, we peed in a little cup, and we were rewarded with 50 hour a week jobs that pay us 50 large per annum.

In other words, we quit smoking dope for jobs that would take us 144 years at 50 K per year to earn the $7.2 million that insults Lance Briggs this year...but I digress.

All you had to do was leave the Chronic alone until you retired.

Hell, you could have retired after your most recent contract if you wanted to. Once you were no longer an employee of a multi-billion dollar business that is covered by every news source known to man, once you were just another weirdo civilian with dreads and millions in the bank, you could have smoked enough reefer to bring Bob Marley back if you wanted to. You could have gone to Amster-friggin-dam, opened up a WalMart-sized hash bar, and smoked yourself silly every day up to and after your enshrinement in Canton and no one would have thought badly of you.

That’s where you misread the public. It’s not that we don’t like you, it’s just that we think you’re the kind of stupid that shouldn’t be allowed in public without a responsible adult.

Once again, and death is not an option: millions of dollars and a life of ease forever, or an ounce of Indo from a Deadhead named Skag?

One might think that this was a no-brainer…

…but apparently marijuana leaves you with no brain.

And now you’ve got to apply to Roger “Kennesaw Mountain” Goodell for reinstatement? (BWA-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAA)

It sez so right here that the herb will be legal before you carry a football again in the NFL.

You are Ricky Williams, forever cursed by the albatross of unrealized potential, a sad footnote who could have been a legendary icon.

Here’s hoping that the last ounce was worth it…and knowing that it wasn’t.

Questions Without Answers

So, Roger Clemens is a Yankee.

Again.

That this is simultaneously someone's fault and no one's fault is, as Terry Pratchett might say, merely an after-effect of "quantum."

There is much fault to be laid here. Amazingly enough, there is also no fault to be laid here. Fortunately, I've abused enough mind-altering substances that little things like reality and logic don't really matter right now.

All that matters is what is actually happening in spite of all apparent logic and reason, much the same way that bumblebees continue flying their daily rounds in spite of all that Sir Isaac Newton has taught us about why things that should fall do fall.

Such is the case with one Roger Clemens.

Never mind the fact that he has been and, until MUCH further notice, continues to be a first ballot Hall of Fame pitcher, a man with 348 career victories and 4600 strikeouts and, lest we forget, seven Cy Young Awards.

What matters is this: he will be 45 when he throws his next pitch in Yankee pinstripes.

That's 45 laps on what Shakespeare called "this mortal coil."

Baseball history is replete with pitchers who pitched well into their forties.

However, baseball history is NOT replete with pitchers who pitched well while pitching well into their forties.

This brings us to the curious case of Mr. Clemens. Mr. Clemens managed to win his seventh (!!) Cy Young award at the age of 42, which is only 18 (!!) years after he won his first. It's worth noting that he very nearly won his eighth last season, and might well have done so if his team had remembered to bring their bats to the games in which he started.

We are faced with a dilemma. On one hand, no one can beat the clock. On the other, we are not privy to Roger Clemens' clock.

You say "steroids," I say "Nolan Ryan."

I dare anyone to accuse the Von Ryan Express of taking anything more than vitamins, steak, the occasional beer, and a workout plan designed by Satan His Own Self...which, coincidentally enough, is all that Roger Clemens has been accused of. See, if you bother to look at ALL of baseball history, you'll find lots of pitchers who pitched well into their forties. Most of them pitched before the Forties, as irony would have it. And most of them were power pitchers.

Seems nature loves the simplicity of a fastball.

Which brings us back to Roger Clemens. Say what you will, but he really did pitch well for a Houston club that, according to Roger's friends in Katy, Texas, "couldn't hit the broad side of a red barn at high noon with a tailing wind." Heck, if half of the Astros could've hit Clemens' weight last season, he'd have Cy Young Number 8.

(This just in: having run out of sons to give it to, Clemens might have to consider a sperm bank...egad.)

And why am I talking so much about Roger Clemens? I have six words for you:

Carl Pavano. Yankees Opening Day Starter.

With the exception of some unrepeatable Italian and Puerto Rican that I last picked up in the Apple, there may be no fouler words in the greater NYC area than Carl Pavano.

This is why an elderly Clemens was able to hold George Steinbrenner at basically gunpoint. This is why Brian Cashman has hitched what's left of his reputation to a fading Texas star. The Red Sox outbid them for the last three free agent pitchers worth getting. The Astros gave up personal appearance clauses that Barry Bonds is about to fire his agent over (and which the Yankees still had to match). But the Yankees have the one thing that Clemens still wants: that World Series cachet.

See, the Rocket won his only World Series in pinstripes. When one considers what his career has been before and after that, it's not difficult to imagine him returning to the only team that won the whole thing with him pitching.

And the $28 million pro-rated? Well, there's two kinds of pitchers who can get that kind of money to show up in June.

There's Roger Clemens.

And there's everyone else who ain't Roger Clemens.

Now, all he has to to do is: Save Joe Torre's Job, Single-handedly Resuscitate The Yankee Pitching Staff, Win Every Game Between Here And The Trophy Ceremony, Stop Every Yankee Losing Streak, End Poverty, Cure Cancer, Solve Cold Fusion And Assasinate Hillary Clinton.

(Okay, that last one was kinda mine...kinda...)

It sez so right here that no one will ask The Rocket any steroid/HGH questions at all as he wins 14 games for the Bronx Bombers.

...at least, until that redacted document from the Kurt Radomski sting gets outed...

The Suds Rise To The Top

When we were a week into April and the Milwaukee Brewers were in first place, the common refrain was, "It's April. Relax. There's a lot of baseball left to play."

Well, now we're a week into May, and the Brewers have the best record in all of baseball and the best player (shortstop J.J. Hardy) in all of baseball. Now what?

Typically, teams that start well finish well. I'm not going to quote the statistics, but trust me: if your team wasn't within a decent week's play of first place by the end of April, history suggests that they won't be eligible for the playoffs by season's end. There's just too much ground to make up.

This brings me back to what must easily be the story of the young baseball season thus far: the Brew Crew is 21-10. Think about that. They are already 11 games over .500 for the season, and it only gets better.

With 131 games left, if the Brewers only play .500 ball, they still wind up with 85 wins, which will be more than enough to win the NL Central and make the playoffs. For the currently last place Cardinals to do better, the Dead Birds would need to play .770 baseball for the rest of the season just to tie the Brewers.

Now you understand why I'm burying the Cardinals. With staff ace Chris Carpenter on the shelf and a suddenly mortal Albert Pujols, they have no chance to make up that kind of ground over five months. They just can't sustain that kind of clip.

The Cubs, on the other hand, are a manageable five games out of first place as of this writing, and everything points to Alfonso Soriano rounding into form just as the weather warms up (and the wind blows out) at Wrigley. They will bear watching as the season unfolds, but remember this: while they are a decent week's play out of first, they are also a miserable week's play out of contention. Let the Lovable Losers go on one of their patented June Swoon losing streaks of seven or more games and they can forget about the division as well.

And we haven't even addressed the main reasons for the upstart Brewers' success: all that talent on the roster is finally coming together.

There has never been any doubt about Ben Sheets' ability (or Chris Capuano's, for that matter). Prince Fielder is already a better hitter than his old man was, and he can match his prodigious pop for distance on home runs as well. But, truthfully, who saw Rickie Weeks coming? Jeff Suppan? J.J. Hardy? Hardy, in particular, shows absolutely no signs of slowing down after a torrid stretch to begin the season, and is even managing to outshine the stellar Jose Reyes.

The young guys are playing with confidence, their pitchers are dominant, and the division is theirs for the taking.

Looks like it might be time to hoist one for the Brew Crew...