Well, I can’t quite help myself this morning. Been busy showing my wife and her Danish relatives the sights in an “undisclosed location.” But when my wife showed me a story on AOL this morning — a real doozy filled with snarky comments galore, it merits at least a brief comment.
The sports writers at AOL must’ve had a real good time putting all their nastygrams together that they call Greatest Sports Excuses. I suppose it helps if you don’t really understand the stories, the nuances, or bother too much to do a bit of research.
Yes, some athletes have offered up stories that are true whoppers. Especially those that have denied up one wall and down the other that they were clean, only to sheepishly admit later that, well, yes, they’d been doping, or “intending to dope” or whatever.
It’s easy to excoriate people, especially famous people, when they’re charged with an offense. Whether it’s drunk driving, doping, spending time with people other than their spouses, whatever the offense — we, as a people, love to hear about the high and mighty brought low. Sick. Sick. Sick.
And it’s easy to retell distortions, half-truths, and outright lies that have been perpetuated through numerous stories without bothering to check your facts before you publish. Give the devil his due, at least the writer bothered to include a link to Jeff Adams explanation of the doping case he’s involved in. But in writing about Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, he or she didn’t bother to do much beyond repeating half-truths about their cases.
Some of the other snarky comments in the story may not be so bad, journalistically speaking. At least a few of the stories they reference don’t have to do with doping. But it must be a slow news day for a lazy reporter when stories like that appear. They do nothing but further harm to the people mentioned, some of whom have fallen off the radar in recent times. What was the point — other than to fill space, that is?
Wheww. Thought you are supposed to be on holiday chilling. Kind of underlines the credibility of sports writers. Don’t know if you caught the story about the new book by David Walsh sports writer/fictional writer? Apparently he is on his way to creating the Harry Potter septology of sport. Three books on Armstrong and going strong. All sorts of wizardry and such in the book i imagine. Nice to see LA come out swinging as i have not read or heard a lot about him for a while. The suspense for Walsh’s 7th book is almost unberable. Wait and see.
Lamest Excuse for a sports column (can I call it a column?) ever.
Hey Rant, do you ride Campy?