[I’m no Perez Hilton, but hey, I can MS Paint with the best of ‘em. —Ed.]

I’m not going to lie: I love to loathe Lance Armstrong.  I’m also not going to lie about why: he once broke Sheryl Crow’s heart and I can’t stand to see my girl Sheryl in pain.  AND THEN SHE GOT CANCER — there’s no real correlation there, just sayin’.

Anyway here’s the 60-second version of Lance Armstrong Effs With All Our Emotions And Then Sh*ts On His Fans, His Sport, His Charity, His Legacy:

• 1971-1995: Born, raised, triathlon successes, cycling for Team Motorola; notable achievements include 1993 World Championship, Clásica de San Sebastián in 1995, an overall victory in the penultimate Tour DuPont and a handful of stage victories in Europe, including the stage to Limoges in the Tour de France.
• 1996: Advanced testicular cancer discovered; the cancer had spread to his brain and lungs; has extensive chemotherapy and emergency surgery. Remission declared in February, 1997, five months post-diagnosis. Founds Livestrong cancer-fighting charity: yellow bracelets not yet ubiquitous.
• 1998-2005: Serious cycling resumes for US Postal Service team. It would almost be easier for me to list what he DIDN’T win in those years, but suffice to say, Armstrong wins the Tour de France seven times.  SEVEN TIMES. Yellow bracelets ring every wrist in America. Armstrong retires.
• 2009-2011: Hubris sets in. Armstrong returns to cycling during the 2009 for Team Astana. Who? Team Astana. You know. Like in Kazakhstan. [Looking back, I wonder if he wouldn’t have blown his drug cover if he had stayed retired.] And then some other team in 2010. He “decides” to retire in February, 2011. “Decides” because he’s under federal investigation for doping.
  
• October 22, 2012: The International Cycling Union (a hypocritical, humorless sports governing body rivaled only in its bungling of steroids-related cases, and total lack of irony, by Major League Baseball and the No Fun League National Football League) formally strips Armstrong of all seven of his TdF titles and bars him from cycling for the rest of his life. He’d already lost his Olympic medal and all of his sponsors. He bows out of his own Livestrong charity so that corporate sponsors will continue to support it.  SEE KIDS, DRUGS KILL ENDORSEMENT DEALS.
• January, 2013: In the most annoying move ever, he grants an exclusive interview to confess his doping…TO OPRAH WINFREY.  Which feels like a dis on ESPN, not that they need the help with ratings or anything. Ever more annoying, Oprah’s not on basic cable anymore — I don’t even think my rural upstate New York cable provider carries her channel, and certainly, the Dude I Live With and I wouldn’t watch the shenanigans anyway. 

Which brings us to today, when Lance’s asshaberdashery (go along with me on that one) got even worse with this headline from ABC: 

Lance Armstrong Won’t Deal With US Anti-Doping Agency

No, of course he’s not.  And, in a way, I’m glad.  If he had cooperated in any way, there was a chance the USADA could have helped to get his lifetime ban shortened (since “lifetime” is kind of a moving target, I’m not sure what shortening that means). And, frankly, Armstrong doesn’t deserve to come back.

According to ABC’s report:

Armstrong has already admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey to a career fueled by doping and deceit. But to get a break from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, all he had to do was tell his story to those who police sports doping. The deadline was today, and Armstrong now says he won’t do it.

“For several reasons, Lance will not participate in USADA’s efforts to selectively conduct American prosecutions that only demonize selected individuals while failing to address the 95 percent of the sport over which USADA has no jurisdiction,” said Tim Herman, Armstrong’s longtime lawyer. “Lance is willing to cooperate fully and has been very clear: He will be the first man through the door, and once inside will answer every question, at an international tribunal formed to comprehensively address pro cycling.”

But the “international tribunal” Armstrong is anxious to cooperate with has one major problem: It doesn’t exist.

Apparently the USADA was “shocked.” I suspect most of the rest of the sports community is, well, not.

STAY CLASSY, LANCE ARMSTRONG.  And welcome to the Noted Asshats Club.  You’ve set the standards very high for future club members.

-A.

girlfriendsguide:

Statistics being unable to lie, you’re probably watching, being forced to watch, or otherwise hearing all around you (on Facebook, in your favorite newspaper, in your daily dose of LOLcats) today’s Big Game. This Big Game is regularly the most watched thing on television each year.  

Yeah, we can pretend it’s about Beyonce or the commercials, but it’s really about the Dudes Legion who will watch this Big Game no matter which two teams of juiced-up headcases face off in some random city the first weekend in February.

The problems in football that make me love to hate it (and, honestly, hate to love it) are wide-ranging and obvious and troublesome and start arguments between me and The Dude I Live With. The mismanagement at the top, the arbitrary fining and banning of some, the forgiving of egregious breaches of ethics (or the law) for others, the pitiful way the players are treated when they are no longer players (lack of pensions, healthcare, etc.), the way the league has consistently failed to acknowledge the severity of the spate of traumatic brain injuries that have led to massive depression and mood swings in a wide sample of ex-players, at times having tragic results. 

Honestly, sometimes it feels like the National Football League is in a race to the bottom with the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

So, with this list of heavy topics for tonight’s festivities, what am I selecting to focus on?  WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST SAY SUPER BOWL? WHY CAN’T WE JUST CALL IT SUPER BOWL?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, now that I’m about to point it out, you will notice it everywhere. TechDirt has done the lion’s share of the work on this topic, but let me break it down to the essentials:

• Advertisers are not allowed to use the trademarked name “Super Bowl” — that’s why your local pizza shop has to call it “The Big Game” — the NFL is litigious and will make it happen. Only businesses that pay can use the official name.
• The NFL once tried to trademark “The Big Game” once officials realized advertisers were calling it that to circumvent calling it the Super Bowl.
• If you have a lot of people over your house to watch the Super Bowl, you are technically breaking the law. Even if you’re a church.

Before I start to sound like a football-hating harpy, let me just say this: when I watched the Alicia Keys sing the National Anthem and saw some of the young players on the sidelines with tears in their eyes, it restored a little of my reverence for the game so many hold up high tonight.

Now, then. How many days until pitchers and catchers?

One thing I learned yesterday is that the Super Bowl is a really good time to post something that you don’t want anyone to see. #duh #tumblrfail

Statistics being unable to lie, you’re probably watching, being forced to watch, or otherwise hearing all around you (on Facebook, in your favorite newspaper, in your daily dose of LOLcats) today’s Big Game. This Big Game is regularly the most watched thing on television each year.  

Yeah, we can pretend it’s about Beyonce or the commercials, but it’s really about the Dudes Legion who will watch this Big Game no matter which two teams of juiced-up headcases face off in some random city the first weekend in February.

The problems in football that make me love to hate it (and, honestly, hate to love it) are wide-ranging and obvious and troublesome and start arguments between me and The Dude I Live With. The mismanagement at the top, the arbitrary fining and banning of some, the forgiving of egregious breaches of ethics (or the law) for others, the pitiful way the players are treated when they are no longer players (lack of pensions, healthcare, etc.), the way the league has consistently failed to acknowledge the severity of the spate of traumatic brain injuries that have led to massive depression and mood swings in a wide sample of ex-players, at times having tragic results. 

Honestly, sometimes it feels like the National Football League is in a race to the bottom with the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

So, with this list of heavy topics for tonight’s festivities, what am I selecting to focus on?  WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST SAY SUPER BOWL? WHY CAN’T WE JUST CALL IT SUPER BOWL?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, now that I’m about to point it out, you will notice it everywhere. TechDirt has done the lion’s share of the work on this topic, but let me break it down to the essentials:

• Advertisers are not allowed to use the trademarked name “Super Bowl” — that’s why your local pizza shop has to call it “The Big Game” — the NFL is litigious and will make it happen. Only businesses that pay can use the official name.
• The NFL once tried to trademark “The Big Game” once officials realized advertisers were calling it that to circumvent calling it the Super Bowl.
• If you have a lot of people over your house to watch the Super Bowl, you are technically breaking the law. Even if you’re a church.

Before I start to sound like a football-hating harpy, let me just say this: when I watched the Alicia Keys sing the National Anthem and saw some of the young players on the sidelines with tears in their eyes, it restored a little of my reverence for the game so many hold up high tonight.

Now, then. How many days until pitchers and catchers?

This guy is Andy Murray. He’s a 25-year-old Scottish tennis player currently ranked #1 in Britain and #4 in the world. He briefly held the #1 world ranking in 2009. Looks like a nice guy, huh?  Like maybe he was the smart kid in your high school economics and he lettered in a sport and maybe also was the prom king. OK, scratch that scenario — if he was that guy, I’d probably not like him very much.

Anyway, the story here is that today at Wimbledon [one of the events in the grand slam of tennis, in London — officially called The Championships, Wimbledon at the All England Club], Roger Federer, the famed record-setting tennis player who was world #1 for a long time, defeated the current #1, Novak Djokovic, and people are saying this is Andy Murray’s best chance to win the trophy that looks like a sterling silver kettle of fish (the women’s trophy looks like a giant cheese plate).

The backstory here is that no male Briton has won Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936 — since Wimbledon was first televised in 1937, that means that the British public at large has never seen one of its own men win. (The women have done better — Virginia Wade was the last British lady to win it in 1977.)

Murray is playing the fifth-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga right now in the semi-finals. If you can get past Patrick McEnroe’s constant rhapsodizing about how fast and strong and talented Tsonga is and how he looks like an American Football linebacker and isn’t he great and ooh, Tsonga — if you don’t mind that style of  constant ass-kissing, then I recommend turning it on — it’s on ESPN and ESPN3.com. Whoever wins, goes on to face Roger Federer in the final.

Good Wimbledon trivia to know: 

• Wimbledon is the only major still played on grass, which is the game’s original surface.  That’s how “lawn tennis” got its name. Although, by the end of the tournament, it looks more like dirt. 
• The longest Wimbledon match ever, by far, occurred on June 22, 2010, between John Isner [American] and Nicolas Mahut [French] and lasted 11 hours, 5 minutes. It was called due to darkness twice, before Isner finally defeated Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68 for a total of 183 games. Called the Endless Game by many, it was immortalized in song by folk singer Dan Bern (in fact, on Dan Bern’s Live in New York CD, you can hear my embarrassingly obnoxious laugh on that track — I was sitting in the front row).
• The All England Club finally got an $88 million retractable roof over the center court in 2009.  Because they apparently figured out that IT RAINS A LOT IN ENGLAND.

EDIT: ANDY MURRAY DEF TSONGA 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 AND WILL FACE FEDERER IN THE FINALS! A Briton in the final since 1938.  Brilliant.

So, the Dude I live with did some freelance research* (freelance in the sense that nobody asked him to look it up or share what he found, yet he happily did it anyway) and tells me the following things that will be sure to impress your own dude’s idiot friends when they come around, matching their sneakers to their jerseys:

• R.A. Dickey, the knuckleball pitcher for the New York Mets, leads the major leagues in wins, strike-outs, Earned Run Average (ERA) and Walks & Hits Per Innings Pitched (WHIP). He is only one inning behind Matt Cain (who pitched a perfect game a week or so back) of the San Francisco Giants in total innings pitched for this year. He also recently had back-to-back games where he gave up only a single hit (called a one-hitter).
• There were nine home runs in the Yankees-Braves game at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. And the Braves had most of them, beating the Yanks 10-5.
• Roger Clemens was once thrown out of a postseason game in the second inning for arguing balls-and-strikes. (Later this week, we’ll take a look at Clemens’ acquittal of perjury by a jury of his peers. So they must have been a jury of 12 steroidal megalomaniacs?  Where’d they findthoseguys?)
• College football is moving closer to have a national championship game for the first time ever. Want to hear a really boring but impassioned conversation?  Ask a group of guys in college tee shirts about the college bowl game system.  Then order a tall drink because you’ll probably be there awhile.
• Rob Hennigan, the new general manager of the Orlando Magic basketball team, graduated from Emerson College in 2004.  Which means he’s 30 years old, and the youngest general manager in the NBA.
• On ESPN.com, they’re already touting the Brooklyn Nets…hey, didn’t those guys used to be in New Jersey?

Now go forth and impress.

Andrea

* The Dude would like me to point out that much of his research was in the service of his sports spot on our community radio station. You can catch the podcast of his spots here.  He seriously knows all the things.

Well, if you’re like me, you’ve been alternating time between the NBA finals and the fascinating season of baseball of which we are just about at the halfway point. My team, the New York Metropolitans baseball club is having a truly interesting season (mildly put) but I’ll save that for another post.

Which clears the way for us to talk about the subtext behind this guy and the reason he’s a) dressed like a zombie, and b) wearing the duds of a dead franchise, the SuperSonics which, up until four years ago, played ball in Seattle.

This is Seattle native Colin Baxter. He’s got a long memory, and some excellent self-face painting skills. But, let’s back up for a second to look at just why Baxter flew down to the NBA finals, made up his face to become a member of the legion of the undead, sat in a prime seat (see crowd photo) and hexed the Oklahoma City Thunder all last evening, until they let an imposing lead over the Miami Heat slip between James Harden’s fingers.

The Pacific Northwest loves basketball — the Dude I live with and I were just talking about this last night in the vein of “cities with the best basketball fans who still show up for the games even when the team is on a years-long dry spell.” We struggled to think for a moment, until I said “Portland!” somewhat triumphantly. The Portland TrailBlazers have some amazing fans.

And so did Seattle.  What Seattle did not have was leadership, honest management or forthright owners. They had their team essentially stolen out from under them by, depending on who you believe, the CEO of Starbucks or a crafty new owner working in cahoots with a team-moving-happy-league commissioner, David Stern.

Now, anyone who has had a conversation about basketball with me, knows that I have the utmost respect for the man at the top of the NBA organization, David Stern. This is because I feel he makes canny, smart moves to keep the league relevant, exciting, and accessible. But what I saw in Colin Baxter’s equally canny and smart docko about the Sonics “leaving” Seattle to be reborn as the Thunder of Oklahoma City, gave me pause.

Essentially, it breaks down to this: the NBA and the owners of the Sonics colluded to force the city of Seattle to either a) use taxpayer money to fund a new, larger arena, or b) kiss the Sonics goodbye.

But between the lines unfolds a story of deception by the owners, current and (perhaps) previous, perpetrated on the city and the fans. The implication is that the current ownership knew the city wouldn’t pony up the dollars (during the deepest part of the current recession, in 2008) for a new arena, but pushed this as a way to keep the team, making the move look legitimate when the city eventually had to turn the NBA and the Sonics ownership down.

The move to OK City had been planned, Baxter’s Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team concludes, going back to 2005, when Hurricane Katrina forced the New Orleans Hornets to Oklahoma City for a portion of its home games. Basketball was a hit in Oklahoma City, and Clayton Bennett, the head of the group that bought the Sonics from Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, sought a way to bring the Sonics there, despite having (allegedly) given Schultz a good faith promise to keep the team in Seattle.

It’s more involved than that, and with much more heartache for Seattle fans, but I don’t want to give it all away: Sonicsgate was too good a documentary. The Dude and I just happened to catch it on CNBC and we were positively riveted. I highly recommend it.

Seattle is still pissed off four years later. I can’t say I fully understand what the emotion is like: I live in New York, which tends to get teams rather than lose them, at least since the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York baseball Giants fled us mid-20th-century. But I was born a Knick fan, and so I know what it is to love the team but loathe the ownership. And if the Dolan family ever schemed to take the Knicks somewhere else, I know I would be getting tattoos and drawing signs and picketing Madison Square Garden, and stalking David Stern, which I imagine would involve a lot of hiding in plain sight.

Bottom line: I’d watch Sonicsgate with your own dude on your own couch. You’ll both dig it, because it’s interesting for you, and it’s about sports intrigue for him.

**

Subtext is a series that looks at issues sports nuts seem to care about and talk about a lot, without slowing down to inform people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

OK, so not a great evening for New York sports, generally speaking. Leaving aside the lone bright spot of the Mets rolling over the Phillies 10-6 in Philadelphia last night, here’s the shameful rundown:

• The Rangers have to play a game 7.
• The Yankees went down to the Rays 4-1 at Yankee Stadium.
• Meanwhile their legendary closer Mariano Rivera developed a blood clot that’s going to complicate his recovery from a torn ACL that’s already put him out for the rest of the season.

And, finally, the topic of today’s Subtext: the Knicks went down to the Heat 106-94 in game 5 of that series, closing them out of the NBA playoffs.

But the real story here is how the Knicks have never been so good, while being so bad at the same time. Here’s what I mean.

When the season began, everyone’s hopes were stupidly high.  I predicted, in a now infamous-around-my-household boldly shouted statement (that I repeated over and over again) that the Knicks would go 50-16. The season had been shortened due to the lock-out* and I just felt that with Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire and a cast of supporting characters behind them, the Knicks might have had their due.

It’s like there’s a sports god up there, listening for the sh*t I say just to be able to prove whatever I think incorrect in a truly epic fashion.  (Like how I thought Jason Bay might have been the answer to the Mets problems a few years ago.)

The Knicks started out meh, continued meh and then, all of a sudden BOTH STOUDEMIRE AND ANTHONY WERE INJURED.  Well, I don’t care how many handsome guys like Tyson Chandler you’ve got, dude can’t carry a team by his lonely self there, so pack it in.

And then Jeremy Lin stepped forward from the miasma and chaos that is a 10-day NBA contract (that’s a thing — players can be called up from the Development League for 10-day-long contracts — the Development League is the equivalent to the minor leagues in Baseball) and RULED EVERYBODY’S FACE.  They won! They won! They kept winning!

And then the superstars came back, and they kind of stopped winning.  Coach Mike D’Antoni couldn’t work a system with both Lin and the Stoudemire/Anthony contingent that could both score and defend. Things got rocky.  Then Lin got injured and was out for the rest of the season. D’Antoni “resigned” (read: GOT CANNED but stepped aside prior to the canning), assistant Mike Woodson took over.

I lost hope; started watching more Los Angeles Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder games.

But, because the NBA playoffs essentially include every team but the Bobcats, Hornets, Timberwolves and Wizards, the Knicks made it to the playoffs. To face LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the rest of the MIAMI-EFFING-HEAT.

So, to their credit, they won at least a single game.  It was never really competitive, and you have to wonder if James & Wade, who are buddies with Carmelo Anthony, just let him have that as a gimme so the series wouldn’t look like the total blowout it very much was.

On the bright side, I love Tyson Chandler and as long as I get to look at him next season, there’s still hope.

—A.

* The lockout occurred when management and the players’ union disagreed on, basically, money. How much should be shared, what rights should be distributed, the typical money issues that arise between labor & management when both are standing to gain jillions of dollars. It shortened the season from the usual 82 games, down to 66.

**

Subtext is a series that looks at issues sports nuts seem to care about and talk about a lot, without slowing down to inform people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

If you’re like me, (although if you’re still reading this, you probably are) you sometimes wonder how the dude who shares the couch with you can DVR a game, and use the time during the commercials to check in on the other game he’s interested in EVEN THOUGH THAT ORIGINAL GAME IS RECORDED AND HE COULD EASILY BE FAST FORWARDING OVER THE COMMERCIALS TO GET BACK TO THE GAME.

Well, here’s the Rosetta Stone to unlock the answer to that one: it’s because there are simply too many things going on at once.  Sure, he could miss all of the other things going on but then you’d just have to sit through the SportsCenter recap, when all you really wanted to watch tonight was the finale of Downton Abbey that’s been sitting in the DVR FOR-LIKE-EVER (Oh, Dame Maggie Smith, you just kill me), but he brought home dinner and did the dishes and you’re going to be a good sport about it (PUNS!) because, after all, love is full of little favors.

So here are the things you may be flipping through this evening.

Baseball - Happening Now
Mets @ Phillies
Nationals @ Pirates
Rays @ Yankees

Baseball - Happening Later
Marlins @ Astros
Red Sox @ Royals
Angels @ Twins
Cardinals @ Diamondbacks
Tigers @ Mariners
Padres @ Dodgers

Baseball - Delayed Due to Inclement Weather
Rangers @ Orioles
White Sox @ Indians

Basketball - Happening Now
Knicks @ Heat [game 5, first round of NBA playoffs]
- The Heat (stars include LeBron James, Dwyane Wade & Chris Bosh) are up 3-1 in the series over the Knicks (stars include Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler and Jeremy Lin of “Linsanity” fame). Should the Knicks win, they will play a game 6. If the Heat win, they will move on to the next round of the playoffs.

Basketball - Happening Later
Clippers @ Grizzlies [game 5, first round of NBA playoffs]

Hockey - Happening Now
Rangers @ Capitals [game 6, first round of Stanley Cup playoffs]
- Game 5 included a triple overtime win by the Rangers. The series currently has the Rangers besting the Capitals 3-2. A win tonight would advance them to the next round of the playoffs, while a loss will force a game 7, which is ALWAYS exciting.

Happy watching!

-A.

Who’s got two thumbs and is named Tim Duncan? This guy.

The San Antonio Spurs, the basketball team for which Tim Duncan plays, is pretty remarkable in its consistency. Around my house, we always refer to the Spurs as the sleeper team.  You rarely see them make big headlines, rarely see highlights of unbelievable plays they make on SportsCenter, but every year they seem to roar into the NBA postseason.

And this guy is the reason they’re able to do it.  Tim Duncan is bound for the basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. He’s played his entire career (1998-present) for the Spurs, and only once during his tenure did they not make the playoffs (2000). Unlike some flashier players in the league, Duncan avoids the spotlight and is generally known as one of nicest guys playing the game today.

Maybe that good karma will again pay off this year.  The Spurs have not won a conference title since 2007, which is also the last year they won the NBA Finals championship. But they’re on their way, sweeping the Utah Jazz 4-0 in the first round of the play-offs.

Stay tuned to see what this guy does next.

—A.

An athlete is said to be in his “contract year” when his contract will expire at the end of the current season of play. This applies to the big four sports (baseball, basketball, football & hockey), but primarily baseball and basketball.

It’s often said with a bit of a sneer by sports fans, intended to indicate that athletes play harder when the chance for a new, pricier contract is on the line.

For example, slugger Albert Pujols’ contract with the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team ended at the end of last season. So, last season was his contract year.

Pujols, who was with the Cardinals for 11 seasons, is now on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (Yes, that’s really their name. Yes, yes, I know. Long and stupid. I know.). Last year, Albert hit 37 home runs in 147 games. That averages out to about one home run every four games. We’re about 30 games into the 2012 season and, so far, after receiving a fat contract that locks him up with the Angels for the next decade, Albert has hit one home run and is batting .190. This means that just about 80% of his turns at-bat result with him swinging the bat, and ending up back in the dugout afterward.

In a perfect world, I’d like to believe nobody would actually play lazy.  Most of these guys play their hearts out because COME ON.  IT’S THEIR DREAM.  It’s the stuff little leaguers of any sport dream about in their pint-sized racecar-shaped beds. But the numbers — overall, not just in Albert’s case — do seem to indicate that athletes do better when a crap-ton of money is on the line. Seems like a bit of an ethical failure to this deflated fan.

Anyway, there’s your definition. Contract Year: the season after which a contract expires, during which time a player attempts to do his very best, in the hope of making more money with a new contract.

—A.

P.S. If this kind of thing interests you at the psychological level, may I suggest a long, but interesting, interview between sportswriter Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell on the subject of, among other things, why some player come to training camp every year overweight.

**

If you’re an outsider looking in on the sports world, terms like this will drive you nuts. It’s like ESPN invented their own language, and it’s much, much more widely spoken than, say, Esperanto.

This series examines a bunch of terms widely understood by sports lovers, ESPN analysts, the guys on the local news that talk about sports before the dorky weather dude with the map comes on, and the guy you sit next to on the couch, who occasionally lets one of these words slip out of his mouth like you know what the heck he’s talking about.