[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.

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.

Oh, hockey: that misunderstood stepchild of the sports world. My husband Jay, whose favorite sport is hockey, issues this quote after reading my subject line:

“Hockey is best experienced live. TV doesn’t do it justice.”

As true as that may be, get over it. Who’s watching hockey? DIEHARDS, that’s who. DIEHARDS WHO EFFING LOVE HOCKEY.  So, it’s a good thing that there are some classic hockey teams currently playing in the National Hockey League post-season.

I like to think I know a thing or two about hockey.  I’ve seen “Miracle” and “The Mighty Ducks” and “Slapshot” and I remember very well D.B. Sweeney’s line in “The Cutting Edge” about how his character loved the smell of the ice. And, growing up on Long Island, I sat through my fair share of Islander games. The history of the National Hockey League is super complicated, so let’s break it down to some bullet points:

• The NHL was formed in 1917; its championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, predates the formation of the league by 24 years.
• Dudes will often refer to the “Original Six” meaning the six classic teams that have been around the longest. They are the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens.
• The Montreal Canadiens have won more Stanley Cups than any other team with 24 (but none in the 21st century).
• There are 82 games an NHL season.
• Hockey players are generally the nicest, and this probably owes to the fact that there are few larger-than-life superstars in the league. This is also what makes it a distant fourth in terms of audience size when compared with Football, Basketball and Baseball.
• The Stanley Cup — Jay claims, and this is a big claim here, that the Stanley Cup is the best physical trophy in all of sports. It’s three feet tall, and has the names of every winner engraved on it. It also has a somewhat colorful history in terms of which players have drunk from it, slept in bed with it, taken it to strip clubs, and just plain lost the thing. The dudes that are charged with taking care of it now make sure there’s less debauchery involving the cup than in the old days; these guys also wear white gloves to touch it.
• There are currently 30 hockey teams in the NHL, in far-flung places like Arizona and Nashville.

I hope those are some easily digestible facts — it’s hard to pare it down when you have a maniac sitting next to you, urging you to put in every bit of minutiae Tumblr will hold.

**

Here’s the hockey that you might run into on TV tonight:

7:30 pm - NBC Sports Network - New York Rangers vs. Washington Capitals (in Washington)

In this series, which is a best-of-seven series, the Rangers are leading the Capitals 3-2. So far, the series is notable for a rare triple overtime game (which is basically like playing two full games back-to-back in terms of length of the game).

—A.

I don’t want to burn you ladies out on baseball — it is, generally speaking, a long season that often feels like a wasteland, and there are so many teams and games going on simultaneously, that I could pretty much fill your head with a lot of crap about Designated Hitters*, and trades and rookies and injuries and whatnot. But, in the interest of keeping you current enough to crack wise on the day’s major stories, I present to you another baseball-related installment of This Guy.

This guy is Josh Hamilton. And, like his arm says, he has priorities. He got these priorities after running face-first into drug and alcohol addiction. He got sober in 2005, prior to making it to the big leagues, but slipped up in 2009 and again in the 2011-2012 off-season. It’s the kind of thing where a handsome, extremely talented and seemingly nice guy makes these kinds of errors in judgment and the sports media kind of holds its breath hoping he won’t go the way of an athletic Lindsay Lohan.

Anyway, he apologized to his fans, his wife and his current team, the Texas Rangers (who play in Arlington, a suburb of Dallas) and went on to begin this season in a pretty awesome manner.

Tonight, he hit FOUR HOME RUNS.  FOUR TWO-RUN HOME RUNS. Some math:

4 home runs x (1 man on base + Hamilton at plate=2 runs per home run) = 8 runs batted in (RBIs, sometimes called “ribbies”)

To give you some perspective on what an accomplishment like this means:

• This is the first time anyone has hit four home runs in a single game since 2003.
• The Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles (this year, a very good team) in their own stadium, 10-3. Of the ten runs the Rangers scored, Hamilton was responsible for eight of them.
• Nobody has ever hit five home runs in a game…yet.
• Last year, Hamilton was injured for part of the season. He finished the 2011 season with 25 home runs. After tonight, he has already hit 14 HOME RUNS.  For real?

My cynical husband seems to think, as he sits here next to me critiquing my every written word, that Hamilton is going to have a great year, because his contract is up at the end of the 2012 season. (That’s a thing dudes seem to care about.  We’ll touch back on that subject later.) Some simple math reveals that, if he were to play all 162 games that the Rangers will play this season, he’d hit 84 home runs. Since that is 11 more than has EVER been hit in a season, this is unlikely, but a good talking point if you feel like impressing some dudes who are boxing you out of their baseball conversation. 

The dude-dominated sports blogs and ESPN are going nuts for this story, so expect to see it absolutely everywhere tomorrow.

—A.

*Designated Hitters are guys who don’t play a position on the field, they just come up to bat — the American League has them, the National League does not. The National League has their pitchers come up to hit instead.

This guy is Cole Hamels. Before you get distracted by his perfect eyebrows, let me tell you why he’s all over the sporting news today. He’s a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies (Which is, what, shorthand for Philadelphians? Maybe? The Philadelphia Philadelphians? That aside…)

Last night, the Phillies were playing the Washington Nationals at their stadium, in Washington D.C. Hamels was pitching to Bryce Harper, the Nationals’ 19-year-old much-hyped-possible-future-superstar, in the first inning of the game, when he hit Harper on the butt with a pitch.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Pitchers plunk batters on occasion, it hurts although usually not enough to injure the batter, and the batter gets to advance to first base. But Hamels is about to start serving a five-game suspension and is subject to a fine for beaning Harper Sunday night. Why?  Because when the media came around to Hamels’ locker after the game, he said this boneheaded thing:

“I was trying to hit him,” the two-time All-Star lefty said Sunday night. “I’m not going to deny it. I’m not trying to injure the guy. They’re probably not going to like me for it, but I’m not going to say I wasn’t trying to do it. I think they understood the message, and they threw it right back. That’s the way, and I respect it.”

Editorially speaking, I’d have to say Hamels’ follow-up statement is what got him in trouble.

“That’s something I grew up watching, that’s kind of what happened. So I’m just trying to continue the old baseball because I think some people are kind of getting away from it,” Hamels said. “I remember when I was a rookie the strike zone was really, really small and you didn’t say anything because that’s the way baseball is.

“But I think unfortunately the league’s protecting certain players and making it not that old-school, prestigious way of baseball,” Hamels added. [via ESPN.com]

Baseball is ruled by a long-time sourpuss named Bud Selig, who doesn’t like players criticizing the league, its talented young prospects, or his ridiculous old man haircut.

Among my male friends, Harper is generally a noted asshat, despite having only played eight games. One buddy loathes the way he seems to pitch off his hat while running, intentionally dramatizing his way around the bases. And then there was his GQ interview, where the pottymouth was practically placed in Cooperstown for his bombastic personality by Will Leitch. I mean, Leitch called him the “Mozart child prodigy of the great game.” FOR REAL?

But, anyway, the five-game suspension is not as bad as it sounds. Major league starting pitchers (often called “starters” meaning they are the pitchers that start the game — when they get tired, or throw the amount of pitches the coaches think should be their limit, the “relief pitchers” come in, so named because they relieve the starting pitchers of having to pitch) are generally on a staff of four or five men, which means they pitch every fourth or fifth game. Given travel days and days off, and because Hamels pitched last night, he will most likely not miss his next “start.”

But it makes for a good story — and you can tell it’s a good story because UGH WAS IT EVERYWHERE TODAY! And maybe, it should be noted, the Phillies beat the Nationals 9-3.

“In the post,” is a basketball term. In basketball, there are three players who play the “front court” meaning they play closest to the basket. Check out this diagram. The power forward in the number 4 spot is the guy who plays down “in the post,” or is “posted up” under the basket (with their backs facing the basket).

During the course of a play, a guy standing in the number 4 spot, even if he is not a power forward, can be said to be down “in the post.”

Power forwards are typically tall guys with long arms — current power forwards include Kevin Garnett (who plays for the Boston Celtics), Tim Duncan (who is a longtime PF for the San Antonio Spurs), Amar’e Stoudemire (on the New York Knicks), Pau Gasol (of the Los Angeles Lakers) and Dirk Nowitzki (of the Dallas Mavericks, who won the NBA championship in 2011).

This is one you’ll probably never need to use yourself, but it’s definitely said by the play-by-play announcers at least twice a game, every game.

—A.

**

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.