Don't Tread On Me

I'm Not Bitter, I'm Just Going to Destroy You All: well, I see Alexander Vinokorouv is finally talking, and my, has he gone all Miss Manners, in a death-penalty-for-rudeness sort of way. Specifically, it was so ungentlemanly of his fellow riders not to call to offer him moral support after he completely !@#$ed Andreas Kloden at the Tour (and oh right, got pegged for blood doping) that any of these boys who are laughing at him now are going to be absolutely wetting themselves in terror in short order, because as soon as he pens his memoirs--and he's ready--any one of you riders who thinks naive little Vino wasn't paying attention to what the rest of you smug snow-white little !@#$s who never actually tested poz were doing for the last 10 years is gonna find out, when he personally names you, that you were wrong, wrong, wrong. That'll teach you proper etiquette, you bastards!

Hell Freezes Over: yes, folks, the unimaginable has happened, and just as a glum Jorg Jaksche concedes there's no way he can get a decent contract with T-Mobile in the tank, his career is over, and all his self-immolating confessions were for naught after all, the German prosecutors strike a massive blow for common sense and drop fraud charges against him on the astonishingly honest grounds that, since it's obvious the teams and sponsors knew and likely directed what all the riders were doing in the first place, no deception could, by definition, have occurred. Anyone else want to take bets on the likelihood of the cash-groveling apologists over at UCI and WADA doing the same? Didn't think so!

Amateur Hour: so I've just listened to the release of the baseball doping report, and all I can say is, man, are these guys a pack of Shirley Temples! You mean, when half the sport's tiny striplings suddenly developed necks and biceps the circumference of Humvees, it wasn't just from years and years of vitamins and Wheaties? And they really took banned substances when they knew darned well there wasn't a test that could bust them for it yet? And some very, very bad men truly helped them find this stuff as the very, very innocent managers turned a blind eye to these practices? Still and all, it's really sweet that they've decided steroids and HGH are bad, though for some unaccountable reason amphetamines don't seem to come under the same scrutiny, which let's face it a pack of guys who sit on their !@#$es hocking giant tobacco-juice loogies for three-quarters of every game could use just to move things along a little, and which so far as I can tell is great news for cyclists, who certainly might find the prospect of freely snarfing a little speed at the base of the Zoncolan both useful and appealing. Pat "Dick" McQuaid, Major League Baseball needs your help--can you call it a day on your fruitless quest to nail Valverde already, and go after some guys who are actually dense enough for you to catch?

...And a Happy New Year: for Samuel Sanchez, that is, but sadly not Euskaltel most likely, as the Basque climbing gods admit that they haven't anywhere near the cash needed to hold on to him past 2008, the boy has a passel of lucrative offers from other teams, and all they can do is sit around waiting for the ax to fall on decision day January 10. Y'know, I love Sanchez, and I don't begrudge him one bit riding off into the sunset with a squad that can amass him a truly spectacular bank account as well as inevitably add a Grand Tour to his already-stellar palmares. But am I the only one sorry to see a team that consistently develops and nurtures some of the most brilliant mountain goats in the business endlessly lose them to schmoes with bigger payrolls and far less deserving and fanatical tifosi? Oh well, here's your chance I guess Zubeldia!