Friday column: Whatever Landis is selling, I’m not buying

So.

Suddenly, Floyd Landis is all about the truth.

After lying for years about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, he wants to come clean and take the fall — whatever fall is left for him — and he wants to take a few others down with him.

Nice.

We knew Landis was a piece of … work … yes, that’s what I was going to say, a piece of … work … when he apparently allowed his business manager to threaten Greg LeMond with public exposure that LeMond had been sexually abused as a child — a piece of information LeMond had confided to Landis.

This, in an attempt to intimidate LeMond into not testifying against Landis at a USADA doping hearing.

Now we’re to believe Mr. Sudden Rectitude when he alleges that Lance Armstrong, Armstrong’s longtime coach Johan Brunyneel, and American riders Levi Leipheimer and Dave Zabriskie were involved in the doping.

In the case of Armstrong, there’s been so much smoke about his possible drug use, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if fire is there as well. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t believe Landis if he told me wheels were round.

To me, Landis’ latest version of reality adds nothing to the case against Armstrong.

Nothing.

* * *

When Hanley Ramirez, 26-year-old shortstop for the Florida Marlins, nonchalantly jogged after a groundball he’d booted into left field — allowing two runners to score — manager Fredi Gonzalez removed him from the game.

Ramirez responded by sulking, refusing to apologize, and taking verbal shots at his teammates and his manager.

So Gonzalez essentially grounded his petulant star, putting his multimillion-dollar fanny on the bench the next game and indicating it might stay there until an attitude adjustment was made. Finally, Ramirez did apologize — to Gonzalez and to each of his teammates, one at a time — and was returned to the lineup.

If “grounding” sounds like a discipline more suitably meted out by a dad or mom than a major league manager, well, that’s true but …

“I think we’re all parents here,” Gonzalez said Wednesday after Ramirez’s apology. “Sometimes our children will say something that hurts, but it’s no big deal, we still love them.”

Now, coaches and managers at the professional and collegiate level shouldn’t have to be fill-in parents, but it seems they’re put in that position more and more. In this situation, Gonzalez did the right thing, taught the right lesson — something Ramirez could benefit from for years to come.

Perhaps Gonzalez taught a few of his managerial peers a lesson, too. That lesson? Sometimes “Junior” has to be dealt with — even when Junior is an All-Star and under contract for $70 million.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.