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.

She's largely correct

Sally Jenkins had a fine piece in the Washington Post on May 8 discussing the likes of George Huguely, Ben Roethlisberger and Lawrence Taylor, and asking, "Is there something in our sports culture that condones these assaults?"

Toward the end of the column, Jenkins writes, "What has happened to kindness, to the cordial pleasures of friendship between men and women in the sports world? Above all, what has happened to sexuality? When did the most sublime human exchange become more about power and status than romance? When did it become so pornographic and transactional, so implacably cold?"

Then she adds, "The truth is, women can't do anything about this problem. Men are the only ones who can change it ..."

Now, she largely right. But not completely. In some of these situations — some of them — women can do something about it — they can not throw themselves at these jerk jocks.

Now, hear me: When they do, that doesn't give a Roethlisberger, say, the right to act the way he acted in that Milledgeville, Ga., bar, but it does add to a Roethlisberger's already-overlarge sense of entitlement.

When rich, famous male athletes come together with young women and alcohol, this is not an unusual scenario.

Jenkins' column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/07/AR2010050704895.html

Hey, lackey work is hard to find

Ed Joyner's not giving up his night job without a fight. No, sirree.

The Pennsylvania state trooper, barred from working as a bodyguard-gopher for the Mr. Ben Roethlisberger, esquire, wants his bosses to allow him to resume his illustrious part-time employment.

I guess the thrill of standing guard outside a dingy bathroom while a liquored-up quarterback tries to bop a liquored-up coed is difficult to duplicate.

Friday column: Well, yes, Lawrence, we think we do

In his head-on mug shot from a November arrest in Miami for allegedly leaving the scene of an accident, Lawrence Taylor has a hint of a smile. In his profile shot, his head is up, his chin is thrust forward. The photo fairly screams, Don’t you know who I am?

The word “know” was prominent at his arraignment hearing following the Hall of Fame football player’s most recent arrest — that on charges of solicitation and rape of an underage girl.

When Taylor’s demonstrative lawyer — think Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad — protested the judge’s granting the victim, identified only as “CF,” an order of protection against Taylor, the mouthpiece claimed, “The complainant is a stranger to my client. … Mr. Taylor doesn’t know this person’s name, doesn’t know anything … about her … He doesn’t know who CF is.”

Well, if the police are to be believed, Taylor does know CF — in the biblical sense. But in another sense, Taylor’s legal beagle is correct: His client didn’t know CF — not as a person, not as a fellow human being — and didn’t have the slightest interest in doing so.

Taylor didn’t care to find out that CF was a 16-year-old runaway forced into tricking by a manslaughter parolee who both drugged her and beat her before sending her to pleasure the 51-year-old former linebacker. If police are correct, Taylor didn’t care that this girl showed up at his room at the Suffern, N.Y., Holiday Inn with a black eye and other facial injuries.

No, Taylor wasn’t that interested in the girl who entered his room. Why would he be? By his own admission, he’s been with prostitutes before — sometimes six a day. Ah, but that was back in his drug-using, reporter-choking, deadbeat-dad days. Before his “rebirth,” a rebirth that led to his becoming a spokesman for NutriSystem Inc. and being featured on Dancing with the Stars.

Not only was his image rehabilitated, he was, too — or so went the spin. Last week, referring to his client’s troubled past, agent Mark Lepselter said, “That was the old Lawrence Taylor. This is the new Lawrence Taylor.”

Well, if the defense story is to be believed, the new Lawrence Taylor doesn’t have intercourse with prostitutes — he just pays them $300 to be there while he does the uh … trick … himself. Whatever the truth, Taylor already has cost himself the NutriSystem gig, and I doubt he’ll be featured on a family-hour TV show anytime soon.

Then there’s the little matter that a conviction could cost Taylor four years of his freedom. “I’ve never seen him this distraught,” Lepselter said, and I believe him.

Taylor’s head-on booking mug from this latest arrest is nothing like the ones taken in Florida. There is no smile, no chin thrust, no sense of the “don’t you know who I am?” attitude.

Perhaps that’s because he fears that with this latest fall, we do, indeed.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Let's hear it for Mom

You gotta love Amy Ziegler, mother of Steve Consalvi, the 17-year-old who jumped onto the field at a recent Phillies game in Philadelphia and got Tasered for his trouble.

Why?

While others dithered over whether the use of the Taser was necessary and proper, Ziegler concentrated on the event that led to the zapping — namely, her son’s actions.

Quoth the mother: "It was stupid. It was just absolutely stupid."

Thank you, Ms. Ziegler.

"Look into my eyes ... deep into my eyes ..."

So.

The Cincinnati Bengals are close to signing Adam “Pacman” Jones. And they aren’t worried about his legal baggage (six arrests and involvement in a dozen incidents requiring police intervention since 2005) nor his professional baggage (numerous disruptions and a 17-month NFL suspension).

Why?

Because, Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer said, “He looked me in the eye and shook my hand and said, 'Coach, I just want to play.' He seems very humble. He seems to understand."

Wow. He looked him in the eye and seemed very humble. Of course, George W. Bush looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and declared he had a good soul.

As a character check, gazing into someone’s eyes and listening to what they tell you perhaps isn’t quite as effective as noticing what they’ve done.

As I expect the Bengals will find out ...

Rex's credo

So.

New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan says he believes Santonio Holmes’ latest story. “Totally” believes it, in fact.

Holmes recently was met by police at the gate after reportedly failing to obey an order to turn off his iPod on a flight from Newark to Pittsburgh.

According to Ryan, Holmes’ story was a tale of simple miscommunication, and he had, in fact, complied perfectly.

This is the same Holmes whose repeatedly boorish and selfish off-field behavior led his former employers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, to dump him for a fifth-round draft pick despite the fact he was their top receiver.

Yet Ryan says when Holmes peddled his latest version of reality, “I totally believed him.”

Now Ryan may be many things, but he’s not stupid. So pardon me if I suggest that Ryan doesn’t actually believe in Holmes’ veracity. What he believes in is Holmes’ ability to separate from defensive backs and catch the ball. What he believes in is Holmes Super Bowl-MVP-caliber talent.

Nothing more.