Clemens Topic

Sounds like a good way to end up dead.    Wrecking people along the way when they were telling the truth and now choosing to start out others?  That's pretty messy.   I don't think anybody likes the whistleblower.  Pretty sure people look at McNamee and Radomski thru the same glasses they use to look at Clemens/Bonds and think less of the rats.
1/15/2013 3:39 PM
I really think you underestimate the segment of the public that is just looking for any reason to give him a pass.  If he comes clean and starts "working to help clean up the sport", those folks will eat it up.  Sure, there's also a segment that will hate him more because it, but he was already dead to those folks anyhow.  We know nothing about McNamee and Radomski except that they are rats.  Lance was a beloved hero, he's going to be held to a different standard by a bunch of people, that's just how it always goes.
1/15/2013 3:48 PM
I guess I'm just trying to think of someone who said "Everyone was doing it!!  Even me!!" and was fondly received by the public.
1/15/2013 3:55 PM
My thoughts on Lance, and I recognize that I'm in the minority when I say this:  

I don't think HE thinks he's a bad person.  He knows he took steroids, but so was almost literally every other competitive cyclist.  He was a huge competitor, and wanted to win, but also knew that he was the face of a foundation that was doing a great job in cancer awareness.  Livestrong became a very strong brand because of him.  The people who attacked him, he attacked back at, twice as hard.  In his head, he thought that he was doing good things, so why would someone want to hurt his name? But attacked as hard as he did, he was hoping that would be a deterrent for others to approach him an claim he was a user.  

I don't think Lance intended to be an evil, malicious person.  I think his heart was in the right place, but he hurt a lot of people along the way of doing what he thought was the right thing to do.  I think he wants to explain himself so that people will look at him in a better way.  Maybe he can repair his image somewhat, and help to build Livestrong back to where it was.
1/15/2013 3:57 PM
Posted by MikeT23 on 1/15/2013 3:55:00 PM (view original):
I guess I'm just trying to think of someone who said "Everyone was doing it!!  Even me!!" and was fondly received by the public.
Well, if his public statements sound anything like that, he's done.  I expect that to be more along the lines of "Here's what I did, I realize now that it was a terrible mistake, I'm sorry, and I want to do what I can to help ensure the integrity of the sport going foward."  That will play, and the people that it will play with aren't going to pay a whole lot of attention to the rest of it.  There are plenty of people out there who have no clue what he did to the people who accused him in the past, and I honestly don't see the media going out of their way to remind anybody.
1/15/2013 4:04 PM
I'm sure if you read back, burnsy, you'll see I said much of the same about Clemens. 
1/15/2013 4:06 PM
Posted by AlCheez on 1/15/2013 4:04:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 1/15/2013 3:55:00 PM (view original):
I guess I'm just trying to think of someone who said "Everyone was doing it!!  Even me!!" and was fondly received by the public.
Well, if his public statements sound anything like that, he's done.  I expect that to be more along the lines of "Here's what I did, I realize now that it was a terrible mistake, I'm sorry, and I want to do what I can to help ensure the integrity of the sport going foward."  That will play, and the people that it will play with aren't going to pay a whole lot of attention to the rest of it.  There are plenty of people out there who have no clue what he did to the people who accused him in the past, and I honestly don't see the media going out of their way to remind anybody.
We're approaching a slow time of the year for sports.  Might get more media attention than you'd expect.

Of course, to his credit, he did it during football season.    Gronkowski dancing shirtless in a bar will knock Armstrong off the front page.
1/15/2013 4:07 PM
Posted by MikeT23 on 1/15/2013 4:06:00 PM (view original):
I'm sure if you read back, burnsy, you'll see I said much of the same about Clemens. 
Maybe that's true that Clemens feels the same way.  The differences I see are: A) Clemens isn't promoting cancer awareness, he's just playing baseball.  B) The people who were accusing Roger really aren't doing it by choice.  BMac and Radomski were in legal trouble and were told to talk about Clemens.  I get that Clemens went back at them, trying to protect his name, but the ones attacking Armstrong, for the most part, had no real reason to, unless they were passionate about cycling or something.  The Lance story was a fun story.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss.  I remember hoping that Lance wouldn't be found out, and hoping that the whole story would go away after he retired.  Being a role model for cancer survivors, and continuing to promote cancer awareness were very good things, and I wanted them to stay that way.
1/15/2013 4:28 PM
If what's being said about LA is true, he's ****** off a lot of people along the way.   That could be a real reason to get after him. 
1/15/2013 4:32 PM
The story itself will get plenty of attention, but I don't think the media is going to make a big point of pointing out those parts of the history.  They know the public at large isn't out for blood with Armstrong.

Here's the key difference between how this will play out for Armstrong as opposed a Bonds/Clemens.  Most sports fans in this country care more about baseball in general than they do about any particular player.  There's widespread moral outrage about what PEDs have done to the game of baseball.  In contrast, sports fans in this country care much more about Lance Armstrong than they do about the sport of cycling itself.
1/15/2013 4:35 PM
People should care about the spite Armstrong used in wrecking lives along his path of denial. Dudes an A1 pole smoker.
1/15/2013 4:49 PM
I do tend to agree that people don't care about cycling.  In fact, it wouldn't exist in the mainstream American culture without Armstrong.
1/15/2013 4:54 PM
Posted by The Taint on 1/15/2013 4:49:00 PM (view original):
People should care about the spite Armstrong used in wrecking lives along his path of denial. Dudes an A1 pole smoker.
Of course they should. I do. But most don't and won't. Pretty much all the media bailed on the notion that he was clean when the USADA report came out, and the message was way more "don't forget the good he did" than "remember how he treated his accusers."
1/15/2013 5:01 PM
I really can't think of anything else that is comparable to the entire Lance Armstrong situation.

Here's a guy who used his fame and accomplishments to do a tremendous amount of good for raising money (around $500m) for cancer awareness and to assist cancer survivors.  But his fame and accomplishments were built entirely upon a foundation of cheating, lying and threats/bullying.

Every parent would be (or should be) proud to have a son who has done so much good and has had such a positive impact on lives as Armstrong has done through the LiveStrong Foundation.

Every parent would be (or should be) ashamed to have a son who has lived his life through cheating, lying and threatening/bullying other people.
1/15/2013 5:15 PM
Just a couple observations - not sure how valid they are, but I think they carry weight.

1) While both may be dicks, Armstrong has a much better public image (or at least he did) than Clemens. Not only was Clemens a dick, but he also openly APPEARED to be a dick - and seemed to be okay with it.

2) I really think Andy Pettitte's testimony was the dagger for Clemens. Most people believe him to be an honest guy, who had zero to gain by incriminating his friend. I could be wrong, but I don't recall any good respected guys outing Armstrong. Landis seems like a dick who got caught and decided to take people down with him.

3) Cycling is a much tougher sport than baseball. 'Roid use isn't okay at all, but I'm sure people view it as vanity more than anything when it comes to baseball. Cycling is grueling and I'm sure there are very few clean people in the sport.

4) I think Armstrong is coming clean because he has no other choice. The evidence became too strong for him to keep denying it. It'll be interesting to hear his explanation. If he's smart, he'll admit that he didn't want to make fools of people anymore in light of all the mounting evidence.

1/15/2013 10:15 PM (edited)
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