Talk about two people who won’t go away. In 2011 Lance Armstrong “retired” from cycling (for the second time) and Oprah finally retired from her syndicated television show.  Flash forward to the beginning of 2013 and HERE THEY BOTH ARE AGAIN as Oprah is set to interview Lance Armstrong about the doping scandal which has stripped him of seven Tour de France titles and whatever else she wants to ask him because she is Oprah and ain’t nobody sayin’ no to the Oprah.  Ask Stedman.  That guy knows where his bread is buttered.

Anyway, the interview is set to broadcast on Oprah’s OWN channel on January 17th starting at 9pm, so, if you wanna watch, better set those DVRs if you can find that channel.  If I know anything about the people that still read this sports blog, I’m assuming that you’ve all got that channel in your favorites anyway so you should be allllllll set.

Me, I think my feelings can best be summed up with this

What I’m guessing we’ll see is Oprah “breaking” Lance down a few times, making old one nut cry a bit and finally getting some sort of half confession-half justification out of  him.  Either that or he’ll attempt to stick to his story like Rafael Palmeiro attempted to do in front of Congress which would be HILARIOUS television.

I guess I mistakenly thought that once Oprah retired celebrities wouldn’t have an outlet to “bare their souls”, confess and get back into the good graces of the public they so desperately crave attention and validation from (besides Saturday Night Live i guess, but Lance already shot that wad in 2005 and with DISASTROUS results)?  It sucks that Oprah has given Lance this hailmary chance at redemption because, quite honestly, he doesn’t really deserve it.  The dude lied to everyone and their mothers, probably his own mother, about doping for decades.

Lance should just go away and Oprah should go away as well so that she can’t keep orchestrating public redemption for horrible people just for ratings on her flagging network.

Let’s get something out of the way. Not knowing about stuff has never been an impediment to holding political office. Who cares if Jose Canseco doesn’t know how he would raise revenues without raising taxes let alone how to become a Canadian citizen? This should in no way prevent him from being mayor of Toronto.

The Star reports that Canseco is interested in replacing Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto.

“Can’t do enough on council,” Canseco, 48, wrote on Twitter. “I hear you are getting rid of mayor Ford on Monday. I love Toronto and will be glad to replace him.”

He outlined his potential platform in tweets to the Star at 1:17 a.m. on Friday. “Ford too much trouble to be effective,” he wrote. “Gotta fix budget, traffic, get new $ not from taxes, get more new businesses, and help schools.”

Ford could get bounced from office on Monday after being found guilty of violating the Municipal Conflicts of Interest Act.

An interim mayor could be appointed by the City Council but the better option would be a byelection. Imagine the debates leading up to the election. Canseco, IKEA monkey, Snow, Yunel Escobar, and Jarious Jackson would make for the best debate since Admiral Stockdale ran away with the 1992 Vice-Presidential debate.

There is the problem of the Canadian citizenship requirement but not knowing shit never stopped Canseco in the past. No reason for that to change.

Canseco, born in Cuba, is an American citizen, and, thus, ineligible to run in Toronto. But in another tweet to the Star, he said he plans to “work out the citizen thing.” His agent, Jose Melendez, added in an email that Canseco is not taking the matter lightly.

“He is serious about a run but as you know he doesn’t know the procedure for citizenship,” Melendez wrote.

If Gerard Depardieu can change citizenship with an executive order, Canseco can do the same. Yes I am implying that Canada works the same as Russia. Stephen Harper hates freedom like Putin.

Need exact guidelines of what I need to run for Toronto mayor and how long it takes to claim residency. #yeswecanseco

— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) January 4, 2013

Perhaps it would help Canseco’s case if he offered to donate a portion of his Ponce de Canseco anti-aging drink proceeds to the city of Toronto. Never mind that it doesn’t exist. His Twitter pleas to Donald Trump, Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban should be all the assurance anyone needs to know that it’s real.

Help a brotha out, America Jr.

H/T to Bruce Arthur

Update: Daniel Dale of the Star reports that Canseco is already waffling on the citizenship issue. Who will step up and save his fledgling candidacy? Anvil? Howie Mandel? Jason Priestley? Sum 41? Nah, Dream Warriors.

NFL players and fans laughed under their breath when the Texans’ Brian Cushing denied using performance enhancing substances after being suspended four games in 2010 for violating the NFL’s PED policy. It’s not often that players call out or mock other players for that unless their name is Rodney Harrison. Rumors swirled about steroid use even before the Texans linebacker was drafted out of USC. He promised to go full OJ and find out how the hormones got into his system. We have yet tpo hear back.

Cushing should have gone full Romo and embraced the use of performance enhancing substances instead of issuing denials that would have made AC Cowlings shake his head. Bill Romanowski didn’t deny using them and anything else that would bring out the crazy. His play and antics on the field backed up his statements. Ain’t no one believe that he wasn’t on the juice. The NFL mic’ed up Cushing for the Texans game against the Browns. Watch this excerpt and see if you think he’s clean

If that’s not ‘roid rage, Blaine Gabbert is a servicable NFL QB. You can watch the full clip here. Watch Cushing’s teammates react to him. It’s as though they’re unsure how to deal with him. “Yeah dude, whatever you say. I gotta go stand over there now.” How long until he goes Michael Westbrook on an unsuspecting teammate who refuses to give him an exploding fist bump?

Yesterday, the New York Post‘s Kevin Kernan wrote the Baseball Hall of Fame is considering shortening the current five-year waiting period for induction to three. While Kernan doesn’t come out and suggest the move is in response to the ever-increasing number of PED-pumping superstars inching their way up the ballot, he doesn’t have to: it’s quite clear the Hall is looking for a PED distraction.

Next year, the Hall gets a reprieve: Barry Larkin, Tim Raines, and Jack Morris will headline the ballot. Larkin should’ve received the required votes this year, Raines is the pet-cause of the sabermetric community (as well he should be — there’s a compelling argument he was more valuable than Tony Gwynn), and Jack Morris is the poster boy for those writers/voters who still believe pitchers “pitch to a score” and can win games based on intangibles. At least two of those three will get in, making 2012′s Hall of Fame weekend a nice one. But once the 2012 ceremony wraps up, things are gonna get real complicated.

In 2013, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa will all find their way onto the ballot. As we speak, bloviators across the Baseball Writers Association are preparing their columns and it’s going to get ugly. Words like “integrity” and “morality” are going to be used a whole hell of a lot. In the end, we’re going to be left with maybe a one-person class (Mike Piazza) and three of the game’s greatest players sitting on the outside looking in. In the meantime, MLB says nothing. They do nothing. They continue to condemn and decry the use of PEDs in their game, yet still uphold the records of the men who maybe-kinda-sorta used a legal/illegal substance to help break them. Twenty-plus years later, MLB still has no idea what to make of these players or their accomplishments.

So, why start giving us answers now? Instead let’s leave it to the interpretation of the Hall of Fame voters, who couldn’t possibly screw this up, right? Let’s institute witch-hunts, scapegoats, assumption, and rumor as our new forms of ex-post facto drug testing. Hell, just do a Google image search of “Barry Bonds steroids” and all the answers you need about his candidacy are right there. Then, let’s throw in anyone else who wasn’t Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey, Jr. and keep them out. Who’s going to stop us? MLB? The Hall of Fame? I don’t think so.

I understand the Hall of Fame is a museum, supposedly separate from MLB — but the two organizations are hopelessly intertwined as one group provides a forum for the history of the game and the other preserves it. The Hall of Fame is already an interesting place: one of only three players with 3,000 hits and 500 home runs is about to fall off the ballot while players like Jim Rice and Andrew Dawson are enshrined. MLB, in concert with the Hall of Fame, needs to take the steps necessary to either fully reject this period of time in the game’s history or do something to legitimize it. There’s no in between.

Like most sports fans, I’ve struggled with how to accept the presence of steroids in our modern athletic era. Seven or eight years ago, we might have confined this problem strictly to baseball, but if the events of the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that steroids are everywhere. Hell, we’re even giving them to racehorses now. Still, many questions remain: to what extent do steroids actually aid athletes? How can reporters criticize athletes or stand on the moral high-ground if they’ve never used them? If you aren’t a scientist, how can you prescribe a solution on how to address their effect on athletic performance? Well, unless one were to try them… Read the rest of this entry