Lance Armstrong has always been larger than life, as sports hero, as survivor, and now as big-time confessor. I mean, really -- if you want to come clean, why not call a news conference? Well, because Oprah Winfrey offers more hype, that's why. And maybe Barbara Walters was busy.
As much as I wish it weren't true, I think heroes do have a responsibility to the public that worships them. My father was seven years old when the Black Sox scandal hit. I am convinced that he was a very hurt and disillusioned little boy when he learned that players on his home-town team had thrown the World Series. He talked about it often and in a way that makes me think he never really got over it.
People are always disappointed when they find their heroes have feet of clay, but Armstrong's admirers probably feel doubly hurt and disillusioned because his indiscretions are linked to what made him a hero in the first place. Tiger Woods, another disappointment to many, cheated on his wife but not at golf, not at that which made him famous.
Armstrong's claim that the cheating was simply to level the playing field, since everyone was doing it, won't justify his actions any more than knowing what a scumbag Charles Comiskey was would have caused my father to forgive the Eight Men Out of Chicago.
All right. I'm tired of Lance Armstrong already. Let's move on.
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