I've been a very bad blogger. Just like running, it's very easy to get out of the habit. I've found more of my blog-like impulses lately have gone to either
Facebook or
Twitter (the thing on the left side that updates the minutia of my day). Still, I cannot abandon the Pigdog. This weekend, a story unfolded that really encapsulated what I think fighting the Pigdog is all about: The
return of Rick Ankiel. Rewind to 2000, I remember watching this guy pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals utterly lose his shit pitching in the playoffs. If the mascot came out, he would have hit the moose with a wild pitch. It was an amazing, compelling meltdown. Normally, people just fade away to live, I guess, either a life of regret or move on to something else. Ankiel, after not regaining his control and suffering injuries, simply took a different route: he converted into an outfielder. Now I suck at baseball. In Little League, I was a good fielder and had an OK arm, but I could absolutely not hit well. I'm not certain why. The idea of being a major-league caliber pitcher, then turning around to be an outfielder is beyond the pale. This weekend, he hit three homers for the Cardinals after making it back from a couple years in the minors. That's astounding. Dude could have easily hung it up but kept plugging away, fighting against all odds. After all the Bonds stuff and whatever, it's pretty inspiring to beat the odds like that and attain, at least for this moment, a big measure of redemption. If Hollywood dudes are circling this story, they're nuts.
There's a good story about Floyd Landis in Play, the NYT's sports magazine. He comes across as a guy who is a bit lost at this point, forced to do rides for money with weekend warriors to pay his legal bills in an uphill fight. At this point, it's really impossible to sway many minds about the guy. If he is lying about the whole thing, he's pathological, but there's a lot of evidence that he was one of many to dope in the sport. No matter what, I'm disappointed there haven't been more riders just come clean, like David Millar.
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