Robert Mathis: Please shut up about your positive test
Late last week Indianapolis Colts defensive end Robert Mathis earned a four-game suspension after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug, but instead of accepting the punishment he and his agent launched a media counterattack. Over the weekend they explained Mathis flunked a drug test not because he knowingly embarked on a doping program, but because … Continue reading
Doping in Sport: Are non-White Athletes Born to Cheat?
A couple years back I took a blood test, and after reading the results the doctor asked me if I had been taking statins without telling her. I hadn’t, and asked why she asked that question. She said my levels of low density lipoproteins (aka bad cholesterol) were astoundingly low, and registered at levels usually … Continue reading
Sprinting, steroids and questions we don’t want answered
Drugs that enhance performance aren’t exactly rare in high-level sport — or in recreational gyms for that matter — and I state the blatantly obvious because we still insist on taking it personally every time a pro athlete is ensnared in a doping scandal. Then we slit the throats of our sacrificial lambs, allow the … Continue reading
2012 in review: By Morgan Campbell, By The Numbers
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 23,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 5 Film Festivals Click here to see the complete report.
Manny Pacquiao falls, questions arise
With a single, thunderous right hand at the end of round six Juan Manuel Marquez sent the legend of Manny Pacquiao crashing face-first to the canvas. With his nose broken and his left leg seemingly injured, Marquez delivered a knockout so definitive referee Kenny Bayless didn’t even bother to count. And with the entire boxing … Continue reading
Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez’ mountain of muscle
Friday afternoon Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez stepped on the scale in Las Vegas, bringing us a step closer to (what we hope is) the final chapter in their career-defining series, and tying together several compelling storylines that have developed in the eight years since they first fought. Can Marquez ever get a fair … Continue reading
Building Brand Bautista and addressing “the question”
Heading to the office Monday morning I noticed a poster of José Bautista on a wall inside the Cooksville GO station. In it he’s pitching Booster Juice, which is a sort of Smoothie King of the north — 300 outlets nationwide peddling fruit smoothies and a healthy lifestyle. Besides being impressed at the poster’s linguistic … Continue reading
ABDB Ep 9: We Fight on That Lie!
Back at Pimper’s Paradise AKA Duane’s crib…Shoutouts to the global ABDB fam… Derrick Rose tries to tiptoe around the steroid issue — fails… Jose Bautista still raking and we still “gotta ask the question”…or do we?… Lance Armstrong = Slim Charles, cuz he will FIGHT on that lie!… Lance Armstrong = Ben Johnson, the … Continue reading
LaShawn Merritt: the doping game keeps changing
When reports surfaced last year that 2008 Olympic 400-metre champion LaShawn Merritt flunked a drug test over his use of the over-the-counter sex enhancer Extenze, how else were we supposed to react except with a flood of junior high school jokes? Like Merritt took Extenze so he could run longer and harder than everybody else. … Continue reading
Morgan Campbell: A Writer on Sports and More 