I Wish

I could say that this came as a complete shock

Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said Thursday on its Web site, raising questions about his victory. . . The Swiss-based Phonak team said it was notified by the UCI on Wednesday that Landis' sample showed "an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone" when he was tested after stage 17 of the race last Thursday.

I'm not sure there's anyone with even a passing knowledge of cycling that didn't at least entertain the possibility that Floyd 'loaded up' before Stage 17. I'm not saying he did it (yes he has a lot of Testosterone, anyone who completes the TDF needing hip replacement is All Man. Obviously), but is anyone really surprised?

Of course, I'm on record as not really caring about 'doping,' but I'm just about the only one.

As a side note, one of the myriad books I have open, Baseball Between the Numbers posits that there is a benefit to be gained from steroid use, but based on before/after splits of players caught juicing, the effect is an improvement of 1-2% for hitters, while much less (and statistically insignificant) for pitchers. Too early to tell, really, but it confirms what I've suspected - roids inhibit almost as many players as they help. Don't believe all the hype.