Ah, doping scandals. I think every sportswriter on the face of the planet loves that phrase. While stories about such classically filthy sports as cycling or track and field are nothing to shake a journalistic stick – or beer – at, there is something amazingly satisfactory about reading that a curling team has been busted for ‘roids or being of the wrong sex.
In that particular case, I think the amusement comes from imagining some crying preteen Canuck tearing posters of his curling heroes off the wall. But the point still applies.
Imagine my disbelief when I discovered that the last great holdout of America’s great aristocrats, the horse track, has been tampered with by a move that I hope all Isla Vistans have known for years. The track may be a veritable cornucopia of top hats and expensive cigars, but it has finally been infiltrated by one of our kind. Everybody raise your Taaka, Popov and Gilbeys up high, because racehorses are being drugged with vodka.
Now I’ll be honest, I’d cry more over spilled beer than finding out about another doper in sports. I fully believe that an All-Juicer League would be the greatest thing on television since the White Rapper Show. I wouldn’t mind seeing Bonds and his bacne hitting for average or Merriman ripping people in half with his bare hands. It would at least mean I wouldn’t have to see the depressing sight of former greats in NutriSystem commercials after blowing their money on strippers.
But I certainly took notice when I found out that even professional racehorses need a little liquid courage; who doesn’t every now and then? Dr. Jay Stewart – president of the Nebraska Veterinary Medical Association – apparently is a Gaucho at heart, for he is currently on trial for injecting racehorses with cut-rate vodka in order to ease up their pre-race jitters. Apparently they save the Grey Goose for the Triple Crown.
If, in something as high profile and competitive as horse racing, the competitor performs better while buzzed than nervous, why is anyone ever sober? If I was managing crappy teams like the Kansas City Royals, I would drop beer prices to $0.33 a pint, and get some wildly inebriated fans out on the field. At the very least, the entertainment value alone would sell enough tickets to bring in some talent.
But set sports aside for a minute. Stewart has shown us all a valuable lesson to apply to everyday life: You perform better under the influence. And I have to agree. I took my hardest final last year still shitfaced from the night before, and I did better on that thing than I ever did while nervous and sober. One of my favorite articles I ever wrote came after three strikeouts (gotta do a full inning) and a few shots. And after the Nexus fires me for being a drunken idiot all the time, I’ll get hired somewhere else, but only after a little bit of Dr. Jay’s prescription.
So to all of you creepers getting housed and chasing girls like the motorized rabbit at a dog race: dogs don’t drink. That’s stupid. But I know that the next time I’m caught at the D.P. Downs trying to chase down some major babeage, I’m going to inject myself with a little confidence. It’s exactly what the good doctor ordered.