A while back, I wondered out loud what had happened to those folks who asserted with a combination of righteous indignation and moral certitude that the only reason that the Federal government was pursuing Barry Bonds was because he was Black. There was a segment of the commentator universe that held this was nothing but institutional racism. After all, Mark McGwire showed many of the same growth trends as did Bonds and Mark McGwire had “shady supplements” in his locker and Mark McGwire had been a horrible witness in front of Congress; yet the Feds were after Barry Bonds and they were leaving Mark McGwire alone.
Some of the air went out of those sails when Roger Clemens found himself in the crosshairs of some Federal investigators. But now that the case of Tammy Thomas stands front and center, the folks who claim this is nothing but a racist witch-hunt seem to have been stilled. As I think they should have been from the start.
Tammy Thomas was a world-class cyclist and she is Caucasian. If anyone doubts me, use Google Images to convince yourself. Tammy Thomas was convicted last week of lying to a grand jury that was investigating some nefarious folks who distributed steroids to a wide range of world-class athletes to include baseball players, football players and track athletes. Does the prosecutorial basis for bringing Tammy Thomas to trial sound anything at all like what the Feds are interested in with regard to Barry Bonds?
The backdrop to the Tammy Thomas story seems to be that she took some form of performance enhancing substance and tested positive for whatever it was. Through the procedures in the world of international cycling that attempts to provide due process to athletes, Tammy Thomas was banned from cycling for life in 2002. All might have ended there because international cycling is not a sufficiently big deal here in the US that she would have had to deal with her infamy all that much. But it didn’t stop there…
There was a grand jury looking into BALCO – perhaps this rings a bell with the folks who have followed the Barry Bonds saga – and Tammy Thomas was made to testify there. Evidently, she spoke untruths to that grand jury because that is what got her to trial and that is what got her convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.
According to a commentary on the Jim Rome TV show, Thomas was so into steroids and performance enhancers that she developed facial hair such that she needed to shave like a man. On one occasion, reportedly, an investigator came to her house and she greeted the investigator at the door with a face full of shaving cream. I have no idea if that is factual, exaggerated, or fabricated, but Tammy Thomas seems not to understand even a small measure of the concept of personal accountability.
Since her banishment from cycling, Tammy Thomas went to law school. Surely, at some point in law school the professors have to confide in the aspiring students that convictions in Federal court on counts of perjury and obstruction of justice are not positive entries on one’s résumé. So, all she had to do was to tell the truth to the grand jury – - after all, she had already been banned from cycling for life so there wasn’t much else the international cycling mavens could do to her – - and none of this would have happened. But a jury just said that Tammy Thomas did not tell the truth to that grand jury and she now faces six to thirty months in prison and a severe blow to any legal career she may have contemplated.
Please note some of the parallels to the Barry Bonds situation here. The cases are not identical to be sure; but there are enough parallels that we should put to rest once and for all the notion that the fundamental reason to investigate and potentially put Barry Bonds on trial is founded in racism. It is not.
Even if it were, in a perjury case there is an ace of trump for the accused. It is called the truth. If what he said to the grand jury is indeed the truth, then the perjury trial will end in acquittal. But if it isn’t the truth – and by the legal definition that means the whole truth and not some nuanced truth – then he is no different from Tammy Thomas.
After the verdict had been entered, Tammy Thomas reportedly yelled at one of the Federal prosecutors in her case, “You’re out to destroy lives. You like to destroy lives.” That may be correct; those prosecutors may indeed possess misanthropic souls that revel in the misfortune and the destruction of other people. More likely, they are members of the judicial system of the country who don’t appreciate having witnesses lie under oath intead of being misanthropes.
I think the most important aspect of this case and Ms. Thomas’ outburst at its conclusion is that if her life had indeed been destroyed, she is the one that did it. Taking the performance-enhancing substance that triggered the positive drug test was a choice she made – - unless I am to believe that this was foisted upon her against her will and without her knowledge on a sufficient number of occasions to bring her to the point where she allegedly needed to shave like a man. While one can conjure up some movie-plot set of circumstances where this may be the case, it is then hard to figure out how lying to the grand jury while she was under oath can be an act taken in anything other than a positive and willful manner by the person telling the falsehood.
Bottom line: Tammy Thomas is responsible for destroying her life if indeed this conviction represents something so dire. And if – I said IF – the same thing happens to Barry Bonds, it will be something of his own doing and no one else’s.
Finally, here is a commentary from syndicated columnist Norman Chad regarding his own experimentation and use of steroids is coming along:
“I just started on tetrahydrogestrinone, and with any luck, I’ll have Marion Jones’ biography done by dusk.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…