Why Pete Rose, Lance Armstrong And Mike Tyson Won't Fade Away

Nice story over at Grantland by Bryan Curtis on the never-ending sagas of Armstrong, Tyson and Rose:

A fallen athlete opening his front door to a reporter isn't new. According to biographer David L. Fleitz, Shoeless Joe Jackson granted an interview after he was banned from baseball. The reporter was able to sell a front-page story to The Sporting News in 1942. Muhammad Ali donated his body, his Muslim dogma, and his one-liners to reporters when Uncle Sam branded him a traitor for refusing to serve in Vietnam. Sports on Earth's Greg Hanlon landed a two-hour interrogation with former Yankee Chad Curtis, who's roasting in a special corner of hell for molesting teenage girls.

But there are three modern athletes who've practically pulled reporters inside by the lapels. They are Armstrong, Pete Rose, and Mike Tyson. They make perfect athlete-donors: They are famous enough to sell magazines, desperate enough to grant interviews, and unresolved enough — in terms of the courts, their former fans, or the Hall of Fame — to be the stuff of great stories. They offer "the drama of the mighty fallen," Hanlon told me — "how these guys have everything in the palm of their hands and fucked it up."

[Photo Credit: Jessica Hill/AP]