To Kevin, et al.

Subject: More on Michael's illegal music doping   

Recognize the title of this post? Sure you do. But we'll get to that in a second.

We opened quite a can of worms a couple of days ago, when an Israeli doctor posited the theory that Michael Phelps unfairly benefits from listening to music immediately before hitting the water.

I thought we tested this theory fairly well this morning, Kevin. We synced our iPod's to Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and made the walk to the Water Cube, the bass providing the pace and steady head bob. It was like a scene from Reservoir Dogs. Or maybe just Office Space. Anyhow, as our bosses will attest, hip-hop did not aid our deadline performance.

Phelps on the other hand, again had the iPod playing as he walked on the pool deck today. And again, it worked like a charm. For his preliminary race in the 100 fly, Phelps couldn't even remember what he was listening to. "I just tried my headphones on and tried to listen to something," he said, "but I'm not really sure what it was."

The 200 IM -- another world record -- is another story altogether, though. Phelps best meet prior to this week came at last year's world championships in Australia. He took a little bit of that meet with him to the blocks earlier today, playing "Go Getta," that infectious anthem by Young Jeezy, whom I've always known to be both a prince and a scholar.

"I listened to that song every single swim of the meet last year," Phelps said. "I just decided to pop it on for old time’s sake."

The title of this blog post, as you no doubt figured out, was the more printable -- and perhaps apropos? -- lines that I was able to cut-and-paste from the insightful, poetic lyrics of "Go Getta."