We'll burn that bridge when we cross it

It will be interesting to see what the Phillies do with their bench when Jayson Werth is ready to return. Interesting, I guess, in what it means for Chris Coste. Coste, of course, is owner of the best story going on in baseball and has contributed greatly not only to the Phillies’ playoff run last year, but also to this year’s charge as well.

Yet for whatever reason the Phillies’ brass – namely general manager Pat Gillick and his assistant Ruben Amaro – don’t seem to like Coste. Why? Good question. Maybe it’s because he sticks at it when everyone else would have quit a long time ago. Or maybe Amaro prefers players from big-time college programs that make it to the Majors on reputation and bounce around for nearly a decade and post less than mediocre numbers?

Whatever the reason, another trip back to the minors doesn’t seem fair for Coste. In his last four games last week Coste went 3-for-6 with a homer and seven RBIs. In July, Coste is hitting .343 in 13 games.

Conversely, Rod Barajas, the backup catcher who came in as a backstop to handle the bulk of the work for $3 million, hasn’t had a hit in more than two weeks and is 3-for-16 this month.

Sounds like manager Charlie Manuel has more confidence in a minor-league lifer making the league minimum as opposed to a guy making big, free-agent money. Worse, the Phillies have a .332 career hitter and they might not want him.

Either way it seems as if Coste is like ice cream and what weirdo doesn’t like ice cream?

***
With the non-waiver trading deadline set for tomorrow at 4 p.m., perhaps the Phillies will deal Coste for some pitching. At least then he would be going to a team that actually wants him. More importantly, the Phillies really, really need pitching with Ryan Madson headed for the disabled list and big holes in the starting rotation.

So far all we have are rumors – and it looks like I added to it by invoking Coste’s name – and nothing concrete. The rumor mill seems to be a cottage industry in the sports reporting business these days. Everyone loves reading about things that may or might not be happening or even true for some reason and there are a lot of people out there who have made careers about spreading disinformation.

It’s information, but it’s not really information. Like junk food… you know, what Ken Rosenthal does…

Wait, was that my out loud voice again?

Anyway, rumors bore me, especially when it’s so easy to find out facts and truth. But then again I’m a really bad sports fan so there you go.

I’ll give you this, though – call it a secret of the trade: if you read one of those rumors where it’s prefaced with the phrase, “sources say,” it’s a load of crap. The so-called “source” is probably a guy hanging around the press box or something.

Man, do those sources like to talk and boy or boy do they ever come in handy.

***
The Phillies head to Chicago for four days to face the surging Cubs at Wrigley Field tonight. The consensus around the press box is that Chicago is the favorite stop on the circuit and Wrigley, despite its not-so modern amenities, is everyone’s favorite ballpark.

Perhaps Chicago is best described as, “kind of like New York, but clean.”

I think of it like Japan where they take all of the good ideas from everyone else and make it look nicer. In Chicago they did it with pizza, too. New York pizza is far superior to the Chicago style, but they made it just a tad more interesting in The Windy City.

Either way, it will be a fun-filled four days for the scribes before heading off to Milwaukee for the weekend.

***
The Tour de France finally (and mercifully) came to a close yesterday with Alberto Contador called the winner and his Discovery Channel teammate and American Levi Leipheimer 31 seconds behind in third place.

(If anyone remembers -- and who wouldn't? -- I predicted a Leipheimer victory in the Tour over Vinokourov and Sastre.)

Certainly it appears as if the real drama in cycling will occur between now and the next Tour de France as the cycling union, anti-doping agencies and Amaury Sports Organization (the company that owns both the Tour de France and the newspaper, L’Equipe) pick at the carcass of the sport to gain total control.

It’s not going to be pretty.

Either way, the telecast of the Tour ended in a rather apropos manner yesterday when Lance Armstrong, with Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen in Paris, departed the air and seemingly took the video along with him.

Yeah, that’s right, the last miles of the Tour were coming to a head and no one in the United States could see it.

Meanwhile it’s worth noting that Armstrong is in Paris celebrating with his Discovery Channel team and Floyd Landis is in Vail, Colo. preparing for the big race in the Leadville 100 on Aug. 11.

That race, friends, is going to be the highlight of cycling in 2007.

***
Needless to say, Armstrong's appearance on the telecast of yesterday's final day of the Tour was interesting. Perhaps the comment most intriguing (to me) was when Lance was asked what he missed the most about professional cycling. He told Liggett and Sherwen that he missed being "super fit" and the training lifestyle, which he compared to being monastic in that all one did was ride, eat and sleep. But he didn't miss racing, which makes sense to me... training like hell is a blast, but the pressure of competing can be a drag sometimes. I imagine the pressure for Armstrong was pretty intense.

Filling in

When Tadahito Iguchi arrived in Philadelphia in time for Saturday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Phillies’ new second baseman brought with him a lot more than just a suitcase full of clothes and personal items and an equipment bag with his baseball gear.

Better yet, Iguchi brought with him an entire entourage.

Fresh from being traded from the Chicago White Sox to the Phillies on Friday afternoon, Iguchi pulled on his new red-and-white pinstriped uniform, exchanged greetings with Ryan Howard, a friend from last winter’s MLB All-Star tour of Japan, as well as Aaron Rowand, his teammate from the World Champion White Sox team during the 2005 season before taking in his new surroundings.

He even chatted with his manager Charlie Manuel, who like Iguchi was a star in Japan’s Pacific League. Manuel still speaks some Japanese, an ancillary benefit from his six years playing ball as a gai-jin in the Far East, which should help the Phillies’ first Japanese player make an easier transition to his new surroundings.

“He's got me,” Manuel smiled. “I'll be his interpreter. I can talk to him.”

First things first, though. Iguchi’s first order of business was to find the lineup card where he located his name in the No. 7 hole at second base, and then greeted the media horde that follows him wherever he goes. Though Iguchi isn’t a well known player to the casual American baseball fan, he was quite popular on the Southside of Chicago and remains one of dozen or so Japanese ballplayers to make the jump to the Major Leagues.

Because of that, Iguchi travels with a translator (David Yamamoto, who also wears a uniform because he sits in the dugout during the game) and does pre and post-game interviews with the Japanese media after every single game. It doesn’t matter if Iguchi goes 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, goes 4-for-4 with a pair of home runs, or simply sits on the bench without seeing a lick of action on the diamond. The 32-year old infielder discusses his day with the roughly half dozen or so media members that chronicle his every move.

“They even have the cameras rolling on him when he walks through the parking lot to his car,” a media member and witness to the Japanese media’s insatiable thirst to cover their stars in the minutest detail.

In nearly three seasons in the Major Leagues, following eight seasons with the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks of Japan’s Pacific League, Iguchi has a .273 batting average, 39 homers and 169 RBIs in 363 games for the ChiSox. This season, he is hitting .251 with 17 doubles, four triples, six home runs and 31 RBIs in 90 games, and hit .281 with 18 home runs and 67 RBI in 138 games last season. During the White Sox championship run Iguchi had a .278 average with 15 home runs and 15 stolen bases. In the 2005 ALDS, he hit a go-ahead three-run home run in Game 2 against David Wells to turn the tables against the Boston Red Sox.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said Iguchi was the team’s most valuable player during the World Series run.

“He had a lot to do with the rings that we have right now,” Guillen told Chicago’s Daily Southtown. “He was great for us every day.”

Someone who can attest to that is Rowand, who remembered bantering back and forth with Iguchi through an interpreter during the ’05 season. Rowand said Iguchi’s English improved as the year went on, but he was able to communicate and have fun with his teammates. Interestingly, Rowand pointed out that the team enjoyed talking about baseball with Iguchi.

“We've had some good times with the language barrier, but he's one heck of a player,” Rowand pointed out. “He's really smooth in the field. He'll add to the team and make it a lot easier with Chase being out.”

Ah yes, the real reason why Iguchi has landed in Philadelphia. With Chase Utley likely out for the next month with a broken hand suffered when he was hit by a pitch in Thursday afternoon’s loss to the Washington Nationals. Though he had surgery to insert a pin into the damaged area on Friday and the team revealed that they did not think the injury was as bad as it could have been, Utley will likely miss a minimum of 20 games. With 60 games remaining in the season and the Phillies doing all they can to remain in the playoff chase despite a plethora of injuries, it appears as if Utley will miss a third of the remaining games.

Enter Iguchi.

“I was able to play with Mr. Utley in the Japan series after the season and I’m very, very aware of how great a player he is,” Iguchi said. “I have tremendous respect for Mr. Utley and I just hope that I can fill in and [and contribute to the team] anywhere near Mr. Utley.”

The Phillies put the deal together with the White Sox rather quickly, announcing it just as they reported on Utley’s surgery.

“We wanted to do something and we wanted to move quickly,” assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle said. “Obviously, you don't replace Chase Utley, but we wanted the guys in the clubhouse to understand that we wanted to step up and come up with a suitable replacement to help us stay competitive.”

For the short term Iguchi seems to be a good answer to a very difficult problem. The second baseman is signed for $3.25 million this season, and turned down a contract extension to stay with the White Sox during the winter despite saying he wanted to continue his career in Chicago.

“I’m very surprised by the trade,” Yamamoto said for Iguchi. “I was notified about it yesterday and I really didn’t have any notification, so yes, I was really surprised. But I’m really excited to join the Phillies and I’m starting to like my new, red uniform.”

However, Iguchi has a clause in his contract that will allow him to become a free agent at the end of the season if the ChiSox – now Phillies – don’t sign him to an extension by the end of the season.

With Utley expected to make a full recovery, it doesn’t seem as if Iguchi will figure into the Phillies’ plans beyond this season.

Unless he can play third base?

***
For a brief moment at the Tour de France, all of the events of last week were forgotten. The scandals, the doping and all of the bluster were replaced by an actual competition where there was a lot on the line.

Montanan Levi Leipheimer had the time trial of his life, squeezing to within 31 seconds of the leader and his Discovery Channel teammate, Alberto Contador. He did it with his teams' part-owner Lance Armstrong trailing in the team car, shouting instruction and encouragement as he all but assured himself a spot on the podium in Paris.

With one more stage to go into Paris tomorrow, Leipheimer is eight seconds behind second place Cadel Evans in one of the closest finishes in Tour de France history.

And yet it still hard to think about what might have been...

Certainly it doesn't seem as if ousted leader Michael Rasmussen would have been able to hang in Saturday's time trial. Nor did it seem like Alexandre Vinokourov wold have been able to chip away enough to be a threat had he not been bounced from the race. Could Andreas Klöden been right there had his team not been thrown out?

How much fun would it have been to see all of those guys competing all the way through the Tour, especially in such a dramatic time trial?

But despite the good day of competition the newspapers and magazines are littered with stories about controversy, doping and lawyers.

* Is the 24-year old wunderkind Contador doping and is he really linked to Operacion Puerto?

* Vinokourov has hooked up with Floyd Landis' legal team to fight his doping charges.

* The delusional and notorious windbag Greg LeMond is opening his big fat mouth... again. Does that guy ever shut up and why does he always come off like a bitter old fighter still hanging around the gym?

Here's something I found interesting about today's time trial: In praising Leipheimer's speedy ride, announcer Phil Liggett compared the American to LeMond, noting that his ride to capture the victory in the stage was "almost as fast as Greg LeMond..."

Hmmmm... almost as fast as LeMond, huh? [Insert sarcasm font] Gee, I wonder what he was taking?

Here's the thing that bothers me the most about Greg LeMond aside from his ego, his arrogance, his bitterness and his personality. LeMond (correct me if I'm wrong) is just like those old-time baseball players who missed out on the big paydays that today's players get so they try to ciphen all they can from the sport by selling out anything they can. LeMond, it seems, still makes his money from cycling, but what does he really give back?

That's why his bitterness toward Lance Armstrong seemed like nothing more than a small man with a big case of douchebaggery. LeMond won the Tour three times, had a horrible accident and then got old, yet seems to believe that something was taken from him. Conversely, Armstrong missed a couple of years from his career because he nearly died from cancer, yet rebounded to win the Tour de France seven years in a row.

That would be enough for most folks, but as Lance always noted, "It's not about the bike." With that he became the leading advocate for cancer research in the world. That was the primary goal and that's what LeMond and the David Walsh types in the world don't seem to understand.

So Le Mond can keep running his mouth, telling everyone how great he was and take, take taking from his sport... and he can continue to come off as a little bitch.

Again, if I'm wrong, correct me. I'm easy to find.

* Here's what I do not like about the Tour (aside from the sideshow crap, of course): the race is practically over. Even though Evans trails Contador by 23 seconds and Leipheimer is in third at 31 seconds off, the American says Evans doesn't have to worry about an attack in the final stage on Sunday. There is a gentleman's agreement regarding such things, they say.

Lame.

There's one day left and three riders are separated by 31 seconds -- GO RACE!

The true sportsman that is Greg LeMond won the 1990 Tour de France on the final stage. It was a time trial, and his closest competitor had saddle sores so bad that he could barely ride his bike, but ol' Greggy went after it. Usually the last day is largely a ceremonial ride, but 31 seconds is nothing. It should be every man for himself into the Champs-Élysées.

Anyway, sorry for coming out so strong on Le Mond, but I just don't understand why he had to put himself in the middle of everything.

Adding on

Lots of stuff going on around here and none of it has to do with the Phillies or baseball. In fact, with a couple of days off and the regular holiday busyness going on around here, I think the last thing I saw from the Phillies was Pat Burrell smacking a home run.

How’s that for a lasting image of the 2007 Phillies?

Anyway, here’s a prediction kind of regarding the Phillies – if someone backs out of the All-Star Game for the National Leaguers, Ryan Howard will be selected as a replacement. Certainly his numbers aren’t stupendous, but Howard is fourth in the league in homers despite spending some time on the disabled list. Howard still projects to 43 homers and 133 RBIs, which is a decent season… think the Phillies are disappointed with that?

Nope, me either.

***
I’d like to leave homeboy Floyd alone for a little while, but it just seems so impossible…

Firstly, Lance Armstrong spoke to a group in Aspen, Colo. this week and told the audience that he thinks Floyd is innocent of the doping charges levied against him, but it appears unlikely that the steamroller of (un)justice that is USADA will not agree.

In fact, it seems as if Armstrong, I and other correct-thinking folks agree that the testing in cycling far exceeds the system in the American pro sports.

Quoth Armstrong: “If you went to Major League Baseball and said, ‘We're going to have random, unannounced, out-of-competition controls,’ they would tell you, ‘You're crazy. No way, we're not playing another game.’ The NFL, they would never do that. NHL, no way. Golf, forget it. Tennis, forget it. Of course, cyclists get tested more than anything else, and perhaps that's why they get caught more than anyone else.”

Interestingly, there is a report that Armstrong may race at Leadville with Floyd on Aug. 11. Perhaps if they can coax Jan Ullrich to join them the last nine surviving Tour de France champs could be doing a race at 11,000-feet in Leadville, Colo. instead of climbing the Alpe d’Huez.

How much fun would that be?

Speaking of fun, there is a report that a verdict from USADA on the Landis case could come as early as tomorrow.

Maybe that’s what has kept someone from USADA from returning my phone calls or e-mails.

***
Speaking of ignoring me, David Walsh’s publisher has not acknowledged my request for a copy of From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France.

Perhaps it’s the crazy holiday week? Or maybe they don’t want me to read what’s in that book? Who knows? All I know is that the so-called anti-doping groups seem to have a low level of credibility when it comes to answering calls or emails.

Also, the podcast from The Competitors radio show featuring a 60-minute interview with Walsh won’t load onto my iTunes. Don’t make me listen to the pudcast again!

***
I dropped my Pat Burrell/Saddam's hanging line on Mike Gill of The Mike Gill Show this afternoon... I think it went over well.

Punching a dead horse in the mouth

Based on what’s shaking baseball-wise in the local papers, it seems as if the piling on Pat Burrell has begun in earnest. It’s either that, or there really isn’t any new news coming out of the Phillies’ clubhouse these days aside from Jon Lieber potentially heading for season-ending surgery.

The big news is still a couple days away when the New York Mets come to town for four games in three days.

It really is hard to believe that even though the Phillies’ pitching staff has been decimated and the bullpen sometimes works with smoke and mirrors, the team very well could alone in first place by the end of the weekend.

How does that happen?

Not to punch a dead horse in the mouth as Larry Bowa used to say, but the truly amazing part is that the Phillies are challenging for the lead in the NL East even though the team has just one right-handed hitting threat in Aaron Rowand and Pat Burrell could be the worst player in the National League right now.

Anyway, here’s my little rip job on the much-maligned left fielder.

Certainly anything can happen between now and the end of the season, or even until the end of Burrell’s deal following the 2008 season, but as it stands now it’s fair to say that Burrell is nothing more than wasted talent.

He is wasted talent that isn’t in the lineup again tonight for the third game in a row.

***
Tonight’s starting pitcher Jamie Moyer is one of just seven 40-something pitchers taking the mound, which is the first time that has ever happened in baseball history. Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Kenny Rogers, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Woody Williams are the other 40-year old hurlers working tonight.

More impressively, Moyer was named the softest-throwing pitcher in the Majors in an anonymous poll conducted by Sports Illustrated.

The other soft-tossers? Try Maddux, Glavine, Rogers, etc.

Not bad company.

***
Speaking of Sports Illustrated, expect writer Austin Murphy to make a little bit of news with his latest story in which Lance Armstrong is, once again, implicated in doping news.

Here’s the thing about cycling that I don’t think many people understand… USADA, WADA, UCI and the brass of the Tour de France are just as corrupt and power hungry as any other group of bureaucrats or politicians.

Do you think there is a reason why the commissioners and union presidents of MLB, the NBA and the NFL don’t want those groups anywhere near their sports? Sure, the leagues all have their problems with performance-enhancing drugs, but to call in corrupt, money and power-hungry egomaniacs from the alphabet-soup groups of regulators isn’t going to help.

Still, it’s pretty explosive stuff from Austin Murphy and it will be interesting to see how Lance Armstrong snuffs out another fire. Plus, we never knew SI was in the business of hyping agenda-driven, insinuation-laden tawdry books that read like bad talk radio... good for them for branching out, I guess.

Excuse me while I go take a shower.

Check out the big head on Barry

The second (or third?) segment of drug war spurred by the BALCO findings has come into the forefront and this one is just as much a tangled web as a David Lynch film. This time, celebrities, athletes and team training staffs are in the mix. Included here is Gary Matthews Jr., who went from a player who was released five times and traded twice before landing on a $50 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels.

But everyone’s attention has been squarely focused on Barry Bonds, who apparently went through a middle-aged growth spurt according to the authors of the book Game of Shadows. In the new afterward of the newly-released paperback edition, authors Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada write that Bonds – upon joining the Giants from the Pirates – went from a size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10½ to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 1/4 cap, even he shaved his head.

The authors write:

“The changes in his foot and head size were of special interest: medical experts said overuse of human growth hormone could cause an adult's extremities to begin growing, aping the symptoms of the glandular disorder acromegaly.”

Yet as Tom Verducci points out on the Sports Illustrated web site, Bonds and his legal team have never, ever challenged the facts of Game of Shadows. In fact, all they have done is point out that the authors used leaked grand jury testimony and attempted to block the authors from accepting profit from the sales of the book.

But the content of the book? The facts? They didn’t touch it.

Contrast that with Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner who has faced all sorts of drug doping allegations ever since he rode into the Champs-Élysées for the first time. When books, reports or even idle chatter popped up accusing Armstrong of using EPO, steroids, HGH or whatever, he sued. He went after the accusations the way he attacked the Alps in the Tour. Armstrong even went after World Anti-Doping Agency zealot Dick Pound, asking the International Olympic Committee that the WADA head be “suspended or expelled from the Olympic movement.”

The IOC agreed and offered a stern rebuke.

Meanwhile, what did Bonds do when he tested positive for amphetamines? Yeah, that’s right, he blamed a teammate… then backed off… and now it’s something he doesn’t want to talk about because “it’s in the past.”

Why shouldn't it be for him? After all, if Bonds is indicted and the Giants void his contract, the Major League Players Association will have his back...

Drug use in sports, however, is not in the past. It’s not going away – it’s sitting right there in your living room waiting for you and your sports-loving fans to determine if it’s up to them to make a decision.

Is this going to stand or not? The people have the power... right?

Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
We would be remiss not to note the passing of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. For those with an interest in American history, Schlesinger undoubtedly has a section on your bookshelf.

Schlesinger's The Age of Jackson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1946 when he was just 27. His biography of Robert F. Kennedy that was especially memorable, especially the last three chapters.

Same old song

For as long as Ryan Howard has been a part of the Philadelphia sporting scene, which goes back to 2002, steroids never entered my mind. I never thought about anything regarding illegal drugs or performance enhancing substances when Howard was smashing all those homers.

From my vantage I saw a guy who really had an idea of how to hit. In the batters’ box he also seemed to be thinking even if he struck out, and even in the minor leagues he was always making adjustments. He was always one step ahead of the competition.

Last year, though, the steroid question popped up, which was equally rationale and infuriating. Because such sweeping ideas which are always lacking in depth and nuance come from the national media, it made sense. They don’t watch Ryan Howard play every day. They don’t appreciate the intricacies of his regime and day-to-day effort. All they see are the numbers.

Anyone who has been in the Phillies’ clubhouse knows that if Ryan Howard is taking steroids he’s taking the wrong ones.

Nevertheless, the steroid question sprung up again during Howard’s pre-Spring Training press conference in Clearwater yesterday.
A bunch of other questions came up, too, but since the national media was there, the steroid issue was out in front. That’s fine and expected, but when is it going to end? Is it going to end? I doubt anyone really thinks Howard is cheating, but will there ever be a day when the questions about it ever stop?

It’s very doubtful.

Lance vs. Pound
One thing is for sure: Lance Armstrong will never escape the questions about performance-enhancing drugs, and Dick Pound will never stop talking about Armstrong.

In The New York Times, George Vecsey writes about how the pair are tied to each other – kind of like Magic and Bird.

Making the rounds
John Amaechi is not the first gay man to play in the NBA. He won’t be the last, either. He’s also not the first gay man to play professional sports to write a book, and it’s doubtful he will be the last.

In other words, there is nothing particularly interesting about his story. Amaechi is not a trailblazer, was barely a marginal player in the NBA and was an above average player for Penn State mostly because he was a center who could get up and down the court.

As far as being gay goes… whatever. The fact that something like that is still an issue in 2007 is sad. Just get in the pot already. It also reminds me of a quote from Gandhi when he was asked what he thought about American culture:

“It would be a good idea.”

Nevertheless, Amaechi was in Philadelphia doing the canned interviews with all of the outlets to sell more books – a fact that seemed to be lost on those doing the interviewing. Tim Hardaway, Shavlik Randolph and their unfathomable idiocy aside, the only reason Amaechi is even in the news is because ESPN published his book. His story really isn’t that extraordinary – in fact, it’s probably very normal.

Snow, snow, go away

As the snow falls over this corner of the Northeast, it’s fun to think about the warmer weather and the upcoming racing and training seasons ahead.

The World Cross Country Championships are in Kenya next month, followed by the Boston Marathon in mid April will star top American Deena Kastor, defending New York City champ Jelena Prokopcuka, and defending Boston champ Rita Jeptoo.

A week after Boston, the epically deep London Marathon field that will feature Americans Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi (2:09:53) and Khalid Khannouchi (2:05:38) will go after world-record holder Paul Tergat (2:04:55), and two-time Olympic champion Haile Gebrselassie (2:05:56), as well as Felix Limo (2:06:14); Martin Lel (2:06:41); Hendrick Ramaala (2:06:55); Jaouad Gharib (2:07:02); defending Olympic champion Stefano Baldini (2:07:22); Benson Cherono (2:07:58); Hicham Chat (2:07:59); defending New York City champ Marilson Gomes dos Santos (2:08:48); and Briton Jon Brown (2:09:31).

Outside of the Olympics the London field could be the deepest ever assembled.

But more than the spring marathons and big track meets, the news on a snowy Tuesday focuses on the autumn, specifically the two big races in New York City on the first weekend in November.

That’s where Lance Armstrong will take another crack at the New York City Marathon on Nov. 4. Last year, as was well documented, Armstrong completed the hilly NYC course in 2:59:36 thanks in part to being paced through by Alberto Salazar, German Silva, Joan Samuelson and Hicham El Guerrouj. Actually, Armstrong’s outing in New York was a big-time production magnified by a phalanx of security, famous Nike runners, and a pace car reporting his splits along with the equally ridiculous “Lance Cam.”

Meanwhile, Armstrong finished 856th.

Afterwards, Armstrong called marathoning much more difficult than cycling:

“I can tell you, 20 years of pro sports, endurance sports, from triathlons to cycling, all of the Tours – even the worst days on the Tours – nothing was as hard as that, and nothing left me feeling the way I feel now, in terms of just sheer fatigue and soreness.”

READ MORE OF THIS POST

Tobacco? In baseball?

Lance Armstrong is preparing to run the NYC Marathon (more on that at a later date) so it only makes sense that the seven-time Tour de France champ sits down with an interviewer from Runner's World, right? In a Q&A posted on the Runner's World web site, Armstrong discussed his training (or lack thereof) and the differences between cycling and running (one uses a bike) during the short interview.

But particularly interesting and funny was the answer to the requiste drug/doping question. It seems as if Armstrong wonders why ballplayers need to take performance-enhancing drugs when there's all that spitting going on. Here's the question and the answer:

Runner's World: What are your thoughts about Barry Bonds?
Lance Armstrong: I have to say I understand what he's going through. I think there's probably more of an association just because of the BALCO stuff and the grand jury testimony. Barry is more - it seems from the outside - he's a tough character. He's not gone out of his way to try to fix the situation or make friends there. But I don't really follow baseball. Mostly because I don't understand it. If you can do tobacco and play the sport, then it's technically probably not a sport.

To read the full interview, click here.

As an aside, I don't believe for a minute that Armstrong is merely running and trying to finish the Nov. 5 race "within an hour of the winner." I think he's understating his training in these interviews and is training his rear off.

I'm not basing this on anything, and I certainly could be wrong. All I know is that people like Armstrong like to win.

Uh-oh Part II

It was as inevitable as the change of seasons that when the story in which two former teammates of Lance Armstrong admitted to past EPO use that the "is Lance dirty" chatter would grow louder.

Everybody, it seems, has an opinion whether or not Armstrong doped his way to the seven straight Tour de France victories. That's especially true in the climate in which athletes have to prove that they are not taking drugs. In regards to Armstrong, like every other professional athlete, there seems to be very little grey area

Forget the fact that Armstrong's VO2 reading (his ability to use oxygen) is one of the highest ever recorded, or that he has threatened to sue over accusations tying him with doping. Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds or any other high-profile athlete tied to sports' drug scandals haven't spoken as strongly as Armstrong has -- not that this is an absolution.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Armstrong quickly fired back, calling the story in The New York Times, a "hatchet job."

Meanwhile, top cyclist Jan Ullrich's house in Switzerland was raided by authorities as part of the investigation regarding a Spanish doping case.

Before anyone gets on their sports hih horse and says, "who cares, it's just cycling," or, "who cares, it's just track," think about this:

What if they tried to keep baseball, football, basketball and hockey as clean as they do in those sports. How different would the games be?

Obviously, this (or anything like it) is never going to occur until an independent agency takes over as the drug authority. The league and player's unions will never let that happen.

On another Armstrong note, he is still slated to run the New York City Marathon on Nov. 4. He has already admitted that marathoning is more difficult than cycling (he's right), but based on Armstrong's VO2, he should be able to run a 2:08. That won't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if he runs better than 2:30.

Uh-oh

Here's something that's interesting: two members of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France team in 1999 have admitted to using EPO, according to Juliet Macur's story in The New York Times. Interestingly, one of the riders, Frankie Andreu, was a domestique for Armstrong's U.S. Postal team just like Floyd Landis was to be a few years later.

Even more interestingly, Andreu's admission came on the same day that Landis' lawyer asked that the doping charges against the reigning Tour champ be dismissed. According to the Associated Press story, Landis' lawyer hinted, "for the first time at the Tour de France winner's official defense: that his positive testosterone tests were flawed and did not meet World Anti-Doping Agency standards."

More: 2 Ex-Teammates of Cycling Star Admit Drug Use
More: Landis' Attorney Wants Charges Dismissed

Meanwhile, the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal had a bit of a scoop with an exclusive interview with Landis. Kudos to them. Kudos.