Waiting for the Friday storm

Barry Bonds, as we all know, is in town for four games this weekend. But frankly, that shouldn’t be the drawing card to the Phillies-Giants series. The big deal should be the pitching matchups, most notably Cole Hamels vs. Noah Lowry on Saturday night; the resurgent Freddy Garcia against rookie Tim Lincecum on Sunday afternoon; and Silent Jon Lieber matched up against former AL Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito in Monday afternoon’s finale.

For folks who like baseball, pitching is the most fascinating part of the game, and there are few pitchers as interesting as Cole Hamels and Barry Zito.

***
The New York tabloids are all abuzz about a well-known baseball figure hitting the town and living it up, and no, it’s not Alex Rodriguez.

Would you believe it’s Mr. Met?

Don’t tell me the Phillies and the Phanatic are trailing the Mets and Mr. Met in on the nightlife side of things, too? Does Pat Burrell have to carry this team?

***
Speaking of fun times, Mr. Fun, Floyd Landis, is ready to return to bike racing tomorrow at the Teva Outdoor Games mountain bike race. Since this is not a sanctioned event, Landis is eligible to race despite facing a two-year ban for alleged doping in last year’s Tour de France.

The race will be Floyd’s first time out since winning the Tour de France last July and then undergoing hip-replacement surgery 10 months ago.

Better yet, Floyd will be in Lancaster and West Chester in the next few weeks hawking his new book, Positively False. He’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Lancaster (I’m not giving the address because there is only one Barnes & Noble in Lancaster) on June 29 at 7 p.m. and at the Chester County Book & Music Co. on Paoli Pike in West Chester on July 2.

I doubt he’ll offer a reading or do anything more than the grip-grin-and-sign routine, but I would assume there isn’t anything new in the book that Landis and his camp didn’t reveal at his arbitration hearing a couple of weeks ago.

Well, I doubt the Greg LeMond stuff is in there.

Anyway, I’m still waiting for Landis’ publisher to send a copy to me (c/o Comcast SportsNet, Wachovia Center, 3601 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19148 or my Lancaster address… it’s out there) so I can give it the proper review it deserves.

Pete Rose and Rodale didn’t mind sending one out, so I’m sure a fellow Lancaster Countian will oblige.

Meanwhile, don’t forget about the big 2007 Men's Pro Cycling Tour hits The Lanc on Sunday afternoon. So far I’ve heard very little hostility about the race hitting the downtown area, but it’s still early.

Then again, maybe Queen Street will turn into a scaled down version of the Manayunk Wall?

***
I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with Mike Gill of ESPN Radio 1450 in Atlantic City again yesterday afternoon. For a kid who spent the first seven years of my school career going through intensive speech therapy which including sessions at Easter Seals in Washington, D.C., I’ve come a long way if I do say so myself.

Apparently, people tell me I used to sound like Daffy Duck when I was a kid. I guess that’s a mean thing to say, but we all laugh about it now.

Anyway, I talked to Mike on my phone while standing along the banks of a small country stream in the outer edges of the Dutch Wonderland amusement park (when you have a 3-year old, you get a season pass and prepare to ride the Turtle Whirl a lot), when a big fish – maybe a carp – leapt out of the water at a bird. I believe we were talking about Ryan Howard at the time and wasn’t sure if it would be proper to bring up what I saw, but anyway, I saw a fish jump at a bird.

No, I don’t get out much.

Back from a break

Hola amigos! I was busy procrastinating and managing my time poorly so I didn’t get a chance to post anything substantive here over the past few days. Because of that, I won’t try to overwhelm everyone all at once. Instead, here’s a few recent stories, trends, etc. that I thought were interesting.

Let’s go:

Ryan Howard finding a seat on the bench with Greg Dobbs, Rod Barajas, Jayson Werth and Michael Bourn for last night’s game against the Diamondbacks’ Randy Johnson was something that raised eyebrows and caused a few to say to no one in particular, “Hmmph.”

Cosmetically, I suppose, it makes sense in that it was left-hander Randy Johnson pitching and Howard is a left-handed hitter. Add the fact that Howard got a cramp in his hamstring during the ninth inning of Tuesday night’s loss and perhaps manager Charlie Manuel was just being safe than sorry.

“(Howard's) played five days and Randy is pitching,” the skipper said before the game. “I figured from a conditioning standpoint, everything kind of points to me giving him a day off. He'll rest tomorrow although he is available to pinch-hit. He had a cramp and once he got over it he was fine.”

But from another point of view – namely Howard’s – that explanation was just silly. Though Howard is hitting .133 in just 45 at-bats against lefties this season, he hit .279 with 16 homers against southpaws in his 2006 MVP season. Interestingly, Howard has never faced Johnson during his career, though Johnson has faced such notable Phillies as Ruben Amaro, Mike Schmidt, Bob Dernier and Floyd Youmans.

How does Randy Johnson get to face Floyd Youmans but not Ryan Howard?

Regardless, the notion of sitting Howard against Johnson doesn’t work anymore. Sure, Johnson can still pitch and he showed that by holding the Phillies to just one hit and no walks on just 61 pitches through six innings. But that famous fastball, apparently, isn’t what it once was and in sticking it to the Phillies last night Johnson relied on a slider that got in on the right-handers as well as the overzealousness of the hitters.

How overzealous were they? Well, the Phillies were so anxious that even with Johnson out of the game the Phillies went down in order in the seventh inning against reliever Doug Slaten on 10 pitches.

Anyway, in regard to sitting against Johnson, Howard said:

"It is what it is. It's fine. It's done. It's good.

“I told them I was alright. It was my hamstring. I told them it was alright. I'm sure when I grabbed my left leg, which is the one where I had the quad injury, everyone thought it was that. My quad is fine.”

The Phillies, however, are not in the best shape. After all, it’s quite reasonable that “The Team to Beat” could be up to a dozen games behind the New York Mets in the NL East before the first full week of June.

What did Jimmy Rollins, the author of the “team to beat” quote have to say about getting swept by the Diamondbacks and falling below .500.

“Unfortunately everything that went right for us in Atlanta went wrong for us here,” he said. “We get tomorrow off. Regroup, come back and get some wins against San Francisco.

“The losing record is only one game below .500 fortunately but we do have to play better ball. Things we did in Atlanta we have to do the rest of the season.”

With 109 games to go in the season, the Phillies’ best chance rests with the wild card. But if it will take 95 victories to win the wild card, the Phillies have to go 69-40 the rest of the way. That’s .633 ball, which is about what the Red Sox and Mets are doing these days.

Can the Phillies do that too?

***
No one asked me, but I think the Arizona Snakes would be a much more menacing nickname than Diamondbacks. I don’t like snakes, in fact, I’m probably afraid of them. A Diamondback does nothing for me. Snakes and Bugs would be a better team name… the Arizona Flyin’ Bugs? That has a nice ring to it.

***
If you are like me and a fan/participant of endurance sports, it’s worth noting that Martin Dugard has a blog. I just discovered it yesterday after hearing him interviewed on The Competitors radio show from San Diego.

Speaking of cycling (wasn’t I), the 2007 Men's Pro Cycling Tour hits the area starting this Sunday with a race through downtown Lancaster. It culminates on Sunday, June 10 with the U.S. championship in Philadelphia.

Interestingly, folks in Lancaster complain about some of the top cyclists riding through their downtown streets, while in Philadelphia they turn the event into an all day party.

Yes, in that regard I believe the people in Philadelphia are smarter than the people in Lancaster.

***
Back to baseball…

The Phillies, the very minor flap with John Smoltz was fascinating not because of what Smoltz said regarding Brett Myers’ move from the rotation to the bullpen, but because of the way the Phillies reacted to it.

You know, because the Phillies go to the playoffs every year and the Braves have just one World Series title in their 124 seasons in the Major Leagues… wait, I think I got those mixed up.

Anyway, from the way I read the stories from the long-forgotten sweep in Atlanta last weekend, it sounded as if the Phillies reacted as though Smoltz offered his sage opinion regarding Myers’ move to the bullpen instead of simply answering a question posed to him by a writer.

Come on… baseball players don’t go around offering their opinions to anyone who will listen.

Oh wait… I forgot about this guy.

Digressing again, assistant GM told writers last weekend that Smoltz really ought to just butt out.

“The Phillies have a great deal of respect for John Smoltz and what he's represented to the Braves and to this division. He's a Hall of Fame pitcher. At the same time, I'm not sure it's appropriate for him to be making comments about personnel decisions that we've made as an organization.”

The entire thing could be a matter of poor reading comprehension on my part, but I don’t understand why the Phillies chose to comment at all, nor why they would be so dismissive of John Smoltz. In fact, I remember talking to him back when he was closing games for the Braves and asked him about the move from the rotation to the bullpen and how it affected his golf game.

Big time, is my many years removed paraphrasing of the conversation.

Back then Smoltz said that the training regime for a reliever was much more intricate than that of a starter. As a reliever, Smoltz had to be ready every single day and he had to train for that during the off-season. As a starter, he could pace himself a little more.

Certainly, in regard to Myers, I don’t think he injured himself because he wasn’t strong enough, stretched out or couldn’t handle the work load, but the everyday-ness of relieving could have caused a slight muscle weakness. Myers will definitely work all of those issues out if he has a long-term future as a reliever/closer.

***
Hey... Barry Bonds comes to town tomorrow. I bet he gets booed.

We can't see you

If the Eagles play a game and nobody is able to watch it, does it make a sound?

In other words, here in Lancaster, Pa. -- just 60 miles from Center City as the crow flies -- the Eagles game is not on TV. Nope, it wasn't "blacked out," nor was there a technical glitch. Simply, it was not broadcast in this area.

This is despite the Eagles thinking that Lancaster was fertile enough ground for their fandom to open one of their Eagles' Stores in the touristy row of strip malls outlining the outer edge of Lancaster proper and the Amish/tourist zone. This is also despite the notion that Lancasterians believe their town is a de facto suburb of Philadelphia and within the Philly media market.

But the reason for the Eagles snub of the Lancaster viewing area isn't because the cable company or TV networks are mean or have it out for the good folks in the Garden Spot. It's simply the fault of geography, which can be a kick in the pants sometimes.

You see, CBS is the network in charge of carrying the Eagles game vs. Jacksonville on Sunday. Unfortunately, the TV station in Lancaster -- WGAL -- is an NBC affiliate. The CBS affiliate is in York or Harrisburg, which just over the Susquehanna River from Lancaster, is technically the Baltimore viewing market. That means the affiliate is bound by the NFL's rules and regulations to show the Ravens-Saints game.

See, what did I tell you about geography?

The funny thing is that Baltimore is closer to most of Lancaster. In fact, a drive from my house to Camden Yards/Inner Harbor is much easier and quicker to make than one to Philadelphia... not to mention much more pleasant than battling traffic on the Schuylkill or Blue Route.

Yet there is no real connection with Baltimore here. Sure, there are a handful of Orioles' fans, but they seem to have diminished considerably during the Angelos reign in the so-called Charm City. The Ravens? What are they? Where did they come from and what happened to the Colts?

The football team in that city is called the Baltimore Colts. You know, Johnny Unitas, Art Donovan, Don Shula, Lenny Moore, Bert Jones, Gino Marchetti, Earl Morrall and Raymond Berry. The name and colors should have remained locked up in Memorial Stadium when the Irsay's packed up that Mayflower truck and snuck out of town in the middle of the night.

The Baltimore Ravens still have a USFL feel to them, and yeah, I know they won the Super Bowl a few years ago. The opposing quarterback in that game, Kerry Collins, is a former basketball and football standout in the Lancaster-Lebanon League.

Lancaster is Eagles and Phillies country, and it used to be the pre-season home for the 76ers, whose training camp was held at Franklin & Marshall College. Nevertheless, that doesn't do anything for the folks who are bummed out that they cannot watch the local football team on Sunday afternoon.

So what's the remedy? Maybe the NFL can start broadcasting their games on the Internet like every other major and minor sports league? Or, better yet, maybe they can allow the local affiliates to decide on their own which games they want to televise to their viewers?

Then again, it's Sunday. Turn off the tube and hang out with the family.

Game 5: 1982 Cardinals

The last time the Cardinals won the World Series, a dude from Lancaster was on the mound to get the last out. Justin Verlander wasn't born yet.

Better yet, the Cardinals' second baseman was also from Lancaster.

In that regard, I wonder what Bruce Sutter, newly inducted to the Hall of Fame this year, and Tom Herr are thinking right now.

I wonder if they're watching?

Sutter has become something of a de facto Cardinals celebrity this summer with his No. 42 retired alongside Jackie Robinson's famous 42. He seemed genuinely touched by the gesture, too -- much more than most players who receive the honor.

I vaguely remember Sutter as a pitcher. The intricacies of pitching were lost on me at such a young age, though I remember how people talked in hushed tones and awe of Sutter's now-famous split-finger fastball. I remember a lot of hitters swinging and missing it when Sutter was pitching for the Cubs, Cards and Braves.

Tom Herr, the second baseman from the '82 Cards, lives very near where I'm sitting right now. According to baseball people that I have talked to who remember Herr from his playing days, the second baseman was not always very popular with his teammates or the media. A lot of people say he was a bit of a clubhouse lawyer and a sometimes uncooperative. A little arrogant, too, they say.

What do I know, I wasn't there.

But if I had to guess, it could be that reputation that kept Herr from becoming a Major League coach or manager after his playing days ended with an unceremonious trade from the Phillies followed by his releases from the Mets and Giants.

Herr is back now, though... kind of. He spent the past two summers managing the independent league Lancaster Barnstormers. They even won the Atlantic League title this year. Whether that re-opens some doors to the Majors remains to be seen. From what I have learned in my six years is that grudges die hard all over the big leagues.

Meanwhile, the game has been a bit sloppy thus far. Aside from Inge's error, the third baseman ran the Tigers out of an inning by getting caught too far off second base on a grounder hit to the left side of the infield.

In the bottom of the the third, Albert Pujols was caught stealing on the back end of hit-and-run in which Jim Edmonds whiffed.

Chris Duncan muffed an easy fly ball in right field with one out in the fourth when Edmonds decided to do his Kelly Leak impression. Duncan's error -- no thanks to Edmonds -- allowed Magglio Ordonez to reach base so that Sean Casey could pound a long home run just inside the foul pole in right.

Just like that and it's 2-1 for the Tigers.

Verlander has the lead.

Look at that!

I generally don’t like to watch sports for long periods of time. I guess that makes me weird or perhaps someone who made a bad career choice.

Actually, let me explain myself. I dislike watching sports that I’m not writing about nor have some sort of connection to. I’m like Vin Scully that way since the greatest voice in baseball history has never attended a game he wasn’t working. Ol’ Vin just refuses to go to a game just for the sake of going to a game.

My problem is my attention span. I just can’t sit still long enough to fully concentrate on sports on TV. I need to get up and walk around. Or check stuff out on the Internet. Or read a book. Or do sit-ups. Something, anything but sit and stare at a box.

But this weekend is different. Aside from the Phillies’ big series against the Marlins, the always fun Ryder Cup is burning up the airwaves. The most interesting part from these parts is that homeboy Jim Furyk from Manheim Township is paired up with Tiger Woods in team action. According to the word on the street, Tiger has taken a shine to the Lancaster kid because of his competitiveness and work ethic.

Maybe that endorsement from Tiger is not what Furyk needs? After all Tiger stinks in Ryder Cup-style play.

Then again, the last time we heard such accolades heaped on a guy from around here, he was riding his bike to Paris wearing the Yellow Jersey.

Nevertheless, the Ryder Cup is tons of fun with all of the best elements of golf. Every shot is meaningful and every putt has the chance to sway the balance of a match. Who wouldn’t want to watch that?

You want to watch people run? You mean… run?
Uh, yeah. Is that odd?

For most people, Sunday means parking it in front of the TV so they can feel their rear grow into the couch. But if I can get up (or stay up), I’m watching the showdown in Berlin where the great Haile Gebrselassie goes against Sammy Korir, the second-fastest marathoner in the history of the world, in Sunday’s 26.2-mile race.

The race won’t be on TV in the United States, but it will be on NBC pay-per-view on the Internet. Frankly, this is a great idea and is the perfect for the web – there are a few fringe sports that a few Americans are interested in. Why now “televise” them on the Web? Hopefully, broadcasting on the Web becomes the future for sports. I have the feeling that it’s already heading that way, since, as I type, I have the Dodgers-Diamondbacks game on my PC.

Anyway, the big race in Berlin is expected to flirt with the world record because the course is flat and designed for fast times and the runners are very talented. Korir lost to Paul Tergat in the classic 2003 race in Berlin with a 2:04:56. Tergat had to break the world record to beat him.

So far this year, Korir has the best time in the world with a 2:06:38 in Rotterdam.

Geb, of course, is judged by many to be one of the greatest runners in history. He has the gold medals from the Olympics, a handful of world records, but he hasn’t been able to dominate marathoning like many suspected he would. Regardless, there’s a buzz about Berlin this year and reports are the pacesetters have been instructed to hit the halfway point in 62:30 – right on world-record pace.

New York, New York
Speaking of marathons, the New York City race has assembled a deep and interesting field. Tergat, the defending champ and world-record holder, is in the race, along with Olympic and World champ Stefano Baldini. On the women’s side, American-record holder Deena Kastor should duel with Catherine Ndereba, the all-time great Kenyan who trains in Valley Forge.

But the interesting part is the Americans that are running in New York. Olympic Marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi and Olympians Alan Culpepper and Dathan Ritzenhein (his marathon debut), are in, along with Peter Gilmore, who was seventh at this year's Boston Marathon.

So why run in New York instead of Chicago where the Americans can get a faster time? How about money, money, money. New York has set up a special prize structure where the the top American gets $20,000, second place gets $15,000. Third wins $10,000 and then $3,000 and $2,000 for fourth and fifth.

There is no mention of bonuses for running specific times, though the Toronto Marathon is offering a $20,000 bonus for anyone running faster than 2:10.

Personally, I think that anyone who can run a 2:09 marathon should be set for life, or at least make more money than the Major League minimum salary, but that’s me.

Mail call

Yes, we read all the email we receive from readers. Even the angry and rambling missives that read like the Unabomber's manifesto sent by people who can barely compose a sentence or use proper punctuation. Those are our favorites if only for the entertainment factor.

But those emails are rare. Most of our readers compose well-intentioned and interesting, literate emails. For instance, I received a few emails this week regarding the race in the NL West between the Dodgers and Padres and which team Phillies fans should root for.

That's a good question. From the way that race is jumbled -- on the seesaw, if you will (and I know you will) -- it seems as if the Phillies are chasing two teams. But that's wrong. The Phillies are chasing the team not in first place. That means Phillies fans should root for whichever team is leading the division and root against the team leading the wild-card race.

Better yet, since the Dodgers and Padres don't play each other any more, just root for them both to lose and the Phillies to win... that is if you want the Phillies to go to the playoffs.

Double play duo
Another interesting email I received asked whether or not Jimmy Rollins, with 22 homers, and Chase Utley (28 homers) are the first middle-infield duo in Phillies history to slug 50 homers?

See, good question.

I haven't looked it up and I'm not going to ask the Phillies PR staff because all they will do is roll their eyes, huff and puff and basically give an annoyed, "I don't bleeping know... " to any query presented. But based on what I know about the Phillies and their history, I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes, yes they are.

As for a double-play combo smashing 50 homers in a season in Major League history, I found Bobby Doerr and Vern Stephens with 56 for the 1948 Boston Red Sox, 57 the next season, 57 more in 1950.

Of course there is Alex Rodriguez, who as a shortstop for the Mariners and Rangers, routinely hit 50 homers by himself. In 1999, A-Rod and David Bell (remember him?) hit 63, with Rodriguez getting 42 of them. In 2001, A-Rod hit 52 while Michael Young added 11 and the following season, Rodriguez hit 57 and Young hit 9. During Rodriguez's last season in Texas in 2003 -- his last as a shortstop -- he hit 47 and Young hit 14.

That's about as far as my research took me, because I would probably be sitting here all day looking up numbers, going off on tangents and analyzing Richie Zisk's career.

The Bull and some bull?
An email from the award-winning writer (see, I told you our readers are literate) Charlie Schroeder arrived yesterday, thanking me for the plug of his story that appeared (will appear?) in The Best Sports Writing in America 2005 anthology. Here's the story for any one who missed it.

However, Charlie, a fellow Lancasterian from the 'hood and now tearing it up in L.A., questioned some of my "facts" regarding his role in the gulley-trapping/rock-throwing incident with Pete Horn. Charlie says he doesn't remember the incident, but related something at the Day School involving a skateboard, a few ruffians, Tim Watt and Richard McNamara. Watt, as everyone remembers, was the feared slugger for the Lancaster Township Indians who used to smack them way out onto the track at the Wheatland Jr. High field. He was also much bigger than most of the other kids his age and a little crazy so to mix it up with him was to really test fate.

As far as McNamara goes, anyone who knows me knows that my stories regarding him are classified and not publishable on something as holistic as this site. Put it this way... he and I will never go to Canada or Mexico together again.

Anyway, Charlie produced a neat homage to Greg Luzinski for the NPR show, "Only a Game." Check it out here.

Did he do it?

I believe Floyd Landis.

Let me clarify that. I believe Floyd Landis when he says his drugs test that showed on improper ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is not a doping case. I believe Landis when he says he did not dope and I rarely ever believe any professional athlete when they attempt to maintain some sort of innocence.

There are a lot of reasons for my belief in Landis. And yes, part of it has to do with the fact that Landis and I were raised in the same part of the world. Oh yeah, our backgrounds are very, very different. Landis comes from the country in which the people are almost reactionary in their conservatism – and then there is that whole Mennonite thing. As a kid, that type of belief or philosophy never was a blip on my radar. Living in Lancaster, I encountered Mennonites and Amish people enough to know who and what they were, but nothing beyond cursory introductions. That world never intersected with mine.

That’s because I come from Lancaster Township in a little area adjacent to the campus of Franklin & Marshall and Wheatland, President James Buchanan’s home. My neighborhood was about as urbane as Lancaster got and my neighbors were professors, doctors, lawyers and financial people – not a lot of diversity there. However, my high school, J.P. McCaskey, was a Benetton advertisement come to life. White kids made up less than 50 percent of the student body, while African-Americans, Puerto Ricans and Vietnamese kids encompassed at least 51 percent of the school’s population.

Needless to say, my McCaskey was quite a bit different than Landis’s Conestoga Valley. And frankly, I could never imagine any better high school in the world than McCaskey or a better place to grow up than roaming James Buchanan’s Wheatland or the quad at F&M. Thankfully, I left the Philadelphia area to return to my old ‘hood.

On the other hand, I’m sure Landis feels the same way about where he grew up. Imagine all of those endless miles though that perfect landscape on those forgotten country roads… what could be better than that for a budding cyclist? Yes, Landis clashed his conservative parents and fled to California in order to make his dreams come true, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a great athlete came from such a place as Lancaster County.

That tangent aside, knowing what I do about where Landis comes from makes it hard for me to believe that he took any performance-enhancing aid. It’s impossible, really. No, Lancaster Countians are not the worldliest or most sophisticated people one will ever meet. In fact, in some sense the stifling conservatism that chokes the region and limits its potential to be a really great place to live and visit can be classified as a social disease.

But the people from Lancaster County have a strong sense of fairness, right and wrong, and inert intelligence (common sense). People in Lancaster County do not reward or celebrate bad behavior.

That’s where Floyd Landis comes from.

It just doesn’t make sense. Floyd had passed 20 previous drug test until Stage 17 and then all of a sudden he flunks one? Really? And that point-of-view is not just coming from me, but from Dr. Gary Wadler of the World Anti-Doping Association. In an interview with ESPN, Wadler said:

It's certainly not one of the first-line drugs one thinks of for racing. Steroids can increase strength and improve recovery time and prevent the breakdown of muscle, maybe make him more assertive and aggressive. All of those could have some positive attribute. But most steroids are given in cycles [6-12 weeks] and in context of working out in a gym with weights. It makes no sense to me why an athlete would take testosterone the day of a race when it doesn't work that way. It doesn't make sense in terms of the pharmacology of the drug, and it really doesn't have the attributes that would be attractive to a cyclist -- particularly one running the risk of violating anti-doping regulations.

Everybody knew the spotlight was on cycling. For eight years, the world has been watching cycling particularly closely. It would be the ultimate form of denial, or the ultimate sense of invincibility, to think you're going to evade that. And when the pharmacology of the drug doesn't really, in my judgment, seem like a drug of particular note to a cyclist, it doesn't really compute.

Charles Yesalis, the renowned excercise and sports science professor from Penn State, agrees with Wadler, saying in interviews that he doesn't understand why Landis would dope.

"The use of testosterone makes zero sense," Yesalis said in an interview. "If he wanted a boost in his performance it makes no sense to use it.

"Testosterone is a training drug. You don’t use it during the event."

At the same time, as an endurance athlete with 12 marathons under his belt who is currently logging 100-plus miles weekly in preparation for another marathon in mid-November (sportswriters should be involved in sports, right?), I know what hard training does to the human body. Obviously, I’m nowhere near Landis elite level – no one is – but running and biking are similar in many regards. One of those is that hard running and hard biking alter a person’s body chemistry.

My epitestosterone levels are on the low side. That’s just the way it is when a person runs 15 miles a day for an average. My guess is that if I were to take the same drug test Landis took after his Stage 17 victory last week in the Tour de France, my testosterone to epitestosterone ratio would not be 1:1 as it’s supposed to be for a normal, everyday person.

And I have never touched any performance-enhancing drugs in my life. I don’t even know what a steroid or any of that garbage looks like and I would have no idea how to use or inject it. If caffeine, Ibuprofen, Clif Bars and banana, strawberry and blueberry smoothies are performance enhancing, I’ll fail every test.

So it’s not surprising that Landis’s ratio was 4:1 or 5:1 or even 6:1. As explained by AP medical writer Lindsey Tanner, it isn’t far fetched. The testosterone to epitestosterone test really seems to be bad science – no matter what Draconian zealot Dick Pound says.

The point is I find it hard to believe that Floyd’s testosterone levels were high. They actually were probably lower than average. It’s just that pesky epitestosterone was probably much lower.

This is a very, very important distinction, because the test Landis took is generally used to detect doping. From The New York Times:

The key is to look at the pattern of Landis’s tests and see if his testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio is consistent or whether it varied, said John McKinlay, the senior vice president and chief scientist at the New England Research Institutes.

"You don’t get variations in human beings," he said. "If there is a spike that coincides with that day when he did fantastically well, that answers the question."

Unless, of course, alcohol raised his testosterone level. Or unless the test was in error. Or unless the B sample shows a normal ratio, in which case he would be cleared.

But the test will not detect a specific drug used or if the shots of Jack Daniels that the Wall Street Journal reported Landis indulged in after his nightmare Stage 16 collapse caused the epitestosterone levels to dip so much.

But if it is higher than a normal realm, well, Floyd has some 'splaining to do.

I also believe Landis when he says he is not optimistic about the "B" samples exonerating him. It’s hard to believe that Floyd’s nightmare will end any time soon.

Good reading on the Floyd Landis case

Austin Murphy talks to Landis for SI

Austin Murphy offers his opinion of the case

Outside magazine interview with Landis before the Tour de France

I'm not familar with too many of the biking publications other than VeloNews and some of the triathlon magazines, so if anyone has any links to decent stories regarding this case, please e-mail them to me. The thoughtfulness is much appreciated.

A final word on Floyd from Farmersville

LANCASTER, Pa. – If one were to ask someone from Lancaster where in the world Farmersville, Pa. was or who the heck was Floyd Landis, chances are they would probably respond with a long, blank stare. Oh sure, there had been some mention of Landis in the local papers a few years ago when he spent the summers as one of Lance Armstrong’s cadre of lieutenants who did all the dirty work to help bike racing’s biggest star win all of those Tour de France titles, but the majority of folks had no clue as to who or what Floyd Landis was.

As for Farmersville, that sounded like something conjured by Hollywood types or from the preconceived notions as to what Lancaster and the county that bears its name actually is. Yeah, there are farms in Lancaster County – lots of them, in fact. But for the people who live in Lancaster city and its suburbs, the farms and places like Farmersville are for the tourists or places one ends up after a wrong turn off the Turnpike or Route 30.

Farmersville? Never heard of it.

But it’s funny how three weeks can change things.

It would be very difficult to find any one in America who hasn’t heard of Floyd Landis, the recovering Mennonite from little old Farmersville, Pa. in bucolic Lancaster County these days. Winning one of the biggest sporting events in the world has a way of making anonymity disappear. Everybody knows Floyd Landis now. His story has been told and re-told over and over again amongst friends and acquaintances like it was the latest episode of a favorite TV show or a crazy snap of the weather.

“Can you believe that Floyd Landis? Did you read that one how his parents don’t have a TV so they go to the neighbor’s house to watch highlights from the race?”

“Yeah, I saw one where his dad said that the family didn’t disown him after he chose to leave their ultra-conservative way of life to move to California to become a pro cyclist. They just told him that he was ‘living a sinful life.’”

Landis mania runs rampant in Lancaster now. So much so that Farmersville – more a sweeping country crossroads than a hamlet – has become a tourist destination for people who live just a few miles away. It seems as if Lancasterians are curious about just where in the world Floyd Landis comes from.

The locals aren’t the only ones, either. According to the Lancaster New Era, reporters from all over, including one from the French newspaper L’Equipe joined the fray of TV trucks and curiosity seekers at the Landis home.

And what did Arlene Landis, Floyd’s mom, do when everyone showed up? She invited them in and made them steaks while the neighbors wondered what the fuss was all about and hoped that Landis’ new celebrity won’t turn the little street into another tourist stop the way nearby Amish farms are.

“We’re not really into all this. It seems kind of something we wouldn’t do, and I don’t really watch TV,” Mary Jane Horst, a neighbor of the Landis’, told the New Era.

According to Google Earth, Farmersville is very near New Holland, Pa. in West Earl Township. To get there from Philadelphia, it’s just a few miles south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike on Route 222. Once in Farmersville, visitors are swept up in a sea of cornfields and greenness, with rolling hills and little-used back roads. To get to the city of Lancaster, it’s a good 14-mile bike ride through farm country and suburban sprawl, but it feels like stepping through a time machine. Speeding cars, shopping centers, and industrial parks replace the horse-and-buggies and unmitigated earth.

Yet it seems to make a lot of sense that the best bike rider in the world came from this little spot on the globe. It’s still very much a place where work ethic, community and selflessness are more than cheap buzzwords used by people who don’t know the meaning of those words. It’s also a place where those values are more than a way of life, because that simply isn’t strong or forceful enough.

No, the toughest man on the planet comes from a place where what you do is a lot more important than what you say. Where else could someone like Floyd Landis be from?

Farmersville. Where else?

The Legend

While the Eagles training camp and Brett Myers’ return to action in Philadelphia is the big news in these parts, the most riveting and exciting televised sporting event was Floyd Landis’ clutch performance in Saturday’s time trial in the penultimate stage of the 2006 Tour de France. From those just flipping around the dial it looked like nothing more than a bunch of guys in tight clothes riding bikes, but for those who knew what was at stake, it was sports at its best.

Better yet, it was impossible to turn away from.

Landis, the 30-year-old star from Lancaster County whose story and background is now well known, came into the time trial in third place, trailing by 30 seconds. But 30 seconds was not a lot to make up for Landis, who is known for his strength in the time trial. All Landis would have to do is ride as hard as he could, avoid any mechanical issues with his bike, and don’t crash.

Sounds easy, but think of the pressure. Anything less than the best effort would go down as nothing but a big choke – especially since the entire cycling world had its eyes glued to Saturday’s action.

Making it more interesting is the fact that Landis is headed for hip replacement surgery when the Tour ends. In fact, Landis’ degenerative hip injury is similar to the one that ended Bo Jackson’s football career. Because of that it’s quite possible that this could be his one and only shot at winning the Tour.

“I have to say that since it’s a dream of mine, and having hip replacement puts that in jeopardy, that having won the race, I’ll be much more relaxed” about the surgery, Landis told The New York Times. “I don’t feel like my life is a failure if I didn’t win the race, but it’s a dream, and I’d be extremely disappointed if that was taken away by an unfortunate accident.

“I’ll fight as hard as I have in this race to come back next year or the following year, whatever it takes to be back.”

But tomorrow’s race toward the Champs-Élysées in Paris should be just a formality with a 59-second lead squirreled away. Certainly such a lead was unfathomable earlier this week when Landis dropped from first place all the way to 11th after a seemingly monumental collapse during the 16th stage. At that point all of the cycling experts wrote Floyd off as cracked, beaten and battered. He was finished, just another rider chewed up in the Alps in the most grueling race on earth.

Then the next day the unthinkable happened. Landis had the day of his life – until Saturday’s time trial, that is – vaulting all the way to third place by making up nearly eight minutes.

Those same experts that wrote Floyd off jumped back on the bandwagon by calling him a “Legend.”

Whether Landis ever makes it back to contention in France again is of no consequence now. He is truly a legend on his way to becoming the just the third American to win the Tour de France, joining Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong.

Imagine that – it’s actually quite difficult, actually. Floyd Landis, the Mennonite kid from Farmersville in Lancaster County, Pa. mentioned in the same sentence as Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong.

Wow!

During the 1980s, Greg LeMond was looked at by kids like me as one of the baddest men on the planet. He won awe-inspiring Tour not once, not twice, but thrice. Americans started to race bikes because of LeMond. And then came Lance who took it all to another level by actually transcending his sport to become a celebrity and a cyclist.

Now comes Landis – from Conestoga Valley High School over on Horseshoe Road. He bought his bikes at Green Mountain Cyclery in Ephrata, Pa. just like all everyone in the know from Lancaster.

“Talents like Floyd come along once in a lifetime,” said Mike Farrington, the owner of Green Mountain Cyclery, to the Harrisburg Patriot News.

Once if we’re lucky.

Don't forget about Furyk
Yeah, that's right... Floyd Landis might be getting all of the attention in Lancaster right now, but homeboy Jim Furyk fired a 66 on Saturday to crawl to within two shots of Tiger Woods heading into the final day of the British Open.

Imagine if Furyk wins the British Open on the same day Landis wins the Tour de France... bottle up that Lancaster County water and sell it as a magic elixir to anyone dreaming of athletic glory.

He's from where?

At Foolish Craig’s, a restaurant and juice/coffee bar on the fashionable Pearl St. in Boulder, Colo., diners and imbibers halted their conversations mid sentence in order to catch the latest action from the Tour de France flickering from the TV hoisted above their heads. When American Floyd Landis was presented with the Yellow Jersey, signifying that he is the leader of the great race, there was an audible, “YESSSS!” to go along with a few happy fist pumps.

Actually, Foolish Craig’s is no different than any other establishment in Boulder. Instead of the Rockies-Reds matinee burning up the airwaves, it’s the bike race from France that has everyone’s attention during a busy lunchtime. If there were sports talk radio just for the hip and trendy folks in Boulder, all of the chatter would be about Landis, the latest on the summertime European running circuit, and the Denver Broncos.

Colorado still shuts down when the Broncos play and it’s still impossible to get a ticket for a game. Lets not kid ourselves and think that endurance sports have surpassed the NFL just yet.

Nevertheless, Boulder is crazy for Landis. So too is the establishment – the New York Times recently published a six-page feature detailing the 30-year-old cyclist’s plans for surgery to replace his broken hip following this month’s Tour de France. Imagine that – a guy is at the top of the Tour de France (the Tour de France!), riding all of those miles day after day with a broken hip. No wonder cycling crazy Boulder and the pages of the New York Times have dedicated some prime space for the guy.

Yet meanwhile, in Landis’ hometown of Lancaster, Pa. where he grew up and graduated from Conestoga Valley High in 1994 …

Crickets.

And in the Philadelphia area, where the budding superstar pedaled thousands of miles along the Schuylkill, through Valley Forge and the environs cranking out another routine century …

Ho-hum. Have two-a-days started at Lehigh yet?

This is where it gets tricky. Take away the altitude and the 300 sunny days a year and there really isn’t that much different from Boulder and Lancaster/Philadelphia areas. In fact, some in the know have suggested that the roads and trails in bucolic and wide open Lancaster County are better than the mountain cycling routes in Boulder County.

According to a story in USA Today, Philadelphia was rated as one of the best places for bike riding, though the ratings seem to have ignored smaller metropolitan areas like Lancaster and Boulder. Nevertheless, here’s what appeared in the Sept. 23, 2003 edition of the national paper:

Home to the USA's most prominent cycling race, the Pro Cycling Tour's Wachovia U.S. Pro Championship, which is run the first week of June. Need a personal challenge? "Try an out-and-back ride on the Schuylkill River Trail to Valley Forge starting at the Philadelphia Arts Institute and climbing the steep and infamous Manayunk Wall."

At the same time, stories have appeared in The New York Times and Kiplinger’s with throwaway sentences in which Lancaster is called “one of the best places in America for cycling” as if this was a given and common knowledge.

You know, bike riding in Lancaster. Of course.

Still, it’s hard to believe our region is rated so highly, especially when one considers what goes on outside of the actual athletics in both places. Though Boulder and the area surrounding Philadelphia are approximately the same size (for now… Boulder’s growth is ridiculous), running and riding are a way of life in the Colorado college town and participatory sports is serious business there. A common conversation heard in Boulder goes something like this:

“Well, I work for (Insert tech company here) by day, but really I’m getting ready to move from trail running to the triathlon.”

With 60 Olympians living in Boulder County, it’s easy to understand why playing instead of watching sports is a big deal. It’s also easy to see why the communities for sports like running and bicycling have transformed the area.

Perhaps Boulder is best summed up by Marc Peruzzi in the August issue of Outside magazine: “The Dunkin’ Donuts went out of business, but the oxygen bar next door to the gay-and-lesbian bookstore seems to be doing well.

“In most American towns, outdoor-sports aficionados are part of an elite counterculture minority. Mountain bikers and climbers have cachet. Not so in Boulder. Recreating outdoors in the norm here, and it’s in your face.”

Maybe it’s starting to get that way in our area, too. Yoga studios are springing up and are a much more mainstream style of exercise and cross-training than ever before. Actually, in my neighborhood in Lancaster, the question isn’t where you take your yoga class; it’s which discipline you practice.

Along with this come the restaurants with healthier foods, the supermarkets that cater to that set, as well as the chiropractors and physical therapists. Bottom line wise it all means higher property values and a better quality of life.

But there are still battles to be waged. Despite the 300 sunny days a year, it still snows quite a bit in Colorado. However, the first thing that gets plowed as soon as the trucks get rolling is the biking and running trails. Meanwhile, we still haven’t learned how to share the roads here.

Perhaps most telling is the way the locals react in Lancaster when the pro cycling tour rides into town every May. Instead of embracing it the way the Philadelphians have (OK, it’s another excuse to drink… who are we kidding?), Lancasterians view the top cyclists in the world coming to their little town as an inconvenience full of traffic jams and clogged streets, rather than something that makes the town special.

But personally, I’ll never forget watching the 1998 race where one rider made his return to the sport after battling cancer for the previous two years. After the race, in which he finished in second place but was clearly the strongest rider, I sat down next to the guy with our backs against the Hotel Brunswick on the corner of Queen and Chestnut streets for a little chat about the race, his comeback and his chances in France later that summer.

Who would have ever guessed that after that ride through Lancaster on a warm afternoon that Lance Armstrong would go on to win the Tour de France seven years in a row?

Maybe not Lancaster County’s Floyd Landis. He knows what pedaling on those roads can do.

Sports capital?
If Landis goes on to win the Tour de France, it will cap off a pretty interesting year in sports for Lancaster natives. On the PGA Tour, Manheim Township High grad and Lancaster native, Jim Furyk, just missed winning his second U.S. Open with his second-place finish. Furyk, the former basketball standout for the Blue Streaks (who can forget that jumper from the corner he hit to beat Lebanon in the 1988 Section 1 title game?), will finish this year rated in the top 10 again and will make another Ryder Cup team.

Must be something in the water there.

Riding (or running) in Lancaster
Looking for the best places to ride (or run) in Lancaster? Pick up Sil Simpson's Short Bike Rides in Eastern Pennsylvania. It's an excellent guidebook with all the inside info from a guy who is a riding and running junky.

As for the running routes, email me. I have a ton of them stashed away.

Petula Clark and the Dreadlocked guy

Though I once pronounced that I wanted to be Tom Wolfe, it should be noted that the claim was only for occupational purposes. Truth be told, all I ever wanted to be was Bob Dylan, you know, as in that trite lyric from that one-hit wonder band from the mid-'90s whose name escapes me -- you know, the white boy with the faux dreadlocks -- shit, you know the guy.

Anyway, the lyric was: "I wanna be Bob Dylan... "

Who doesn't? I remember reading that this group often changed that lyric to pander to the specific audience they were performing in front of. For instance, if they were touring with Big Star, they would change it to: "I wanna be Alex Chilton... "

That's cool if it was the original lyric, but it's not. Aspiring to be Bob Dylan is a big job and if you're heart is truly in to it, you can't sway off course. Who is going to stop those geeks from singing "I wanna be Jeff Tweedy... " or "I wanna be Zack de la Rocha... "? Nobody, and that's the problem. Immediately this band is exposed as a fraud because they don't really want to be Bob Dylan. They just want to be cool like Justin Timberlake wants to be cool.

Maybe that's why I can't remember the name of the white boy with the extensions or what he called his band.

Anyway, I've been reading the first installment of Bob Dylan's memoirs, which I am enjoying very much. Obviously, that cat can really write. Based on Tarantula: Poems – a stream-of-consciousness tome that puts even Jack Kerouac and Thomas (not Tom) Wolfe to shame – and now Chronicles: Volume One it’s clear that ol’ Bobby D could have been an influential writer or novelist.

Like Bob writes in his memoirs, I too am a “traditionalist with a capital T.” He was talking about folk music with that line, but I sense that he’s talking about other things too. Like I bet Bob gets his hair cut in a barbershop that has a red, white and blue pole spinning out front with the old-fashioned chairs and old-timers who use talc, thinning shears and let you hold the mirror so you can check out how they snipped up the back.

I don’t think Bob goes to the Wal-Mart, Olive Garden, Home Depot, Best Buy or Barnes & Noble. Then again, maybe he does. Thanks to those stores, the suburbs have its exurbia. Even the backwoods folks can get vice grips, a CD, Pasta Primavera and a mocha latte at any time of the day.

Who knows, maybe that’s progress? After all, as much as Bob (and me for that matter) is a traditionalist he is also quite progressive. In fact, I imagine he’s more broad-minded than anything. Shit, maybe he goes to Home Depot all the time. Maybe he’s a mall rat.

So I went to the barbershop on Queen St. in downtown Lancaster this week for a haircut. As far as I can tell this joint – called Segro’s – is one of the few traditional (or “old-school” in the popular parlance) barbershop remaining in the area. I used to go to the College Barbers, which was a joint with three chairs, a long mirror and a leather bench built into the wall for people to sit and wait their turn. I used to like waiting so I could sit and read the paper or bullshit with Tom the barber. But apparently Tom wasn’t as into as much as I was, because he sold out and went to work at one of those blow-dry salons. Now, instead of regular old shears, clippers, talc and warm shaving cream, Tom has to shampoo, rinse and repeat.

So now I go to Segro’s, which like Tom’s old joint, is a throwback. I’m convinced the old-timer who cuts my hair was there at the beginning because he says he knew my grandfathers and talked knowledgably about seeing them around town in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Therein lays the point. Those old timers remember when the downtown flourished. It was a place where one went to be seen, to see and to take part in community life. But like urban centers all across America, the cultural shift and white flight placed the centers in the suburbs. The center of commerce in Lancaster is at the mall beyond the edge of town, not the city center.

Needless to say, there have been many groups and organizations – both public and private – designed to get people to come downtown. Sadly, these groups have been miserable failures. The ideas produced lack inspiration or innovation and the city leaders are arrogant in accepting ideas that are not their own and in how they treat the constituency.

In a nutshell, the downtown leaders and the groups associated with them are trotting out the same tired ideas from the same old tired people. They fear progress when it is progress that they must embrace or die.

Oh they have their ideas. One of them – and perhaps the only one at that – is to build an upscale hotel and convention center smack dab in the town square. OK, sounds good. Now how come I called around and couldn’t find a single group or organization that would want to hold a convention in downtown Lancaster, Pa.? How come it has been nearly 10 years since the project first came together and not a single minute of construction has been performed? How come the image of the state of the downtown sector has gotten worse, not better?

Answers?

Yeah, right.

In Lancaster, Pa. the downtown resembles one of those old west ghost towns by 5:30 p.m. every day. Who would want to bring a convention to a town with nothing to do? Maybe the smart thing to do is to try to get people to come downtown instead of hanging out at the mall. That way outsiders will see the area as lively and want to bring conventioneers so they drop some expense-account cash in local restaurants and stores.

Good idea, huh? Well, not to the Downtown Investment District folks. In fact, it seems as if the Lancaster D.I.D. prefers the ghost town look. All that’s missing in downtown Lancaster is tumbleweed blowing across the main drag.

Now I’m not the smartest dude in the world. That one is pretty easy to figure out. However, I’m smart enough to know that if people like going to the mall, maybe other businesses should copy what the mall does. In fact, in Boulder, Colo., a town similar in size and population to Lancaster, the downtown leaders did just that. When the suburban malls started popping up, the smart folks in Boulder paved over a section of Pearl St. and turned it into an outdoor pedestrian mall. Not only is the mall popular with merchants, and consumers, but it is also a tourist destination.

When I suggested the Boulder model to the folks with the Lancaster D.I.D., they literally scoffed at me. They may have even rolled their eyes, for all I know. But it was definitely a scoff. It wasn’t that they hated the idea, they didn’t even want to consider it.

But when I asked why I saw more people at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday night at the Pearl St. Mall than I would in the entire downtown district of Lancaster for an entire week, they had no answer. Maybe I was asking the wrong questions. Maybe I should have asked why they were so lazy or what they were afraid of.

The point of this that the traditionalism we all love and miss is still there. We just need to be a little less lazy and we can make it return. That means we might have to challenge civic leaders to look beyond the tiredness of bureaucratic and political thinking.

Until then, I'll see you at the Orange Julius.