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drugs
Is everyone ready for The Mitchell Report? Oh, I'm sure it will make all the papers. If not, here's what to expect. According to a story in The New York Times, approximately 50 players will be named in the report. That number jibes with the report from last year that at least two players from each team tested positive for performance-enhancing substances.
Will (or which) Phillies will be named in the report?
The overwhelming reaction to the story in The New York Times yesterday that Major League Baseball clubs are tipped off when the “random” and “unannounced” drugs tests are supposed to occur was laughter. Maybe there were a few rolled eyes and feigned indifference, but for the most part, the news was good for a few yucks.
It wasn’t that deeply thought out laughter either. You know, the kind saved for Woody Allen movies, puns or when your boss makes another bad joke. This was derisive laughter saved for politicians who are caught breaking the law in such a manner that they should have just gone to the National Archives, removed the Constitution from behind the glass, and then slipped it into a paper shredder.
We save that type of laughter for arrogant types who we all know will never serve a second of time in the Richard M. Nixon wing of the Lompoc Federal Prison.
But here’s the really funny part about the revelation that Major Leaguers were tipped off about the drugs tests up to two days in advance: No one is surprised.
Seriously, did anyone really believe that baseball was conducting tests with teeth? Does anyone believe that MLB wants to find out if anyone is still using the caveman-type steroids that Rafael Palmeiro reportedly tested positive for? Does anyone think they are excited to hear another name tied to that Florida outfit that reportedly has supplied members of the MLBPA with growth hormone?
I think we all know the answer to that one.
You know what would really be funny? If MLB hired the French Lab (Laboratoire National de Dépistage du Dopage) the Tour de France uses to make sure that all samples come back dirty.
Oh, but it’s not that the story didn’t have its humorous points. For instance, how funny is it that the screeners for the unannounced and random drug tests call the teams a couple of days ahead of time to request free parking passes? That’s a knee-slapper if there ever was one. Way not to be conspicuous, Sherlock!
Better yet, if the rest of the teams in baseball are like the Phillies, two things will happen. First, they will get the runaround and condescension for even suggesting they receive a parking pass in the first place. Then, after finally figuring out where they can park and how/when/where they will get the physical pass (because you need that), the testers will be forced to park a metric mile away from the actual stadium.
In other words, not only will everyone know the testers are coming, but they also will see them coming, too.
Forget the fact that the supposed performance-enhancing drug of choice these days is completely undetectable…
There is probably a serious point somewhere in all of the laughter about Major League Baseball’s “drug-testing program.” Amidst all of the Congressional committee hearings, investigations headed by former senators, and bluster from the commissioner, the real point is that most people – those associated with MLB, too – like things the way they are.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ltD21rYWVw&rel=1]
Or…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLepAFMcMII&rel=1]
And it’s funny because it’s true…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_mWu9P0daY&rel=1]
The trading deadline came and went without too much fanfare for the Phillies, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t make a little bit of noise. Aside from adding Tadahito Iguchi last weekend to replace Chase Utley, as well as starting pitcher Kyle Lohse to bolster the starting rotation, general manager Pat Gillick traded with Seattle for reliever Julio Mateo for minor leaguer Jesus Merchan.
For the interim the Phillies have sent Mateo to Double-A Reading until he’s needed with the Phillies. So how come the Phillies just don’t send Mateo to Triple-A Ottawa to face more capable hitters before returning to the Majors?
Besides, Mateo can’t go to Canada because he is waiting to go to court on Sept. 4 for his third-degree domestic assault charge in which the story in The Associated Press describing the arrest noted that Mateo’s wife needed five stitches on her mouth. In other words, the law is keeping close tabs on the new Phillie.
Needless to say some web sites and others in the media had a little fun at the Phillies’ expense in discussing the move for Mateo. On Deadspin, the crème de la crème of sports blogs, the headline was, “The Phillies got another wife beater to hang out with Brett Myers.” Sure, it’s a little inaccurate, but the point is duly noted. The Phillies didn’t exactly go out and get a model citizen.
It’s doubtful that Mateo will have any influence at all with the current Phillies, though. After all, the strongest personalities in the clubhouse are also solid guys. Chase Utley, Aaron Rowand, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins are names one will never see in the police blotter. Meanwhile, Cole Hamels has grown up a lot since his brawl outside of a bar in Florida before the 2005 season.
Here’s the interesting part about Mateo and perhaps shows a difference between the Mariners and the Phillies. Though the reliever was 1-0 with a 3.75 ERA in nine appearances this season for Seattle, team general manager Bill Bavasi suspended Mateo for 10 days without pay following his arrest in Manhattan in May. Moreover, Bavasi said there was no way that Mateo would ever pitch for the Mariners again following that incident aggressively looked to trade him.
Even though Mateo pitched well in Triple-A, Bavasi stuck to his guns.
“Our approach with him was that it would be better for us and for him if he broke back in elsewhere. And he didn't fight that idea,” Bavasi said, while declining to detail what led the Mariners to conclude that. “It was collaborative effort to get him a new home.”
Meanwhile, Brett Myers was allowed to pitch for the Phillies only hours after being let out of the lockup following his arrest for a domestic incident in Boston in June of 2006. It was only after a loud public outcry that Myers was allowed to take a “leave of absence” from the Phillies.
Mateo, who turns 30 on Thursday, is 18-12 with two saves and a 3.68 ERA in 219 games over six seasons in Seattle. He had a 0.79 ERA in 24 games at Triple-A Tacoma, allowing just three earned runs in 34 1-3 innings. Opponents batted just .200 against him. Those numbers indicate that he is a pretty good pitcher – perhaps even just as good or better than Myers.
Nevertheless, the Mariners weren’t interested in having a player heading back to court for a domestic abuse charge on their roster… regardless of how good his numbers were.
“We treat it seriously,” Gillick said, according to AP. “We're very aware of the situation.”
But apparently it isn’t a serious enough issue to pass on the trade. After all, the Phillies don’t have to go to Canada at all this season.
***
The injuries continue to mount for the Phillies. Along with Utley’s hand and Ryan Madson’s case of Brett Myers 2 1/2 –month-shoulder-strainitis, Michael Bourn is out after injuring his ankle tripping over the bullpen mound that is on the field along the first-base side at Wrigley, while Shane Victorino had a slight tear of his calf muscle.
According to the Phillies, Victorino’s injury is less severe than Bourn’s sprained left ankle, but as someone who deals with chronic calf problems let me tell you that I don’t necessarily agree. For one thing the calf muscle is the engine that serves as the anchor of the leg muscles. It is from the calf that the hamstring and the Achilles get their power. Any athlete who runs knows that all calf injuries are serious. I’m certainly no doctor but I’ll be very surprised if Madson and Victorino make it back before the end of August.
***
Jemele Hill of ESPN.com wrote a story in which she wondered what American professional sports would look like if they had a drug testing policy like cycling. Hill writes:
Had the NFL had the same rigorous testing as cycling, the Carolina Panthers might have showed up for Super Bowl XXXVIII a little shorthanded. As it turned out, several Panthers reportedly used performance-enhancing drugs during the 2003 season, and two of them allegedly had prescriptions for steroids filled right before they appeared in the Super Bowl. And while we can make all the jokes we want about Floyd Landis, last year's Tour champion, the most glorified record in American sports is on the verge of being shattered by a man with numerous ties to performance-enhancing drugs. Tour officials already don't recognize Landis as the champion and are pushing the United States Anti-Doping Agency to strip Landis of the title. Bud Selig wishes he had such an option with Barry Bonds.
And:
What Americans would never, ever want to do is what cycling officials did. We would never want to let a band of doping experts loose on American athletes. We are far too comfortable being entertained by dirty athletes to want to see any real cleansing take place.
Just imagine if the same vigilant testers used in cycling set up shop in American pro sports leagues. How many times would we read about American athletes being busted for performance-enhancing drugs on the ESPN crawl?
That's an uncomfortable discussion. That's why despite the blustering and grandstanding with all the major sports leagues on Capitol Hill, they would be unlikely to sanction a universal system that would require random testing of pro athlete.
Amen.
Meanwhile, two more riders are implicated in doping scandals. Basque Iban Mayo failed a test for EPO (there’s a test for EPO?!) and Tour de France champ Alberto Contador as been linked to doping by a German doctor.
The best would-be cycling writer in the U.S., Bob Ford, offered this one in today’s Inquirer.
After getting home at 3 a.m. after being at a baseball game that lasted 14 innings and nearly five hours, it’s safe to say that I’m a bit fried today. But rest is for the week, right…
Man, do I ever need a nap.
Anyway, because I’m struggling to string together cohesive sentences this afternoon, I’ll just ramble on with a few observations about the Phillies and the latest from the sports world.
• After last night’s win over the Nationals the Phillies have a 24.5 percent chance to make the playoffs. Really? Yes, really. At least that’s math according to Ken Roberts, who created an “Odds of making the playoffs” web site.
Here’s what Ken does: after every game – and we mean every game – the odds of a teams’ chances to make the playoffs are calculated and posted on his site. Then, a glimpse into the future is proffered showing not only how the odds change if the Phillies win or lose their next game, but how the odds change pending every result on the full schedule of games.
Yes, it’s good stuff and you should check it out by clicking here.
• To start it off, I had never seen a game go from a sure end to tied up and headed for extra innings like the way last night’s ninth inning played out. For those who didn’t see it, speedy shortstop Jimmy Rollins raced around the bases when his relatively routine fly ball just short of the warning track in left-center field was jarred loose when outfielders Ryan Church and Ryan Langerhans bumped in to each other. Standing at third, Rollins raced home when Church’s relay throw skipped away from shortstop Felipe Lopez to force extra innings.
The most surprising thing about Rollins’ dash around the bases? That it wasn’t ruled an inside-the-park home run by the hometown official scorer.
• Meanwhile, when Ryan Howard hits a home run, he really wallops it. Not only do his homers sound different than other players’, there really is no doubt that they are going out – he doesn’t hit too many that scrape into the first row.
• No one with the Phillies will say it -- though Charlie Manuel’s body language was downright funereal -- but Chase Utley’s broken hand is just about the worst thing that could happen to the team right now. Forget about his statistics and the fact that Utley is an MVP candidate, and his hard-nosed style of play… it was because of Utley that the Phillies were able to stay in the playoff race despite injuries to Freddy Garcia, Tom Gordon, Brett Myers, Jon Lieber and Ryan Howard.
Yes, losing Utley is very significant. And that just might be the understatement of the year.
• The Phillies gave out a Cole Hamels bobblehead figurine last night and had a sold-out crowd. Here’s my question: What is the allure of that stuff? I can understand baseball cards and other memorabilia-type collectibles (kind of), but why are bobbleheads still popular? Just chalk it up to the every growing pile of things I don’t get.
On another note, last year (or maybe the year before, I forget) the Nationals gave out a Chad Cordero bobblehead figurine at a game at RFK. Within hours of bringing it home my son ripped the head clean off the body and for the past year or so there has been the head of Chad Cordero, complete with that geeky unbent brim of his cap, staring up from the bottom of the toy box in our living room. Perhaps that’s the appeal of the bobblehead doll… ripping the heads clean off.
• Speaking of ripping the head clean off and one man’s inability to understand events occurring in the world, I’m still attempting to grasp just what the hell happened at this year’s Tour de France. Frankly, I haven’t been able to come up with anything other than some non-sequitors and random ideas.
For instance:
-- Perhaps it’s because I am an American and believe in a persons’ right to due process, but I just don’t understand how a man who never failed a drug test or violated any laws or rules of the sport could be bounced from an event he was about to win. Look, I know never failing a drugs test isn’t the best argument and I know all about Michael Rasmussen’s reputation, but if the Tour, the UCI and whatever other governing body is attempting to destroy cycling really disliked the dude and had valid reasons to boot him from the race, they should have never allowed him to start.
Now look what they have on their hands. It’s nothing more than a race that no one views as legitimate.
-- I always am amused by American sportswriters whose idea of exercise is actually getting up to manually turn the channels on the television opining about cycling. I also do not understand how one can legitimately write about sports without a basic understand of training and performance-enhancing drugs. Get these people out of the press box now, because writing intelligently about sports doesn’t really have much to do with the games any more.
-- Alexandre Vinokourov? Wow. Who would have thought the Tour could have sunk lower than that fiasco?
-- Along those lines everyone is quick to point out how “dirty” cycling is. But here is a fact: if MLB and the NFL acted like the UCI and the Tour de France, there would be more than 1,000 new players in those leagues tomorrow. It seems as if all cycling officials have to do is point at a guy and he's out. Forget facts and protocol. The players in MLB and the NFL should be thankful every day that they have a union that supports them.
-- Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Michael Rasmussen were all booted from the Tour de France this year despite never failing a drug test. Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and Mark McGwire have admitted to using performance-enhancing substances and got new contracts.
Which sport is “dirty” again?
-- I’ve been asked if the current scandal in France will affect Floyd Landis’ case at all. My knee-jerk reaction is, “No, because they are mutually exclusive. Floyd’s case has to do with one specific test from one stage of last year’s race. This year’s scandal, they say, is about the ‘culture of doping.’”
Since I don’t believe Floyd is a part of that culture, nor do I believe he is a doper, I didn’t think it has anything to do with him.
But upon retrospect, maybe it does in the always fickle court of public opinion. Maybe Floyd suddenly becomes guilty because he rides a bike and won the Tour de France?
Either way it makes me happy to be a runner instead of a baseball player or cyclist.
-- Meanwhile, other folks have asked me why they just don’t cancel the rest of the Tour. What’s the point anymore? It’s a valid question, but the answer comes down to the bottom line. The rest of the ride to Paris is economical, complete with all of the pomp, circumstance and corporate sponsorships.
They don’t put those corporate logos on their uniforms because they look nice.
The reason the Tour continues is the same reason why Bud Selig doesn’t go all French on Barry Bonds and pull the cheater from the field. It’s why the Giants re-signed Bonds – he makes a lot of people money...
Especially people like WADA president Dick Pound.
Integrity? Ha!
Not much to report about the Phillies aside from the fact that the second half opens up tomorrow when defending World Champion St. Louis Cardinals come to town. The fact also remains that the Phillies need to add some pitching if they are going to make a push after the Mets, but they are in a very large club in that regard.
Everyone needs pitching.
It also seems that there could be a shortage of ash bats as well. According to a story in The New York Times a scourge of Asian beetles – called the ash borer – has wreaked havoc on trees in the northeast and could, as some scientists predict, wipe out the ash tree used to make baseball bats from the region.
Speaking of wiping out bats, the web site Steroid Nation reports that the “mainstream” media missed a story in which MLB commissioner Bud Selig “quietly” endorses a growth hormone test. Currently there is no such test to detect whether one is using HGH and it’s quite conceivable that a large number of professional athletes are using the performance-enhancing drug.
Needless to say, this is an important development. If Selig is successful in spearheading the research for an HGH test it could define the legacy of the man who presided over baseball during its so-called Steroid Era.
***
Speaking of creating a legacy, it was quite an eventful day on the road from Chablis to Autun in Stage 5 of the Tour de France. Italian Filippo Pozzato won the 113-mile stage which featured the first major climbs of the Tour, but that was an afterthought in light of what shook down in wine country today.
What everyone is talking about now is that the pre-race favorite, Alexandre Vinokourov “hit the floor,” in the words of Phil Liggett, with approximately 15 miles to go in the stage. According to reports, Vinokourov says the chain on his bike popped off and then he was cleaning himself off the floor.
Then it got interesting. As Vino dusted himself off and got back on his bike, the TV cameras zoomed in on his shorts where some big-time road rash showed through on his right hip/buttock. Also evident were some nasty cuts and bleeding on both knees that required a trip to the hospital where he got stitched up for some wounds that went all the way down to the muscle.
Nevertheless, Vino’s Astana teammates all dropped back – except for overall second-place rider Andreas Klöden, who was left to fight for himself in the peloton – to help the team leader rally from a more than two-minute deficit to close to within 75 seconds in the end. Despite that, the damage had been done. Vino fell to 81st place and 2-minutes, 10 seconds behind, while nursing some soreness and sporting some stitches as the mountain stages loom. Next comes Stage 6, a flat ride from the medieval Semur-en-Auxois on the Armancon to the suburban Bourg-en-Bresse at the base of the Alps. This one will be the last flat stage until late next week.
Still, perhaps the road isn’t so daunting for Vinokourov. Known as rider without fear and unafraid to take risks, Vino comes from Kazakhstan, which when it was part of the USSR was the place where the government tested nuclear bombs. According to Daniel Coyle’s entrancing Lance Armstrong’s War, Vino’s parents were chicken farmers in Petropavlovsk, but it was never something the cyclist ever talked about. In fact, when he first arrived on the professional riding scene Vino never talked at all except to say:
“I will ride hard today. The hill is not steep. I will attack.”
And that’s exactly what he did. Jonathan Vaughters, the former pro cyclist turned leader of the American Slipstream team said in Coyle’s book, “It’s very understood in the peloton – [he] doesn’t have anything to go home to. Sprints, climbs, descents – [he is] never going to give up, and will go all the way to the edge because [he] just doesn’t care.”
So he has that going for him, which is nice.
But if that's not enough for Astana, Klöden's status in the race is up in the air after it was revealed that the second-place rider hit the floor and has a hairline fracture in his tailbone.
An injury like that makes it very difficult to ride a bike.
Stage 5 Final
Top 20 (all same time):
1.) Filippo Pozzato, Liquigas, Italy
2.) Oscar Freire, Rabobank, Spain
3.) Daniele Bennati, Lampre, Italy
4.) Kim Kirchen, T-Mobile, Luxembourg
5.) Erik Zabel, Milram, Germany
6.) George Hincapie, Discovery Channel, USA
7.) Christian Moreni, Cofidis, Italy
8.) Stefan Schumacher, Gerolsteiner, Germany
9.) Bram Tankink, Quick Step, Netherlands
10.) Jérôme Pineau, Bouygues Telecom, France
11.) Cadel Evans, Predictor-Lotto, Australia
12.) Fabian Cancellara, CSC, Switzerland
13.) Alejandro Valverde, Caisse d'Epargne, Spain
14.) Chris Horner, Predictor-Lotto, USA
15.) Fränk Schleck, CSC, Luxembourg
16.) Martin Elmiger, AG2R, Switzerland
17.) Linus Gerdemann, T-Mobile, Germany
18.) Inigo Landaluze, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Spain
19.) Michael Rogers, T-Mobile, Australia, T-Mobile, Australia
20.) Laurent Lefevre, Bouygues Telecom, France
Overall
1.) Fabian Cancellara, CSC, Switzerland, in 28:56
2.) Andreas Klöden, Astana, Germany, @ :33
3.) Filippo Pozzato, Liquigas, Italy, @ :35
4.) David Millar, Saunier Duval, Great Britain, @ :41
5.) George Hincapie, Discovery Channel, USA, @ :43
6.) Vladimir Gusev, Discovery Channel, Russia, @ :45
7.) Vladimir Karpets, Caisse d'Epargne, Russia, @ :46
8.) Mikel Atarloza, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Spain, @ :49
9.) Thomas Dekker, Rabobank, Netherlands, @ :51
10.) Benoît Vaugrenard, Française des Jeux, France, @ :52
The other interesting development in Stage 5 is the hard-riding je ne sais quoi of overall leader, Fabian Cancellara. Some close observers of the Tour suggested that Cancellara’s days in the Yellow Jersey were coming to an end after Stage 4 as the sprint specialist met the first ahrd climbs of the race. But when the action got hot in the final kilometers of Stage 5, Cancellara was right there battling it out with the rest of the peloton.
“The maillot jaune gives a rider the strength of two men,” Phil Liggett offered.
***
Bonnie DeSimone, the cycling writer for The Boston Globe and ESPN.com, has a blog called "A Feast on Wheels." It's very good.
There are many things that people can lose that are very easily replaced. Money, sanity, keys, a wallet are just a few items that can be found or replaced if they are lost.
Time, however, is not one of them. Lost time will never be replaced and time, as we all know, is our most valuable commodity.
And because time is so precious I decided to turn off ESPN’s presentation of the Home Run Derby last night. I just didn’t have the time to waste in watching something so mindless – it couldn’t even be classified as junk food TV.
Actually, that’s the polite answer I give people (OK, person) who asked me if I caught the Home Run Derby last night. Truth be told, I had the tiniest of interest in knowing how Ryan Howard would perform – a scratch if you will. So when the telecast began and camera zoomed in on San Francisco’s ballpark (I honestly forget which corporation paid to put their tacky billboard on the buildings’ façade – besides, does it matter… don’t they all have the same name at this point?) I had my TV on and was set to devote some time to the event.
But then I heard Chris Berman’s voice.
Click!
Goodnight, folks.
No sense wasting any time on something so drawn out and annoying where the actual action is tucked neatly into the marathon of commercials… or Berman. I’d rather stand next to a giant speaker and listen to The Who circa 1969 and get tinnitus for the rest of my life than to hear Chris Berman speak a sentence. Hey, I’m sure he’s a lovely man with many redeemable qualities and goes out of his way to take care of the little people, etc., etc. But, well, you know what I’m getting at.
I’d rather deal with a case of toenail fungus than watch the Home Run Derby.
Needless to say I have no idea what happened in the Home Run Derby other than it probably lasted too long. Based on a brief scan of the reports from San Francisco’s ballpark it sounds as if I didn’t miss anything at all.
I will, sadly, tune into the All-Star Game tonight. I can’t say I’m too into it and must admit that All-Star Games in general have lost a lot of luster in the days since I was a kid. Back then I actually looked forward to those games. Now it’s just cool to have three to four days without a baseball game.
Jaded and tired? A little.
***
In an attempt to beat another day of the heat I missed a great broadcaster named Phil Liggett call the action for Stage 3 of the Tour de France. But since Versus plays them over and over in a loop I’m sure I can catch up at a moments’ notice.
I did catch the report regarding today’s outcome and my first reaction was, “Whoa! Look at Cancellara!”
That’s right, Fabian Cancellara took another stage today and looks like he will be in Yellow when the Tour hits the mountains.
Then it gets serious.
According to reports, Cancellara let it all hang out after the peloton reeled in an early breakaway during the flat, 146-mile stage. With 400 meters to go, the Swiss champ stood up, sprinted and shocked everyone by making it stick.
Meanwhile, it appears as if Cancellara and his CSC teammates are out to defend the Yellow Jersey for as long as they can. Look, Cancellara knows that as a sprint specialist he has very little chance at winning or even holding on to Yellow for more than a few more days, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to give up.
“We're respect this jersey, and we will work to keep it,” he said.
But for now Cancellara has been the man at the Tour. Not only did he smash up the field in the prologue, but also he took a spill and injured his wrist in the Stage 2 wreck with a kilometer to go that highlighted the day’s action. Regardless, the reigning World Champion extended his overall lead by 20 seconds to 33 seconds.
Stage 3 Final
1.) Fabian Cancellara, Team CSC, Switzerland
2.) Erik Zabel, Milram, Germany
3.) Danilo Napolitano, Lampre-Fondital, Italy
4.) Tom Boonen, Quick Step, Belgium
5.) Robbie Hunter, Barloworld, South Africa
6.) Robert Förster, Gerolsteiner, Germany
7.) Robbie McEwen, Predictor-Lotto, Australia
8.) Bernhard Eisel, T-Mobile, Austria
9.) Mark Cavendish, T-Mobile, Great Britain
10.) Heinrich Haussler, Gerolsteiner, Germany
Overall
1.) Fabian Cancellara, Team CSC, Switzerland, in 15:12:08
2.) Andreas Klöden, Astana, Germany, at :33
3.) David Millar Saunier Duval, at :41
4.) George Hincapie, Discovery Channel, at :43
5.) Bradley Wiggins, Cofidis, Great Britain, same time
6.) Vladimir Gusev, Discovery Channel, Russia, at :45
7.) Tom Boonen, Quick Step, at :46
8.) Vladimir Karpets, Caisse d'Epargne, Russia, same time
9.) Thor Hushovd, Credit Agricole, Norway, at :49
10.) Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau, Euskaltel - Euskadi, Spain, same time
Alexandre Vinokourov, the pre-race favorite, is lurking 50 seconds back in 11th place, while top American Levi Leipheimer is a minute behind in 32nd place.
***
The wire story regarding Ivan Basso’s continued drug testing made me laugh a little. A little background: Basso is currently serving a two-year ban for doping, despite never testing positive, and was forced to take a blood and urine test when testers showed up unannounced at his home last week.
What made it funny (not ha-ha) was a story told by Floyd Landis regarding the same type of deal. In fact, Landis claims that USADA sent a tester to his house when they heard the news that his father-in-law had committed suicide.
Yes, Landis says, they did it on purpose. It’s in his book on page 212.
For the record, USADA has not returned any phone calls or e-mails to present their side of any of the stories or to refute anything. Hey, it’s not like I’m hard to find.
***
Speaking of hard to find, I decided to do some rudimentary research to see if I could find what synthetic testosterone is and how an athlete could use it to aid his performance. Simply using steroids wouldn't help a cyclist, I figured, because muscle mass creates weight and weight is the enemy of any endurance athlete. Besides, the tests apparently show that Floyd Landis used “synthetic testosterone” during his brilliant ride during Stage 17 of last year’s Tour, and using something like that (plus, all the doctors and scientists I have asked have responded with, "It doesn't make sense...)
So what did I find? Try this report by Tom Fine of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University. In it, Fine writes that there is, “no difference between synthetic testosterone and naturally produced testosterone.”
What?
Let me get straight to the point: it's impossible to tell for sure that anyone has taken synthetic testosterone.
Unfortunately, the way Floyd Landis' exogenous testosterone test has been portrayed in the media is as if it were a perfectly definitive test. Like pink for pregnant and white for not (not really a good example, since that isn't so accurate). Such tests do exist: tests with a binary outcome, yes or no, and an extremely low false positive or false negative rate. This is simply not one of them.
There is no difference between synthetic testosterone and naturally produced testosterone – they’re one and the same chemical. Same atoms, in the same configuration, forming the exact same molecule, with identical chemical properties. At least at the atomic level. Once you mix natural and synthetic testosterone, you can't separate them again, any more than you could separate Evian from Poland Springs bottled water after they'd been mixed. Actually that's a bad example. It would be more akin to separating two kinds of distilled water from each other. Even that would be easier than testosterone, since one would presume that distilled water sources don't change rapidly.
At any rate, natural and synthetic testosterone are usually different at the subatomic level. All the carbon in the world has six protons, and almost all the carbon in the world has six neutrons (called carbon-12). Some small portion of the carbon though, has seven neutrons (carbon-13), and an even smaller portion has eight (carbon-14).
Here’s the full link, and here’s another, which claims the test as administered by the French lab and developed by WADA is prone to “false positives.”
This information is all in the Landis wiki, but I easily stumbled upon it with no knowledge that it existed and simply by researching synthetic testosterone.
Again, the USADA has not returned phone calls or e-mails. Nor did they refute these facts during the arbitration hearing in May.
Anyway, back to the original search -- synthetic testosterone commonly come in the following forms:
Testosterone Cypionate (Sold as Depo-Testosterone Cypionate)
The effect of Depo-Testosterone Cypionate is sustained longer in the body than anabolic steroids. A single injection of 200-400 mg is given once every 2-4 weeks, then a rest period of 4 weeks, followed by another injection once every 2-4 weeks.
Transdermal Testosterone (the "Patch")
Testosterone patches allow a slow, steady release of the hormone into the body. The Testoderm patch is applied daily to a man's shaved scrotum. The newer Androderm patch can be applied daily to the upper arms, back, thighs, or abdomen.
Miller and colleagues conducted a 12-week pilot study of an experimental low-dose testosterone patch for women. Fifty-three HIV-positive women who had lost about 10% of their normal body weight, and whose blood levels of testosterone were below the normal reference range took part in the study. They were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo patch, a patch releasing 150 micrograms of testosterone daily, or a patch releasing 300 micrograms of testosterone daily. Although the patches restored testosterone levels to normal, only the women who had used the 150 microgram patch gained weight. Unfortunately, all of the weight gained was fat, not muscle mass.
Nandrolone Decanoate (Sold as Deca-Durabolin, Hybolin Decanoate)
Deca-Durabolin is probably the most popular anabolic used in the treatment of HIV-related weight loss. It has a low rate of side effects and a high anabolic effect. The drug is given by injection into a muscle, at doses ranging from 50-200 mg, every 2-4 weeks for up to 12 weeks. After four weeks off drug, another cycle of treatment can be started. The androgenic side effects of Deca-Durabolin are much milder than those of testosterone.
At doses of up to 100 mg every 3-4 weeks for up to 12 weeks, women may be able to use this drug. If any changes in menstrual periods occur, the drug should be stopped until the cause of such changes is discovered.
Oxandrolone (Oxandrin)
This is an oral anabolic steroid available through the Special Access Programme (formerly EDRP) of the Health Protection Branch of Health Canada. The androgenic effects are very low and side effects are few. The dosage for men is generally 15-40 mg daily and for women 5-20 mg daily.
Phew! I’m growing hair in funny places just typing those sentences.
Phew! What a crazy few days it’s been around here. Firstly, as was well-publicized here and other places, I did the whole Landis thing last weekend, which culminated with an appearance with Floyd on the Daily News Live show on CSN yesterday. That was crazy enough until one throws in all the e-mails I received (all positive, which I wasn’t expecting, but thanks), mixed with normal life, marathon running and work.
Truth be told, I am horrible at multitasking so a normal day for most people wipes me out… so bookended between a 15-mile run in Lancaster and a 9-mile run along the Schuylkill in Philadelphia was a 30-minute outing on TV. In that regard, everyone says it went well (of course it did – would anyone tell you if you sucked… well, some might but most have a semblance of couth) but it definitely could have taken the entire 90-minutes and there are a few more things I would have liked to say.
One is that if Floyd Landis played baseball or football instead of being a professional cyclist, he never would have tested positive. Never. That’s a fact.
Conversely, if Barry Bonds were a cyclist (and what a huge cyclist he would be), he would have been banned from the sport a long time ago and he could even be looking at personal bankruptcy.
As written here before, it’s lazy, stupid and irresponsible for journalists to write how cycling (or running) cannot be taken seriously when the doping issues in baseball and football are perhaps more rampant and yet they can somehow take any of those games seriously. My guess is a lot of them used to cover baseball and football regularly and either missed the steroids stories, ignored them or were a decade late in coming to the table and have now decided to take it out on sports that have no unions and pro-active and Draconian doping policies.
During the 1990s, the only thing differentiating Major League Baseball from professional wrestling was the script.
Anyway, I think it would have been neat to talk about Floyd training and crazy stunts, such as how he decided to ride to France from Spain before the 2004 Tour de France. I could talk about training and racing stuff all day long.
OK… one last time. Here are a few snippets from Floyd on DNL:
* Floyd Landis talks about why he decided to write a book
* Landis talks about spending the past year trying to clear his name
* Landis on what happened with the testosterone tests
* Landis says he is still planning on racing in the future
And here are the links to the Landis stories:
More: Floyd Landis on Tour to Clear His Name
I also added it here: Finger Food: Floyd Landis on Tour to Clear His Name
And here: Finger Food Columns: Floyd Landis on Tour to Clear His Name
And now I’m done. Thanks for indulging and we will return this to its normal lunacy as soon as possible.
OK… here’s stage 17 from last year’s TdF:
And of course...
And then...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRIbmhqSiME]
***Here’s a funny one – I was catching glimpses of the Phillies game from Houston on television last night while having dinner at John Turner’s resplendent U.S. Hotel in Manayunk, when I quipped, “Geez, watching Burrell walk up to the plate to hit is like watching Saddam’s hanging. You’re sitting there the whole time thinking, ‘are they really going to go through with this? This is not going to be pleasant to watch.’”
Then sure enough, he smacks a home run. Take that, me.
On another note, it’s nice to see Aaron Rowand get an All-Star nod. Kudos to him.
***
Not that anyone else cares, but the only proper way to top off yesterday’s action-packed day would have been to roll down I-95 to Washington, D.C. to see Joe Lally and The Evens show at Fort Reno Park. I don’t want to even think about it because I know it was probably a really good show and I’m bummed that I couldn’t be there.
***
I'm not sure where I read it, but it is worth a note...
According to someone (not me and I'm upset I wasn't smart enough to come up with it, but I wasn't watching anyway), Florida basketball player and newly drafted Joakim Noah showed up at the NBA Draft in a suit and look that made him look like, "all of the villains from Batman rolled into one..."
Can you see Joakim getting dressed before heading off to the draft? I imagine him looking in a full-length mirror, tugging at his lapels and saying, "Wait until they get a load of me..."
Hey, if he can get away with it, let your freak flag fly.
It's hard to explain "real" athletics to the mainstream sporting media and fans, and by "real athletics" I mean sports that take athleticism like running, cycling (you thought I'd say golf) and basketball. Athletes often chide media types because "they don't play" or "they never played..." and to a large degree they are correct. When it comes to really knowing sports and what it takes to be an athlete, sportswriters and fans know nothing.
That's especially the case when it comes to cycling. The conventional appraoch by well-known columnists and sports media is to simply put the sport off by saying, "Well, cycling is dirty and no one can take it seriously..."
Yes, cycling appears to be dirty. But to say cycling is more dirty than football or baseball is just plain stupid. Actually, it's really, really stupid and the people who write and spew that crap should know better.
The problem cycling writers are having right now is the same one baseball writers had five to 10 years ago when the sport was at the apex of its so-called "Steroid Era," which is "how could we not know." Baseball writers really dropped the ball and now writers covering other sports are repeating those mistakes.
Joe Lindsay, in his Boulder Report blog, nails it much better than I ever could. For people interested in sizing up the true sports landscape and the media's place in it, Lindsay post is as right on as there is...
Perhaps some day it will all be about the game and/or race again.
More: Looking for the exit.
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Meanwhile...
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Most nights my ride home the ballpark can be a pain. Firstly there is the Schuylkill, which quite possibly could be the worst stretch of paved road in the world. On top of the Surekill, there is some construction linking the Expressway near Valley Forge to the Turnpike that makes the 24 Hours of Le Mans look like a Sunday drive through the country.
Finally, there’s the distance, which comes to approximately three hours round trip. Sometimes the drive can be quite taxing, but I guess it’s my fault for living out in the middle of nowhere. That said, it’s much nicer here than in any of the neighborhoods that I surely would be priced out of – it’s a little slow to adapt to modernity or new ideas out here, but at least the sprawl has been fairly well contained (in comparison) for the time being.
Anyway, the drive back to the boondocks gives me plenty of time to listen to a bunch of the podcasts I subscribe to. A favorite is a radio show based out of San Diego called The Competitors Radio Show, hosted by former world class triathletes Bob Babbitt and Paul Huddle. Needless to say the show focuses on endurance sports like triathlons, running and cycling, which for geeks like me is really fascinating. As far as I can tell, Babbitt and Huddle host the only show like The Competitors and that’s a shame.
So while driving home on Friday night I listened to a rebroadcast of an interview with Greg LeMond, the three-time champion and first American winner of the Tour de France. LeMond is the man who put cycling in the U.S. on the map. In places like Philadelphia and Lancaster, cycling (and running) are mainstream participatory sports that exploded after LeMond won his first Tour in 1986. But frankly, that’s about all I knew about LeMond. Sure, I had heard about the comments regarding Lance Armstrong and now Floyd Landis, but it really didn’t seem like much of a big deal.
Isn’t every cyclist suspected of doping these days?
Still, some had written LeMond off as a bitter jerk since his record in France had been broken. No one seemed to notice when LeMond said Armstrong’s record run was the best thing the ever happened to cycling. But in July 2004 when LeMond said that “If Armstrong's clean, it's the greatest comeback. And if he's not, then it's the greatest fraud,” well, that made all the papers.
LeMond is right, of course, but you know…
Regardless, during the interview LeMond explained he realized doping took a firm grip on cycling when guys he never heard of rode by him like he was standing still – and he was in the best shape of his life with three Tour de France titles. Listening to LeMond it sounds as if cycling and baseball hit the doping era at the same time with similar results. While no-name riders were doing wheelies by the best rider in the world, the 50-homer plateau was topped 22 times from 1996 to now. From 1977 to 1995, one player hit 50 homers. Meanwhile, from 1961, when Roger Maris beat Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record, to 1996, only three players hit 50 homers in a season.
From listening to LeMond it sounded as if all cyclists Brady Andersons were slugging 50 homers every year.
LeMond also revealed that during Floyd Landis’ ride for the Tour de France title it appeared as if the statistics were back to normal. He noted that he was withholding judgment about the defending champion (for now), and that he had a confidential conversation with Landis that he was going to keep private. This interview was originally recorded last August.
Needless to say, a lot has changed since then.
Dressed in another bold, yellow tie with a dark suit, Floyd Landis faced cross-examination on Tuesday in the USADA arbitration hearing. It is from the those hearings at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. where it will be determined whether or not the Lancaster County native gets to keep his Tour de France title or becomes the first rider in the long history of the race to be stripped of his yellow clothing.
Oddly, though, a majority of the questions Landis faced were regarding LeMond and his role in a potential witness tampering, which bordered on obscene and insane. Instead of answering questions about whether he used performance-enhancing drugs during the now infamous 17th stage of last summer’s Tour de France, Landis had to explain his actions regarding Will Geoghegan, his “friend” and former representative who threatened LeMond by telephone last week by threatening to reveal that LeMond had been sexual abused of which as a child, and which only Landis knew about.
From Eddie Pells of the Associated Press:
“Would you agree, that as my mother used to say, that a person's character is revealed more by their actions than their words?” U.S. Anti-Doping Agency attorney Matthew Barnett asked Landis.
“It sounds like a good saying,” Landis said.
Then, it got ugly, as Barnett dredged up events surrounding testimony LeMond gave last Thursday. On that day, the three-time Tour champion testified he'd received a phone call the night before from Landis' manager, Will Geoghegan, who threatened to divulge LeMond's secret.
USADA lawyers cross-examined Landis about everything from the color of his tie to the timing of his decision to fire his manager.
Barnett tried to portray Landis and Geoghegan as scheming together to keep LeMond from testifying, then not showing remorse until they got caught.
Landis said that although he was sitting near Geoghegan when the manager made the call last Wednesday night, he didn't know what was going on until later.
Barnett tried to pin him down on when, exactly, he told his attorneys of the call, and why he waited to fire Geoghegan until after LeMond revealed details of the call on the witness stand.
Landis testified that he told his attorneys about the call as soon as he arrived to the hearing room Thursday, though nobody thought to fire Geoghegan until after LeMond's testimony.
“In hindsight, I probably should have fired him immediately, but I needed someone to talk to,” Landis said.
USADA attorneys tried to portray Landis as an active participant in the LeMond plan. They pointed to his wardrobe that day -- a black suit with a black tie instead of the yellow tie he's worn every other day of the hearing -- as evidence that he had it in for LeMond.
“That's why I wore the black suit, because it was a terrible thing that happened,” Landis said. “It wasn't a thing to celebrate by wearing a yellow tie.”
Was the black tie symbolic support for LeMond?
“No. It was a disaster. Nothing good could come out of that day,” Landis said.
Landis was also questioned about some unflattering Internet postings where he called LeMond a "pathetic human," though didn’t seem to face much heat when it came to discussing doping.
The focus, as it appears, will be on the circus and not the science. That shouldn’t be too surprising, though. Credibility is the real issue in the arbitration hearing and to most folks it doesn’t seem as if Landis has any no matter what the science might say.
Why? Will Geoghegan, of course.
My mother used to say that a person is known by the company they keep. Or, as Rocky Balboa said in the original film, “If you have knucklehead friends, people will think you are a knucklehead.”
It’s difficult argue with that logic.
Look, we want to give Landis the benefit of the doubt and it seems like something is amiss with the tests and the ratios and everything involved in the epic ride to the Tour de France victory that should have been the best sports story of the year. But if Floyd is so willing to get down and dirty with a seemingly scorched earth attack where something as horrible as sexual abuse of a child is fair game.
Certainly Geoghegan was the one who made the calls to LeMond and Floyd said he was embarrassed by it all – but he didn’t do anything about it when it happened. To me that makes Landis complicit.
According to Lee Jenkins' story in The New York Times:
Landis and Geoghegan were clearly close. Landis said he gave Geoghegan all of his phone numbers, including LeMond’s. And Landis told Geoghegan that LeMond had been sexually abused as a child, after LeMond shared that secret with Landis.
Landis’s choice of friends and clothes were both on trial Tuesday. Barnett asked Landis why he showed up in court for LeMond’s testimony Thursday wearing all black, when he showed up the other days in much brighter colors. Landis has an obvious preference for yellow ties, evoking the yellow jersey worn by the Tour de France leader.
Through it all, watching from the gallery were Paul and Arlene Landis, the Mennonite parents of the most notorious bike rider in history. I wonder what they were thinking?
For the best recaps of the arbitration hearing, check out Trust But Verify, Steroid Nation and ESPN’s page of stories. Better yet, check out The Competitors Radio Show interview with San Diego Times-Union writer, Mark Zeigler. Good stuff.
***
Meanwhile, in baseball Jason Giambi says baseball owes the fans an apology for something and MLB wants to investigate. I guess being in baseball means you never have to apologize?
***
Tomorrow: Back to Baseball.
According to Major League Baseball’s rule 21-b, the Twins’ Torii Hunter could face a three-year suspension. The rule as it is written, prohibits anyone connected with a particular team from offering a gift or reward to a person connected with another team.
Gift for defeating competing club. Any player or person connected with a Club who shall offer or give any gift or reward to a player or person connected with another Club for services rendered or supposed to be or to have been rendered in defeating or attempting to defeat a competing Club, and any player or person connected with a Club who shall solicit or accept from a player connected with another Club any gift or reward for any services rendered, or supposed to have been rendered, or who, having been offered any such gift or reward, shall fail to inform his League President or the Commissioner or the President of the Minor League Association, as the case may be, immediately of such offer, and of all facts and circumstances connected therewith, shall be declared ineligible for not less than three years.
Yeah, three years.
In other words, Hunter potentially could have sent the Kansas City Royals the most expensive case of Dom Perignon ever.
The reason for the gift (for those unfamiliar with the story) was to reward the Royals for their late-season sweep over the Detroit Tigers in 2006 which opened the door for the Twins to win the AL Central.
Fortunately, it appears as if reason will win out. Hunter’s gift was made in fun and it doesn’t seem as if the penalty will be anything more than a slap on the wrist. Hunter only sent four bottles of champagne to the Royals, who sent the unopened ones back when they learned about the flap.
However, it’s worth noting that Major League Baseball’s gift policy is much tougher than its stance on performance-enhancing drugs.
***
Speaking of performance-enhancing drugs, it appears as if the Floyd Landis case has once again resurfaced. According to the French bastion of journalism ethics, L’Equipe, Landis’s failed drug test from last summer’s Tour de France revealed a synthetic steroid. The paper knows this because it ran the leaked results that may or may not be true.
According to the Rant Your Head Off blog, here’s the deal:
What we don’t know is this:
It doesn’t appear that anything will be resolved in this case before the 2007 Tour de France, not does it seem as if Landis – innocent or guilty – will get a truly fair hearing.
***
I finally tried the veggie cheesesteak (yes, I am away of the oxymoron there) and will offer a full review either tomorrow or the next day. I even took pictures.
There was a time during our post-collegiate days where my sister and I attended a party in which one of the other attendees put Pink Floyd’s The Wall in the CD player (these were the days before the proliferation of mp3 files) and proceeded to tell us about how Roger Waters and Syd Barrett were not on performance-enhancing substances when composing the songs that were presented on the album. The fact that my sister and I didn’t really care about Pink Floyd and what they did to prepare for composing music nor that the guy who had cornered us had not presented a well-thought out argument really mattered.
What mattered, I suppose, is that some random guy at a party (who we suspect was on some type of “performance-enhancing drugs” at the time of his presentation) thought it was important enough to defend the notion that Pink Floyd was clean when writing The Wall in very much the same way people acted when andro was found in Mark McGwire’s locker during his assault on the home run records in 1998. Or the same way some people take up Barry Bonds’ case even though there is compelling proof that he allegedly used performance-enhancing drugs with the notion that, “well, they weren’t illegal when he was using them.”
As if that makes it better.
The point is we want our heroes to be “clean” as well as articulate, thoughtful and model citizens when in reality all they are is human. I don’t know if the members of Pink Floyd ever used drugs, and I guess I don’t really care, either. Drugs, as William S. Burroughs once said, are an inevitable part of life. And, as the late comedian Bill Hicks noted, if a person is so adamantly opposed to drug use, he needs to throw away all of his music, movies, quit his job and should stop watching sports.
Needless to say, none of this realistic, but it makes for interesting reading. In that regard, writer Chuck Klosterman examined the dichotomy of why it’s probably OK that Pink Floyd may have used performance-enhancing substances, but not football player Shawne Merriman in a story for ESPN.
In the story, Klosterman writes that every day sports fans are going to have to make some tough decisions.
More: Why we look the other way (Klosterman)
More: Inside the steroid sting (from SI)
***
Speaking of decisions, in Phillies news, Charlie Manuel is taking a long look at right-hander Zack Segovia for a spot in the team’s thin bullpen. According to reports from Clearwater, Segovia meets a very important requiste in that he throws strikes. Hopefully for the Phillies, that leads to getting hitters out.
As it plots out now, the Phillies’ rotation is set up to go Brett Myers, Cole Hamels, Freddy Garcia, Jamie Moyer and Adam Eaton based on Opening Day on April 2.
Meanwhile, Hamels' statistics in Grapefruit League action haven’t been too good. The lefty is 0-2 with a 7.00 ERA in three starts against Major League teams, and in an outing against minor leaguers yesterday in an attempt to iron out some mechanical issues, Hamels gave up four runs, four hits and four walks in a little less than four innings.
The good thing about this is that no one in the Phillies’ camp is too worried about these results… yet.
As written in these posts on many, many occasions, I believe the issue of performance-enhancing drugs and doping is the most important issue and story in sports now and for the foreseeable future. Actually, it’s the only story of real import but it would get pretty boring to write and read about drugging athletes all the time.
After all, sports are supposed to be entertainment.
Regardless, it should be required reading for any sports fan and/or writer to read Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. It truly is an unbelievable piece of work and parts of it read like a Cold War spy novel.
Baseball and its union should thank the authors for the book, yet instead they had the opposite reaction.
***
Similarly, I will be attending a lecture by Eric Schlosser this evening at Franklin & Marshall College. Schlosser, of course, is the author of Fast Food Nation, which examines how fast food restaurants use their economic power to exploit the culture, social conditions and public health.
Schlosser also wrote the award-winning Reefer Madness and is writing about the prison system in his next book.
It should make for an interesting evening.
***
Speaking of interesting, it’s becoming more likely that the Phillies will break camp in two weeks with six starting pitchers. According to a story in the Inquirer, the Phillies will be especially deep in the rotation, but remarkably thin in the bullpen. As written by noted casanova Todd Zolecki:
Pat Gillick said yesterday that he didn't think he would be able to make a trade for bullpen help before the season starts. He said he expected to open the season with six starting pitchers, one of which would move to the bullpen.
“Everybody is looking for the same thing,” Gillick said. “Everybody is looking for the same commodity. Everybody has a bullpen problem; nobody wants to give up a bullpen piece. If they give up a piece, it's going to create another problem for them. Who has excess?”
Anyone think Gillick is playing ‘possum?
Maybe not... according to Scott Lauber's info-packed blog, skipper Charlie Manuel has been his happy-go-lucky self lately. It seems as if the paper-thin bullpen's production this spring is wearing him out. Certainly the 'pen is not wearing out the opposition's hitters.
***
Finally, mathematics seems to have sabotaged my college basketball pool last weekend. After opening with a perfect first day in selecting winners on the first day of the tournament action, the picks made after consulting a mathematician resulted in a sub par 8-for-16 for the “Sweet 16.” Meanwhile, the picks made on hunches, a coin flips garnered 10-of-16 correct picks.
Fortunately, in both pools all of my Final 8, 4, 2 and championship teams remain.
Either way, I’m cooked.
Sports Illustrated writers Luis Fernando Llosa and L. Jon Wertheim dive into the brewing performance-enhancing drugs investigation with this piece that headlines promise to "rock sports." Certainly some of the names trickling out that are allegedly tied to the investigation have been well reported. Gary Matthews Jr., Jose Canseco, Evander Holyfield, etc., etc.
But one name that stood out in the Sports Illustrated story read:
David Bell, a veteran of a dozen major league seasons, received six packages of HCG at a Philadelphia address last April, when he played for the Phillies. The cost was $128.80, and the drug was prescribed in conjunction with an Arizona antiaging facility. Bell acknowledges receiving the shipment but tells SI the drug was prescribed to him "for a medical condition," which he declined to disclose, citing his right to privacy.
Bell had back trouble when he played for the Phillies. In fact, injuries kept him out of close to half of the games during the 2003 season, though he returned to play in 143, 150, and 145 games the next three seasons. Also, Bell and his wife Kristie had their first child during the off-season.
According to the Wikipedia entry on HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin), it can be used medically and as a steroid:
hCG is extensively used as a parenteral medication in fertility therapy in lieu of luteinizing hormone. In the presence of one or more mature ovarian follicles, ovulation can be triggered by the administration of hCG. As ovulation will happen about 40-45 hours after the injection of hCG, procedures can be scheduled to take advantage of this time sequence. Thus, patients who undergo IVF, typically receive hCG to trigger the ovulation process, but have their eggs retrieved at about 36 hours after injection, a few hours before the eggs actually would be released from the ovary.
As hCG supports the corpus luteum, administration of hCG is used in certain circumstances to enhance the production of progesterone.
In the male, hCG injections are used to stimulate the leydig cells to synthesize testosterone. The intratesticular testosterone is necessary for spermatogenesis from the sertoli cells. Typical indications for hCG in men include hypogonadism and fertility treatment.
hCG sold under brand names including Pregnyl®, Follutein®, Profasi®, and Novarel® use chorionic gonadotropins derived from the urine of pregnant women, while Ovidrel® is a product of recombinant technology. Novarel® and hCG from APP are typically considered generics in the United States.
Use with anabolic steroids
In the world of performance enhancing drugs, hCG is increasingly used in combination with various Anabolic Androgenic Steroid (AAS) cycles.
When AAS are put into a male body, the body's natural negative feedback loops cause the body to shut down its own production of testosterone via shutdown of the HPTA (hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis). High levels of AASs that mimic the body's natural testosterone trigger the hypothalamus to shut down its production of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) from the hypothalamus. Without GnRH the pituitary gland stops releasing luteinizing hormone (LH). LH normally travels from the pituitary via the blood stream to the testes where it triggers the production and release of testosterone. Without LH, the testes shut down their production of testosterone, causing testicular atrophy ("shrinking testicles").
In males, hCG mimics LH and helps restore / maintain testosterone production in the testes. As such, hCG is commonly used during and after steroid cycles to maintain and restore testicular size as well as endogenous testosterone production. However, if hCG is used for too long and in too high a dose, the resulting rise in natural testosterone will eventually inhibit its own production via negative feedback on the hypothalamus and pituitary.
David Bell remains unsigned for the 2007 season.
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.
Here’s the question I assume that most Americans probably have regarding the recent developments in the Floyd Landis case, and I’m prefacing it with the fact that I don’t really understand Americans all that well. At least that’s the case when it comes to culture and politics.
Nevertheless, when it comes to Landis the question is this:
Is he getting off because of a technicality or is he getting off because the test results are wrong?
Which is it? And it’s just so black and white, right?
Be that as it is, let’s get one thing clear – Landis will be officially vindicated. He will not lose his 2006 Tour de France victory. (Doesn’t that sound like a weird sentence? He will not lose his victory?)
So do we apologize to Floyd, or what?
Let’s back track for a second… Landis, the Californian via Lancaster County, Pa., is out on his “Vindication Tour ‘07” as the case against him crumbles like trans-fat laden cookie. According to a story in The Los Angeles Times by Michael A. Hiltzik, the French lab that handled Landis’ urine samples for the allegedly dirty samples following the 17th Stage of last year’s Tour de France did not follow proper testing procedure.
The most critical error from the controversial French laboratory is that it allowed two technicians to analyze both Landis' initial and validating urine analyses. That’s a violation of international standards, according to the LA Times report, because the same technicians cannot analyze both tests.
In that regard it sounds as if Floyd will walk on a technicality. But it opens up the question of whether or not the technicians were covering up their own tracks seeing that Landis passed every other drug test he ever took.
In those matters, check out Steroid Nation, as well as Trust But Verify – the extremely thorough site devoted exclusively to Landis coverage.
Meanwhile, Landis claims there are more mistakes from the lab that apparently erred and destroyed Landis’ reputation in some circles. If it is in fact revealed that the lab is liable for the errors and the Tour de France is complicit in hiring a “criminal” lab to do its testing, then what should happen?
Obviously, the lab faces lawsuits galore not just from Landis, but also from other riders it may have implicated. In terms of credibility, that lab is out of business.
But what about the Tour? Could it be that the Tour is guilty, too? How does one punish an event?
How about taking it away from France?
Yeah, that’s right – take the Tour out of France.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about sports in the last decade it’s that athletes go where the money is and no one really cares about the venue. Sure, places like Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park are cool to play in and in some regard the athletes enjoy the history and legacy and all of that stuff. But the reality is that those places are for the fans. If you give athletes money to run, jump, throw, ride or punch in someone’s backyard, they will show up.
Actually, they’ll show up early.
In other words it doesn’t matter if the Tour de France goes through the Alps and finishes at the Champs-Élysées. All that matters is if the best (clean) riders in the world are competing against each other at the same time. So hold the race in Spain, Germany, the United States or anywhere else for that matter. Put the money on the table and let the athletes go to work.
Just don’t let the same people continue to run people’s reputations and lives into the ground... if, in fact, that's what actually happened.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
Afterwards, Armstrong revealed that he did not train as hard as he had claimed even though he was diligent. The fact of the matter is that Armstrong worked out hard, but just not enough, which is understandable since he had just retired from hard training and competing.
But the marathon is humbling and there is no place to hide weaknesses. A runner has either done the work or he hasn’t – it’s that simple. In that regard, Armstrong got a taste of what it’s all about and it’s unlikely that he will leave New York feeling as banged up and bruised as he did last November.
I think there is something more to Armstrong choosing to run the marathon again and it’s more than an elite athlete being humbled in a new event. In fact, I’ll be willing to wager that Armstrong puts in a big-time training effort in attempt to be the top American in the race.
After all, there will be no elite-level Americans racing in the 2007 New York City Marathon. They will all be racing in the Olympic Trials the day before the annual marathon. With such a depleted field it’s reasonable that Armstrong can put in nine more months of training to lower his 2:59 considerably. After all, he has one of the highest VO2 marks ever registered. Though he’s a little older now, his body hasn’t taken the pounding typical of runners his age. Actually, the career on the bike might have provided a nice base to become an above-average runner.
It will be interesting to see what types of reports come out of Armstrong’s camp as the year passes.
Goucher to take a crack at the Trials?
While Armstrong’s entry into the 2007 New York City Marathon is as official as it can be nine months out, elite American Adam Goucher is contemplating his marathon debut in the Olympic Trials the day before Lance makes his second run in New York.
Fresh off his second-place finish in the USATF Cross Country Championships, Goucher announced that he – along with Jorge Torres and Abdi Abdirahman – was going to take a crack at Alberto Salazar’s 26-year old 8k American record (22:04) at the U.S. Championships next month in New York City. If he’s going to do it, Goucher will have a good reference point since his coach is the record holder.
But it’s the prospect of Goucher making his marathon debut at the Trials that has piqued the interest. A “B” standard qualifier with both a 27:59 10k and 13:15 5k under his belt in 2006, Goucher’s entry into the field automatically changes the tenor of the race. Already shaping up to be one of the deepest American marathon fields in a generation, the high-stakes competition and the criterion-style course through Central Park could suit Goucher’s style.
Plus, Goucher will get a first-hand look at portions of the course next month when he hits NYC for the 8k championships, and his well-documented training regime is, frankly, intimidating.
Yeah, Goucher is in.
Go Pound sand
Speaking of Armstrong, his arch nemesis and head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick Pound, was essentially censured by the International Olympic Committee for his comments directed at the cyclist. Not that anything such as a rebuke, humiliation or censure will quiet Pound.
The IOC claims that Pound “violated the Olympic charter, the rules of the IOC, and the rules of the Olympic movement,” when Pound criticized a Dutch report last year that cleared Armstrong from doping allegations. Pound, published reports indicate, said the report was prepared by a lawyer with no expertise in doping control and that WADA was considering legal action against him.
Though the IOC’s ethics panel found no “incriminating element” in Pound’s conduct, it did find that he refused to respond to Armstrong’s complaint against him for continuing to make claims without undisputed evidence.
Defiant as always, Pound told Armstrong the rebuke is meaningless.
“If Lance thinks this is going to make me go away he is sadly mistaken,” Pound told reporters.
That is, of course, Armstrong chooses to sue Pound and the WADA… don’t’ bet against it.
Out in front
The New York Times, seemingly the only American newspaper outside of the Bay Area covering doping issues these days, offered a story about an American cycling team performing its own drug tests ahead of the agencies. It's very interesting to read how Floyd Landis' positive test in last year's Tour de France have affected many cycling teams.
Meanwhile, former marathoner turned physician, Bob Kempainen, reminisced with an Ivy League sporting web site. Kempainen, of course, was one of the toughest runners on the planet for a few years as evidenced in the 1996 Marathon Olympic Trials.
Aside from the obvious (you know… like everything), there are two specific sports-related stories that I simply cannot put together intelligent and unique sentences about. One of the stories is a parent’s worst nightmare realized and encompasses just about every emotion, theory, thought and any other type of lean-tissue burning catalyst anyone can conjure.
The other, simply, has worn me out. Despite an interest in the topic that bordered on obsession last summer, these days my eyes glaze over when stories on the subject appear.
So as far as Andy Reid and his sons go… what can anyone write? I honestly believe there is nothing smart a writer (not a novelist) can put together on the subject that will do anyone justice. In fact, attempting to just might be insulting – even what I’ve come up with so far fits into those categories. Even seasoned parents can just wonder and offer sympathy. What else is there? All I can offer is that hopefully things turn out OK.
As a not-so-seasoned parent my theory is that one could be as involved as Ward Clever and as in-tune with their child as the most fair-minded and studied child-rearing clinician, and it still comes down to a bit of luck that one’s kids turn out alright and well-adjusted.
That’s about it. Frankly, it's not really any of my business.
Now with Floyd Landis… are we still doing this?
The news came out today that Landis will not defend his Tour de France victory in 2007 as part of a deal with the French anti-doping agency. In return for staying out of France for the year (Stay out of Mailbu, Lebowski!), the anti-doping agency will postpone whether or not it will ban the Lancaster County native for two years from worldwide competition and strip him of his Tour de France victory.
The French agency will reconvene no later than June to make its ruling, which will come on the heels of the U.S. anti-doping agency’s case against Landis stemming from his positive test for unusually high levels of testosterone during one stage of last year’s Tour de France.
In other words, nothing has been settled, nor does it seem likely that there will be any type of conclusion any time soon.
Not being able to ride in France hardly seems like much of a loss for Landis, who could rank along with President Bush (and maybe Lance Armstrong) as the most disliked Americans amongst the French. Besides, Landis, who was recently in New York trying to raise money for his legal defense, had hip-replacement surgery four months ago and would probably not defend his title even if that one dope test (in the 21 he took) came back as clean as the others. Instead, he hopes to ride in the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race in Leadville, Colo. in August, according to reports.
Are your eyes glazed over yet?
Here’s what gets me about this – doping in sports is and will be the most significant story as far as sports are concerned for the foreseeable future. Governing the major sports to be drug free is a raging battle that seems to be doing nothing other than treading water. In baseball, Congress is involved… kind of. In football, positive tests and suspensions for steroids are nothing more than fodder for the transaction wire like turf toe or a strained muscle, while the Olympic sports – running, cycling, swimming, etc. – are neck deep in an abyss of supposed cheating.
In a story written by Evan Weiner of The New York Sun, the idea that wide-ranging investigations uncovering uses of illicit and performance-enhancing drugs could open up potential legal action from the fans is broached.
Weiner writes:
There is another problem with the Mitchell investigation that no one has addressed. What if Mitchell uncovers evidence of steroids and other banned substance usage? What kind of penalties can the industry impose on retired players, former team officials, and employees? What happens if people demand refunds for buying tickets to what they thought was a bona fide competition once they find out that the games featured cheaters? Other than a scholarly and possible legal report, just what is Mitchell's investigation going to prove? Major League Baseball lacked integrity six years ago, nine years ago, 15 years ago?
Better yet:
The difficulty they face is simple. No one in authority in terms of spending money on sports really cares about athletes using banned and illegal substances.
Meanwhile, the fans yawn.
As a side note to the Landis story, the two-year ban on Tyler Hamilton is up and the one-time top American rider is back racing and hopes to win the Tour de France this year. There's a big story about his drive to return to the top of the sport after his doping ban in the latest issue of Outside Magazine.
Wouldn’t that be something if he did it?
