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PODCAST EPISODE NO. 3

I imagine musicians get a complex when they are about to go into the studio and hear a recording of Jimi Hendrix. Jimi, as we all learned in school, was a force of nature. He was like Mother Theresa and Genghis Khan all rolled into one when he held a guitar in his hands. How can anyone measure up to that, the musicians must think. Jimi was playing hard ball and everyone else is just trying to bat it off a tee.

That’s the way it is for us sentence writers when Bob Ford and Mike Sielski walk into the room. Oh sure, it might sound like I’m blowing smoke, and you know what… I kind of am. But whether they know it or not, those guys know how to work a room and when they say things people have no other people have no choice to but to take the words to heart.

So when Bob told me, “You’re awful,” well, I just couldn’t write it off. After all, I have never known Bob to be wrong. Ever. The fact is, he is smarter than almost every person you know. The same goes for Mike, too. If he isn’t right about something, he can explain why better than anyone out there.

But Bob is a good sport. He came into our little show, drank his beverage, ate his ham sandwich and participated in a lively discussion about everything. He even taught us about physics and the international dateline. The same goes for Sielski, too. The guy is an author of a book. Better yet, Mike wrote a real book like a real author and not some nonsense about lists of perceived greatness according to some guy and his faulty memories. Who wants to read that? Moreover, who wants to chop down trees to print those pages?

Put it this way: Mike has contributed to our culture and our collective discourse. Mike has a legacy.

And with that, the gang got together for the third episode of our little dog-and-pony show with two heavyweights. Once again we talked about the Olympics and hockey as well as Allen Iverson and the idea of exclusivity and media semantics.

Bob told a story about his days from hanging around with Charles Barkley and Mike just said a bunch of smart things.

Oh yeah, Dennis Deitch was back and offered a life tip, while Dan Roche stuck around long enough to offer some well-reasoned points about the local basketball team. But guess what… Ol’ Dan bought a house last weekend, too. Real estate bubble my ass…

Meanwhile, Sarah Baicker and I just tried to keep up with all the wizened souls we brought into our lair.

Here take a listen:

 

PODCAST NO. 3

Also, keep sending in those comments and whatever else. Check out the page we have on Facebook, too. You’ll be glad you did.

Just a slight delay for Lance

Lance Armstrong flew back to the United States on Tuesday morning. After a stopover in New York, the seven-time Tour de France champion made home to Austin, Tx. in time for an appointment with his doctor.

It was during that visit with his doctor that Armstrong learned his “clean” clavicle break wasn’t so clean after all. As of 8:20 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday, the great bike rider was getting a CT scan after learning about the not-so clean break.

“Bummer,” he tweeted on his Twitter feed.

Meanwhile, while the health and pending comeback of Lance Armstrong was all being documented in real time via “new media” (and the death of the “old media” had a bit more dirt shoveled on it with each tweet), somewhere near Paris tired old men waited anxiously for the next update.

Yes, when Armstrong “tweets” folks take notice. And no, it’s not just the fans, either. Take those tired old men in France for instance. When they read that the collarbone might be a little more damaged than expected, those “nefarious Frenchmen” might just have been moved to “twirl their moustaches and laugh heartily at his plight,” as the great Bob Ford once wrote about Lance’s ex-teammate, Floyd Landis, a few years back.

Yes, the cycling bureaucrats are feeling pretty good about themselves lately. When Lance hopped on that plane to go home, it meant there was an entire ocean between him and the nexus of the cycling universe. CT scans and doctor’s visits that elicit tweets that read, “bummer” gets that twirling in full flight. The next one might even be enough to cause a World Series-style victory celebration full of champagne spray and maybe even some high-fives. Why not? They already made him cut his hair for DNA-style drug tests.

Only in this case it might be real champagne instead of the sparkling wine those gauche Americans like.

Sacrebleu!

Continue reading this story ...

'Do you have to use so many cuss words...'

Just got word that the great Bob Ford won a big columnist award from The Associated Press Sports Editors association (or whatever they're called). It's for greatest sports columnist ever, which is well deserved and long overdue. I guess it's kind of like winning best actor at the Oscars, so kudos to Bob. Kudos.

On another note, had a nice little chat with Gonz the other day and we both came to the conclusion that Bob Ford is our "hero." And by hero we mean someone we aspire to be like if this media business we have chosen to work in continues to exist.

But for those who don't know or haven't had the pleasure to meet Bob, he definitely has a Marlboro Man vibe to him... better yet, he's almost exactly like Sam Elliott as The Stranger in The Big Lebowski... sans 'stache.

So in tribute to the much-deserved recognition we say to Bob, "I like yer style, Dude."

In the meantime, go check the archive of Bob's columns and his blog.

On another note, we're swamped working on another project today, but will come back with a full slate of material for both Finger Food and Center City on Friday. Among the topics we'll dive into are Donovan McNabb, NFL free agency, steroids in baseball/football, Charles Barkley and Manny Ramirez.

So come on back, I'll have a few stories to unfold.

Philly Clips: Ordering In

There’s something about a gorgeous day that just makes a fella feel good about the world and everything in it. The sun-splashed days and crisp, cool nights all devoid of that oppressive summertime bite where all you want to do is sit indoors and sweat, seem to be here to stay for a little while.

This is a wonderful development, of course. What could beat a great day spent outdoors with the sun, and the wind and the grass and the trees and the bees and whatever else?

So as the days get shorter and the cool air reminds us all that winter looms, how did we spend our glorious Sunday?

Well, lounging on the couch with the remote in hand in order to flip back and forth between the Eagles and the Phillies, of course.

Seriously, a little bit of Mother Nature goes a long way.

Oddly, the Phillies’ big game against the Marlins in Miami and the Eagles’ Week 3 showdown against the Steelers both began at 4ish and ended within a few minutes of each other, too. In fact, when the action got tight during the late innings in the Phillies’ game, the Eagles were conveniently in a time out. Better yet, when the Eagles’ defense was turning the game into a football version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the Phillies were between innings.

It was as if the players on both Philadelphia teams knew how we decided to stay indoors with the remote and created an organic picture-in-picture for us.

Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot.

And while we were all indoors watching the games, eating too much unhealthy food and trying to come up with witty and smart comments to make about the games to our friends, there was a group of guys sitting in a well-lit room with industrial-style carpeting and wireless Internet access doing the same things. The only difference is some of them wrote down some of their smart comments and zapped it out there through the Internets so we can follow along.

Take Bob Ford for instance… typically he spends beautiful Sundays antiquing through Amish Country with his wife (the fabulous tennis/cycling writer for ESPN, Bonnie D. Ford). But rather than firing up the chopper bike, putting on the goggles and the leather and attaching the sidecar, Bob kicked dirt all over the Eagles’ big victory.

Missing from Bob’s story on the Eagles’ rather languid offense was the line, “… other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

More: Eagles' win hid a few nasty details – Bob Ford, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Additionally, Mike Sielski, a.k.a. the Derek Jeter of the press corps in that he’s polished, presentable, hard-working, subtly self-promotes and dates lots of models (OK, I made up that last one), also expressed some concern about the offense.

More: Eagles need more from reserves – Mike Sielski, Bucks County Courier Times

Obviously a lot went right in the Eagles’ victory, such as the bulldog defense, a topic that Paul Domowitch took hold of without using the cliché, “Defense wins championships.” Also, there is no “I” in team, but there is a “ME.”

More: Johnson's defensive mission a success for Eagles – Paul Domowitch, Daily News

Meanwhile, baring a Mets of ’07 type of crash, the Phillies will be in the playoffs next week for the second year in a row. If this proves to be a new Golden Age of Phillies baseball just like the only other spanse of time that could be deemed glorious for the Phils, we are witnessing 1977. If history is, indeed, repeating itself, last year was ’76 and in two years Charlie Manuel will be fired just like Danny Ozark was in ’79. It also means the Phillies are a year away from getting a new Pete Rose and three years away from actually winning a playoff series.

Now that we have it all figured out, lets skip the part where the gritty, undersized and fiery shortstop from Sacramento becomes the manager a couple of decades from now. Once was enough for that.

Once is never enough for the sporting stylings from Todd Zolecki, who checked in from Miami with a story about the all-important pitching matchups for the rest of the week, as well as a note on the ageless wonder, Jamie Moyer. Actually, Moyer is not ageless, he’s almost 46. Worse, because the Sunday game started so late in the afternoon, Todd and Jamie had to postpone their customary rollerblading outing through South Beach they plan for every trip to Florida. Jamie says Todd finally perfected the “Ollie” stunt.

More: Next start a big one for Moyer – Todd Zolecki, The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Flyers kick off the exhibition portion of their schedule this evening when they host the New Jersey Devils at the Wachovia Center. It also marks the first game that Sam Carchidi takes over the Flyers’ beat for The Philadelphia Inquirer. It’s not as if Sam is new to the scene, though. Far from it. In fact, ol’ salty Sam covered the high school scene in South Jersey for years and stepped in to fill in on the Phillies coverage from time to time over the last decade. Actually, Sam became a bit of a media gadfly himself last August when he had that infamous spelling showdown with Phils’ pitcher Brett Myers in the clubhouse after a game in which many a home run soared through the South Philly air.

The interesting part about that incident was not that Sam and Brett attempted to match wits… oh no. The interesting part was that immediately after that post-game session the Phillies shook loose from a draining losing skid and went onto a surge that boosted them into the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.

As such, many in the press corps gave credit not just to 2007 MVP Jimmy Rollins in helping the club reach the post-season, but also to Sam for inspiring the local nine with a little dust-up with the local sporting press. Yet during the whole thing only one local scribe came up with an idea for the Phillies to honor the source of the inspiration.

Last August, Dennis Deitch wrote:

I have to admit, the clubhouse before the game was actually quite relaxed, as if last night's Myers-Carchidi shouting match sort of turned the release valve on the pressure. Sure enough, the Phils have come out and put a whuppin' on the Padres.

I suggested that the Phillies should thank Sam for distracting them from the messy week they had. In fact, I even made a template for the patch they should wear on the sleeve of the jersey to commemorate this pivotal moment. That's it above - like it? (Sam has glasses and a moustache. Wanted to make that clear, since I'm no Picasso. On second thought ... it is a little Picasso-esque.)

Let’s all hope that Sam has a similar affect on the Flyers and can carry the club to a Stanley Cup.

Finally, Yankee Stadium closed up for good on Sunday night in the South Bronx with a nostalgic and tear-jerking send off filled with old faces from the past. As with anything involving the Yankees, the farewell to the ballpark was filled with self-indulgence yet poignant slices of Americana. It was really quite neat to watch the old place go out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4qbfk8t97o&hl=en&fs=1]

Meanwhile, just over the Triborough Bridge in Queens from Yankee Stadium is Shea Stadium, which is also gasping to the finish line of a long run. Next year the Mets plan to open brand-new CitiField, but before they do they are hoping to challenge the Phillies and advance to the playoffs. The trouble is, it’s just not going as well as the New Yorkers would like…

More: For Mets, Familiar Beginning, Same Sad Ending – Ben Shpigel, The New York Times

More: It’s Gone! Goodbye! – Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

From us to you Media folks travel a lot and because they do, they often know of a few restaurants, sights, hotels and short cuts that the regular sports fan misses out on. So as a public service, I thought it would be nice to pass on some of the wisdom the local scribes have about places on the road the fans might be interested in. Since this is the first installment of this feature and since we’re going to be in town all week, I decided to start off things with a Philly restaurant everyone ought to check out.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday 261 S. 21st. St., Philadelphia My wife digs this place because it’s supposed to be all romantic and stuff. I just like the food — especially the “famous” mushroom soup. Set on a tree-lined street in a small and cozy space, diners are greeter by the gregarious host (but not obnoxiously so) and led upstairs to the fish tank bar to wait for the table to be prepared. Later, upon ordering, one learns that the wines are priced just $10 above cost and good time is starting to gear up.

Go here. It’s worth it.

If today is the day...

... you choose to take up reading, let this epic from The Philadelphia Inquirer be the first thing you feast your eyes on. Better yet, if this is the day you decide to quit reading or sew your eyes shut, there's no better way to go out than with Bob Ford. It's true. *** Do we have a dozen yet?

Decision day

Floyd Landis learns the result of two-years spent working on his defense against doping allegations at 11 a.m. today. But will it ever really be over? One would assume that the governing bodies would acknowledge the work of the Court for the Arbitration of Sport if it overturns the United States Anti-Doping Association's decision against Landis and restore his victory in the 2006 Tour de France. After all, one would assume that the sport bureaucracies will be quick to pat themselves on the back for nailing a “proven” doper if the appeal comes back in its favor. Nevertheless, nearly two years after he arrived at the Champs-Élysées in the Yellow Jersey, Floyd Landis finally arrives at the finish line on Monday at 11 a.m. Phew! What a ride… The wise Bob Ford of The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t give Floyd much of a chance in CAS’ verdict… I don’t know. Bob is much smarter than me (which isn’t saying much), but I give Floyd a 50-50 shot. More later…

Cooked case

WASHINGTON – Let’s just get it out of the way at the top… I believe Floyd Landis got screwed. I believe that if his case were held to the same standards of the rule of law, Landis’s case would have never gone to trial. Hell, he would have never been indicted. If Floyd Landis were a baseball player instead of a bike rider, he would still be out on the field without even the slightest threat of suspension. But whatever. Righteous indignation is typically the rallying cry for losers. Everybody gets screwed at one time or another. However, the part in the case against Floyd that seems so… wrong is that it doesn’t seem as if he was given due process. That’s really the crux of my righteous indignation, aside from the notion that Floyd seems A LOT more believable than Dick Pound, Travis Tygart and the rest of those bureaucrats. Look, I don’t care if Floyd was cocktailing HgH with winstrol and deer urine all while freezing his rest-day blood in a hyperbaric chamber. Due process is ESSENTIAL. Wizened old sage Bob Ford, who has been around the loop at the Tour de France numerous times and could be the best cycling writer in the world, dropped me an e-mail minutes after I received one from Floyd’s PR representative, Pearl Piatt, to announce the arbitrator’s ruling. The subject line said it all: “Cooked case.” The rest of the email would have made a hell of a column, but it’s football and baseball season in Philadelphia so such things as a doping case involving a Mennonite bike rider from Lancaster County tend to get buried. Except for here. As Bob wrote last May:

Landis was caught by the Laboratoire National de Dépistage du Dopage in Châtenay-Malabry, a facility in a suburb just southwest of Paris. The methods and procedures at the lab are sloppy, and the results it issues are increasingly suspect. Recently, the International Tennis Federation announced that drug tests from the French Open - held in Paris, by the way - would be shipped to a lab in Montreal rather than shuttled to Châtenay-Malabry. The ITF said it was an economic decision, but what was it going to say?

The French lab has spit out approximately three times as many positive results as other labs sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Those results, particularly the ones involving notable American cyclists, are also quickly leaked to L'Equipe, the French sports newspaper, which happens to be owned by the company that owns the Tour de France. So it's quite a racket.

Does any of this mean Floyd Landis is innocent, set up by nefarious Frenchmen who twirl their moustaches and laugh heartily at his plight? No, it does not. He may well be guilty. It means only that you can't trust the evidence.

This would be fine for Landis if his case was being heard in a court of law that adhered to innocent-until and the overriding escape hatch of reasonable doubt. Instead, his arbitration, which is being prosecuted by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, will be judged by a three-man panel, and was probably decided before it began.

Each side in the case picks one arbitrator, and the third is supposed to be mutually agreed upon. That didn't happen, and the compromise member of the panel is someone who almost always rules against athletes. The decision is cooked, in other words, and Landis is done.

Floyd won the 2006 Tour de France, fairly, I think. But even for as much as I’d like to say his incredible ride in Stage 17 is still one of the most exciting days in sports I have ever seen, I’d be lying if I said it’s not a little tainted now. Yes, Floyd will probably continue to race and could one even go back to ride in the Tour de France, but it will never be the same. And that just sucks.

That's OK, we'll take him

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.