Lance Armstrong and Rafael Palmeiro

Two things tonight, and neither is about us.

Well, it finally looks like Lance Armstrong has some competetion in the Tour de France. By the way, this is my favorite sporting event of the year, every year since the 80's, back when it was Greg Lemond vs. Laurent Fingion. I am a Lance fan, but more so of Bibycle racing. I rehabed my knee this way, and I fell in love with it.

Lance is only 38 seconds ahead of Mickael Rasmussen of Denmark. The tour is heading to the always challenging mountains of the Pyrenees in France. Rasmussen is the leader of the king of the mountain competetion and Lance usually loses people in the mountains. This may not be so easy this year. Rasmussen is in only his second tour and is very young. I don't think that Lance can drop him, as he usually does with his other rivals. Last year it was Ivan Basso, and the year before it was Alexandre Vinokourov. Rasmussen looks to have what it takes to hang with Lance, I just hope that he does not have what it takes to pull away from him. I do believe that Vinokourov will take a few chances at a breakaway. He has what it takes to do this in the mountain stages, but he is 4 minutes and 47 seconds behind Lance now. I do not believe that it is possible to make up that kind of time with just 2 stages left in the mountains. But Rasmussen just needs 38 seconds to take the lead, that is just one minor mistake by Lance or his team. It will no doubt be interesting, and hopefully Lance will come out on top in what will be his last professional race. We will see. If anyone is interested in watching, OLN is broadcasting the race live in the mornings at 8 am, and has rebroadcasts throughout the day.

Now, Rafael Palmeiro got hit number 3000 and 3001 tonight, becoming only the 26th player in MLB history to reach this plateau. Also he has over 500 home runs, making him only the fourth player in MLB history in that group, 3000 hits and 500 homeruns. And, still, I hear people saying that he is not worthy of the Hall of Fame. What? Not worthy? How the hell can anyone say this? He is actually closing in on 600 homeruns. He has 566 home runs. If he plays one more year, he will probably get to 600 homeruns, puting him in a group of 3, with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, having 3000 hits and 600 homeruns. How can anyone argue that Raffy shouldn't be worthy of getting into the Hall of Fame. Sometimes, ok most times, people baffle me. There is no logic to this at all. I hear that he has just been a product of whatever organization that he is playing with. Or, that he benefits from the team's success. Who in a team sport doesn't? He has also added a bunch to each team's success that he has played with. Most notably to me, the Texas Rangers. Who, by the way, were terribly mistaken when they brought in Will Clark and let him go to the Baltimore Orioles in the 90's. One in a long line of bonehead moves by my beloved Rangers. Point blank, he is not only worthy of Hall of Fame consideration, it will be a shame if he doesn't make it on his first ballot with about 90-95% of the votes.

Just my opinions

See ya then,

Jim