The Countertop Chronicles

Bud Selig is managing the impossible - making cycling look good!

There’s now more proof of Barry Bond’s guilt.

The man credited with creating the performance-enhancing drug known as “the clear” said in an HBO Sports interview that Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield took the drugs provided to them by BALCO, reports the New York Times.

And that just means Bud Selig should be even more ashamed of himself. He is a disgrace to America, daring to show up and supporting this bullshit.

Selig attended San Francisco’s weekend series in his hometown of Milwaukee, then traveled to the Bay Area for a surprise visit and said he will try to attend the record-breaking game. Selig watched from a box on the broadcast level with Giants executive vice president Larry Baer as well as owner Peter Magowan.

”Throughout this season, I have watched Barry Bonds ‘ pursuit of the home run record. Now that he is on the verge of tying the record, the time has come to announce that I will make every attempt to attend the record-setting moment,” Selig said in a statement Tuesday.

”Out of respect for the tradition of this game, the magnitude of the record, and the fact that all citizens in this country are innocent until proven guilty, I will attend Barry Bonds ‘ next games to observe his potential tying and breaking of the home run record, subject to my commitments to the Hall of Fame this weekend.”

As much of a mess as the Tour de France has become, even it holds the moral high ground to the specter of cheating thats sweeping over baseball.

A second team withdrew from the Tour de France on Wednesday after one of its riders tested positive for the use of a banned performance-enhancing drug, as a still-expanding specter of doping spread over the Tour, threatening the future of the race and the entire sport of cycling.

Cristian Moreni, an Italian rider for the French Cofidis team, was led away by police following the 16th stage after it was announced that he had tested positive for manufactured testosterone after the end of an earlier stage of the race. Moreni declined to request a follow-up, confirmatory test and was expelled from the Tour.

As I said yesterday, the solution is to kick the Giants out of baseball (at least for the duration of Barry Bond’s career).

Perhaps we should kick Bud Selig out too!

UPDATE!

Rasmussen is out!

Michael Rasmussen has been sent home for violating (the team’s) internal rules,” Rabobank team spokesman Jacob Bergsma told The Associated Press by phone.

The expulsion, which Bergsma said was ordered by the Dutch team sponsor, was linked to “incorrect” information that Rasmussen gave to the team’s sports director over his whereabouts last month. Rasmussen missed random drug tests May 8 and June 28.

The 33-year-old rider, who won Wednesday’s stage, had looked set to win the race, which ends Sunday in Paris. But Tour officials had questioned why he was allowed to take the start on July 7 in London, England

In something similar to Bond’s current position, Rasmussen was all but guaranteed to win on Sunday. There’s the precedent, winners get tossed too.

Does Bud Selig have what it takes???? Or is he soo integral a part of the conspiracy to ruin baseball that his judgment needs to be questioned??

A few weeks ago, I wrote the following

Since we were just talking about Barry Bonds (may he drop dead), it seems appropriate that I also mention whats occurring in another fascinating past time of mine, cycling.

While much of bicycling remains shrowded in controversy and disgrace, at least the sport is trying to do something to clean up its act (and I have no doubt that after all the appeals are done, Floyd Landis won’will neither be riding anymore nor carry the title of Tour de France Champ) which is far more than Bud Selig has done so far. And while cycling has yet to really shine the spotlight on Lance Armstrong (come on now folks, look at all the crap every other rider has gotten caught up in - and the problems all of Lance’s closest trainers are facing - and you can’t tell me with a straight face that Lance is nearly as clean as he wants us to believe) Barry Bonds is hardly the biggest star or fan favorite in baseball.

Well, it turns out that Alexandre Vinokourov - one of the Tour’s stars and winner of a tremendous stage victory yesterday - just got busted for blood doping.

he French sports daily L’Equipe, which first reported the positive test on its Web site Tuesday, said the analysis was conducted by the Chatenay-Malabry lab on the outskirts of Paris. It said two distinctive types of red blood cells were found in the A sample and showed that Vinokourov received a blood transfusion from a compatible donor shortly before the time trial.

A senior French anti-doping official confirmed to The Associated Press that there was a positive test for a blood transfusion taken from a rider at the Tour on Saturday. He said the test found two different types of blood, one from the rider, one from a donor.

And, while much of the attention will again shine on the persistent problems of steroids in cycling perhaps we ought to give the sport a show of support. For at the end of the day, they are rooting the cheaters out and their teams are taking the high road.

“Vino has tested positive having to do with a blood transfusion and the team is leaving the Tour,” team spokeswoman Corinne Druey said, using the rider’s nickname.

Yeah, I can accept that.

Short of Bud Selig doing the right thing (or Barry Bonds dropping dead), perhaps the Giants can just forfeit the rest of their games.

Works for me.

UPDATE

BVBigBro over at the Dummocrats has a modest proposal which is even better (and could also apply to the Barry Bonds situation)

The important thing now is for the Tour to establish an appropriate punishment. Namely all of Astana’s riders need to be banned from the Tour for life. Astana’s doctors need to be banned from the Tour for life. Astana’s management needs to be banned from the Tour for life. Anyone who has contact with “doctor” Ferrari needs to be banned from the Tour for life. The UCI needs to be told that they are no longer relevant for establishing standards of sporting conduct for the Tour de France

Oh, and that Doctor Ferrari he mentions . . . .

The Italian physician has been under investigation since 1998 on suspicion that he has relied on performance-enhancing drugs to help his most promising riders, including former world hour record holder Tony Rominger, Italy’s Mario Cipollini, Spaniard Abraham Olano and Armstrong’s former teammate Kevin Livingston.

He was one of Lance Armstrong’s “trainers” though Mr. Livestrong (and the Postal Service) have always denied anything fishy went on..

However Armstrong’s links with Ferrari - a former protégé and later competitor of disgraced Italian doping pioneer Professor Francesco Conconi - were played down by team director, Mark Gorski.

“From my perspective he (Ferrari) has done nothing wrong,” Gorski told reporters here.

“He worked with Lance in altitude training and I don’t see any problem with that. There’s always speculation about a lot of people, but here I don’t really think there’s any reason to be concerned.”

Yeah right. Ban Armstrong. Ban Bonds.

The Tour de France is set to begin again this weekend.

Since we were just talking about Barry Bonds (may he drop dead), it seems appropriate that I also mention whats occurring in another fascinating past time of mine, cycling.

While much of bicycling remains shrowded in controversy and disgrace, at least the sport is trying to do something to clean up its act (and I have no doubt that after all the appeals are done, Floyd Landis won’will neither be riding anymore nor carry the title of Tour de France Champ) which is far more than Bud Selig has done so far. And while cycling has yet to really shine the spotlight on Lance Armstrong (come on now folks, look at all the crap every other rider has gotten caught up in - and the problems all of Lance’s closest trainers are facing - and you can’t tell me with a straight face that Lance is nearly as clean as he wants us to believe) Barry Bonds is hardly the biggest star or fan favorite in baseball.

In any case, you can catch great online coverage of the event at Velonews including live coverage of each stage as it occurrs. Over at the Dummocrats, BvBigBro has his annual coverage of the tour going as well with a preview of the teams and the stages up already. Speaking of Dummocrats, for the fourth of July, we are going to recreate our own version of John Tant’s great Osama bin Pumpkin shoot, but this time we will be using Watermelons ($3.50 each at Wal Mart).