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Friday 07/06 A.M. Quickie:Tour de France, Final Vote, Verlander, Tiger, More!
Posted July 17th ago via Dan Shanoff
The following is a portion of the full post
Images and full post at Dan Shanoff

Tour de Farce 2007: No Lance. No Landis. I'd say the intrigue is about the TdF being "wide open," but we thought it would be that way LAST year too, didn't we?

After the fact, it turned out that - yet again - cheating was at the heart of the race. It seems like a million years ago that this event was a quirky-cool must-see for the casual American fan.

(It has to be asked: If stardom -- Lance -- or scandal -- Landis -- is the only reason a casual fan would pay attention to this event, is the Tour de France better off with something scandalous happening? As far as capturing wide attention in America, I think it might be.)

MLB All-Star Final Vote: The fans have spoken! As predicted here, Hideki Okajima won the AL's extra All-Star spot. As not predicted here, Chris Young won the NL's spot. (Travis Liles has a really interesting post: Should a player suspension that runs across the ASG impact a player's ASG availability? Hmm...)

But it's a nice consolation prize for Pat Neshek that he emerged as the bloggers' choice as one of the most cult-ish MLB players.

(There's a fascinating point to be made about Neshek's ability to go from quasi-anonymous middle reliever to blogger sensation with tons of "cred." It's a lesson for any/all athletes and follows the Paul Shirley model: You don't have to be a superstar like Gilbert Arenas to increase your visibility and popularity among fans through emerging media.)

MLB Stud, Team: Tigers. A sweep of the Indians put Detroit just a game back in the Central. What a race this will be.

12-game winner CC Sabathia was beaten by 10-game winner Justin Verlander, in a matchup between possible AL All-Star starters. (My money's on Verlander; just...

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