Over the course of the day Monday, as the rest of the sporting world waited with bated breath for some news about a certain New England player’s knee, a nifty little rumor found its way around the Internet. It snaked through the series of tubes before finding its way to my home page news feed.
“Armstrong to compete in Tour de France.”
No way, I thought. Can’t be true. He’s getting on toward 40, hasn’t ridden competitively in almost four years and isn’t even dating Sheryl Crow anymore. Surely they mean a different Armstrong, someone with young legs and lungs. It just isn’t possible.
But then again, when did impossible last stop Lance Armstrong?
Armstrong hasn’t commented on the rumor yet, but I hope it turns out to be nothing more than a cycling magazine’s pipe dream. As great a champion as he was — and as much as I want to watch him roll down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees wrapped in a yellow jersey and a small army of French women — history just isn’t on his side.
He should talk to Michael Jordan. His Airness went out on the best note one could ask for, sinking a jumper as time expired to seal his sixth NBA championship. If only that shot had been his last act of fading away.
His time in Washington was at the same time sad and bizarre: it was sad to see his aging body unable to support his ageless competitive fire, sad to see him getting overrun and dominated by the role players on other teams and just plain weird to see him in something other than Chicago red and black. The Wizards weren’t able to surround him with the kind of talent he needed, the kind that could win games under his guidance and leadership, and instead of riding off into the sunset, the greatest player of his generation limped away under cover of darkness.
If M.J. can’t convince him, there are a string of others Lance could talk to. Try Joe Namath, whose flamboyant career in the NFL ended with him in a Rams uniform, far from his days delivering on his Super guarantee. Or Emmitt Smith, who broke the most heralded record in professional football — the perfect end to a magnificent career in Dallas — and then got greedy and skipped off to Arizona, where he was beat out on the depth chart by Marcel Shipp.
More than anyone, Armstrong should look up the end of the career of George Herman Ruth, Jr. The Babe built more than just Yankee Stadium; he put the entirety of baseball on his Goliath shoulders and carried it into the national consciousness. At the end of his career, when he was too old and too slow for the Yankees to keep him, Babe headed back to Boston, where he was the player/assistant manager for the Boston Braves.
The team won only 38 games all year, and Babe’s defense was so bad that Braves pitchers threatened to go on strike if he played the field. The Sultan of Swat had been dethroned, and the biggest bang in baseball went out with little more than a whimper.
Barry Sanders is the example Lance should follow. In a move never quite forgiven by Lions fans, Sanders shook, rattled and rolled out of Detroit at the peak of his career. The Lions hadn’t managed to win him a ring, but there was no question that another few years would make Barry a stone-cold lock to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He rushed for over 2,000 yards in 1997, only the third player in NFL to break that mark.
Barry knew his limits. 1998 saw him rush for 1,491 yards, the first time in five seasons he couldn’t break 1,500. He was only another 1,500 yards from breaking Walter Payton’s rushing record. But he could feel himself losing a step, coming back to the field of mere football mortals, and called it quits before the flame of his dominance sputtered and died.
The historical evidence against Armstrong coming back into racing and picking up where he left off is daunting indeed. But maybe recent history tells a different story. Dara Torres showed in Beijing what age and experience can do to youth and skill. The Brett Favre saga has, so far, played out to success in New York.
And the sport of cycling has changed in Armstrong’s favor. Assuming all his wins came without the aid of illegal steroids, which the drug tests have supported so far, he was cleanly dominating a sport where virtually everyone else on the road was doing whatever drugs they could find. The biggest names, the ones who could stay within an hour of Lance, have been taken out of the sport by their own “win by any means” stupidity.
So maybe it’s possible. If you can overcome the obstacles already placed in Lance’s life path, what’s a little bit of history on top of it?
Besides, yellow’s a good color for him.
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