Lance out, Colon is too

Lance banned for life

- Lance Armstrong dropped his attempt to question the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s allegations of doping during his incredible and unprecedented 7 Tour de France titles. As part of his decision to not fight the ban any farther, Armstrong will accept a lifetime ban from competitive cycling and will possibly lose his 7 titles and/or his bronze medal from the 2000 Olympics.
- Armstrong, who still maintains that he is and always was clean, basically decided to stop fighting. He said, "I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won those seven Tours, and everyone I competed against knows who won those seven Tours."  The 4-time AP Male Athlete of the Year also said that he decided that the stress of the "witch hunt" against him was too much for his family and that he was simply at a point in his life where he no longer wanted to expend the effort fighting the claims against him. 
- Armstrong will still be held in high regard for what he has done to fight cancer even if his legacy as a cyclist in in question. His foundation and iconic yellow wristbands are his legacy.


Colon suspended

- Keeping with the theme of the day (and the past week or so in baseball) longtime starting pitcher Bartolo Colon, currently with the Oakland Athletics, was suspended for 50 games Wednesday for testing positive for a high level of synthetic testosterone.  Colon will miss the rest of the season and at least the first series of the playoffs (if the A's make it) or the beginning of the 2013 season to finish out the suspension.
- After going nearly a full season without any tests after Ryan Braun was initially suspended but then had his ban lifted, there have now been two players (All-Star game MVP Melky Cabrera being the other) test positive in the last week, both from the Bay Area in California.  While Colon was not having the extreme breakout year that Cabrera was, he was nonetheless a solid starter for an A's team that is on the fringe of the playoffs this year.  Colon had a 10-9 record with a 3.43 ERA, very respectable numbers.
- Colon was supposed to start Thursday night against the Rays but his replacement didn't fair as well as the A's lost 5-0 to the surging Tampa Bay squad, who is now only 2 1/2 games behind the Yankees, putting New York's seemingly insurmountable lead into question.