“You have to pay to learn things.”
– Joseph and Mary, the Patrón, in “Sweet Thursday” by John Steinbeck

What a season it’s been. And we haven’t even made it to Het Volk yet.

Lance and Kristin Armstrong are feeling the strain, Manolo Saiz proclaims today’s Tour too grande and its riders too pequeño, The Shirt of Many Colors seems a wee bit heavy for Mario Cipollini, David Millar and team manager Alain Bonduer hiss at each other in the press like cats in a sack, Elefantino gets his ears pinned back again (by a plastic surgeon this time), Jan Ullrich, Frank Vandenbroucke and Erik Dekker have exactly three good knees among them, John Wordin rises from the grave only to have the UCI and USA Cycling break out the stakes and sledges, and Italian cycling fans get a dose of American-style “reality TV” – albeit in re-runs - from RAI2 Telegiornale.

Hell, watching a couple jillion Division 3 pros get Western in a parking-lot crit on a local-access cable channel is starting to look pretty good to me.

Why not? One sporting proposition is as good as another in a year when the news is so bad that a never-was like Lorenzo Lamas decreeing whether you’re hot or not constitutes cutting-edge televised competition.

In 2003, the suckers will plunk down fat cash for a thin minute of just about anything that drowns out the clatter and thud of the economy imploding and cluster bombs exploding. Mike Tyson working a heavy bag called Clifford Etienne in Memphis. Michael Jackson displaying behavioral traits that would have you or me strapped down in the nuthatch with a Thorazine drip until the Cubs win the World Series. The Foaming Rant. Whoops, that’s free of charge, and worth every penny, too, if I do say so myself.

So why should the domestic tifosi pitch a bitch about the bumper crop of faux pros Division 3 is raising? They will be fragrant tea roses by comparison in the odiferous American entertainment garden, which these days contains more fertilizer than foliage and is sorely in need of a thorough weeding, or maybe a good soaking with Agent Orange.

Who cares if some of the neo-three-o’s are little more than amateur squads with a runny Earl Scheib paint job, farm clubs hoping for a shot at The Show, as Kevin Costner called the big leagues in “Bull Durham?” It might be refreshing to watch a few fresh faces all excited about the possibilities come Philly Week instead of the same old crowd punching the clock and cashing the check.

The checks these D3s cash won’t look like much, of course, but who says they should? You got to pay your dues to play the blues, as the old saw goes, and it’s not as if major corporations are lining up like tabloid photogs outside J. Lo’s door to sponsor cycling teams these days, in any division. They’re all buying ad time on shows like “Joe Millionaire,” which drew 40 million viewers in its final hour. As Prime Alliance’s Roy Knickman told Chris Milliman for a story in the next print edition of VeloNews, pro cycling American-style is basically a few guys earning and a bunch more learning, “guys getting like $500 a month who are happy to do it.”

And who among us wouldn’t be happy to do it, if we had our youth, the legs and a sneaking feeling we could pip a Postie for a pro-only podium in New York or San Fran? Step up to The Show, tip your cap to the crowd, and find out how big a bat you really swing.Me, I started out as a copy boy at the No. 2 paper in a one-paper town, for $64.94 a week. I had been making a good deal more money installing storm windows and patio covers, but I wanted to work for newspapers, and here one was. At 19 years old, I was a professional newsman in the same sense that these D3 guys are professional racers – I was working, learning and earning, and that last was most definitely the least of the three. But that first job led to another, and another, and after a few years of reporting and editing for a series of what you might generously term Division 3 newspapers and earning something like a living, I scored myself a call-up to The Show - a weeklong, all-expenses-paid, salaried tryout on the copy desk at the Los Angeles Times Valley Edition bureau in Chatsworth, California.I didn’t get the job. Didn’t have the legs. So it was back to the small-town papers for me, and eventually out of daily journalism and into the cycling press. It’s a smaller league, but I get to play pretty regularly.Still, for a moment, when I was young and foolish, I got a free trip halfway across the country and had my at-bats in the bigs. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And I don’t think these Division 3 pros would, either, whether they wind up as Tour winners or shop rats.Play ball, boys. There’s a little something extra in it for you if you can put one over that left-field fence.

opin•ion

Pronunciation: O-'pin-yon
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin opinion-,opinio, from opinari
Date: 14th century
1 a : a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about aparticular matter b : APPROVAL, ESTEEM
2 a : belief stronger than impression and less strong than positiveknowledge b : a generally held view

In this case the applicable phrase is "less strong than positive knowledge."In other words, readers should not conclude that anything that Mr. Patrick O’Grady® scribbles here bears any resemblance to the views of VeloNews, VeloNews.com,Inside Communications Inc., our sister publications, our book division (well, exceptfor this thing), our investors, our employees (full-time, part-time, temporary and permanent), our suppliers, subscribers, parents, children, the good people who enjoy this sport, demanding juniors, grumpy masters or corrupt officials.Anyway, if you wanna go ahead and tell us (and your fellow readers)what you think this of this article, its author or the topic, why not drop us a line at Webletters@7Dogs.com? We'll post some of the better ones. We promise.