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JOHN RABE: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. Cloudy and 70 degrees at K-N-O-W FM 91.1, Minneapolis, St. Paul. In the Twin Cities, this afternoon, partly sunny, a 40% chance of thunderstorms, maybe some of them severe, maybe some heavy rain, highs around 85 degrees, down to 58 overnight, evening thunderstorms, then clouds rolling out. It's 1 past noon.

KORVA COLEMAN: From National Public Radio news in Washington, I'm Korva Coleman. President Clinton continues to visit pockets of poverty. Today, he'll visit South Los Angeles. Mr Clinton last visited the area as a presidential candidate in 1992. The area had just sustained heavy rioting that left 55 people dead and more than 700 buildings burned.

After the riots, banks and federal redevelopment programs made millions of dollars in loans and grants to local businesses. But some neighborhoods continue to suffer from drugs, gangs, homelessness, and high unemployment.

The American Red Cross named a new chief today to replace Elizabeth Dole. She resigned to explore a Republican presidential candidacy. NPR's Joanne Silberner reports.

JOANNE SILBERNER: After a unanimous vote of its board of governors, the American Red Cross today named Dr. Bernadine Healy to be its next president and chief executive officer. The name may be familiar. From 1991 to 1993, she directed the National Institutes of Health and was the first woman to do that. She's also served in the White House as a science advisor. And for the past four years, she's been dean of the Ohio State University college of medicine.

She's the first doctor to head the Red Cross and takes over at a time that it's dealing with dwindling blood supplies. On accepting the position, Healy said she considered it an honor and that her goal was to perform well enough so that the nurse who founded the Red Cross would admit that Healy, a doctor, was doing a good job. Joanne Silberner, NPR news, Washington.

KORVA COLEMAN: India says it has killed at least 90 Pakistani soldiers over the last two days in Kashmir. India says 40 of its own soldiers are dead. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif faces resistance to his decision to ask Islamic rebels fighting Indian troops to withdraw from Kashmir. The BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones says Sharif must convince his countrymen that this is the best way to end the fighting.

OWEN BENNETT-JONES: We're now involved in a selling operation because the prime minister has done the difficult thing. He's gone to Washington, and he's said that he's going to ask these people to withdraw. Now that is a big change in policy and not an easy one to sell in Pakistan.

So I think we can expect from ministers over the next few days, there's going to be, in fact, an address to the nation by the prime minister on Saturday. And I'm sure there'll be many other statements coming out, all directed at winning over Pakistani public opinion, trying to persuade people that enough has been extracted out of this crisis to justify what the prime minister did. He clearly took a judgment that he had to step down, back down, basically. And it's just a question now of persuading the Pakistani public that was the right thing to do.

KORVA COLEMAN: Owen Bennett-Jones reporting. The militia that rules Afghanistan says suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden is in Afghanistan and being watched. The Afghan Islamic press news agency reported bin Laden is being followed by a Taliban commission.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrials are up nearly 20 points at 11,207. This is NPR.

SPEAKER 1: Support for NPR comes from the Pew Charitable Trusts, sponsors of the Pew Center on the states, an online source for news and information about public issues and solutions at the state level on the web at stateline.org.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: With news from Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Greta Cunningham. A federal grand jury in Minneapolis today indicted Donald Blom as a felon in possession of a firearm. Blom already faces charges in the kidnapping of convenience store clerk Katie Poirier.

The indictment states investigators found several firearms at Blom's Colleton County cabin during a search last month. Blom has a number of prior felony convictions for kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct, and assault. He is facing a mandatory 15-year sentence if found guilty on the firearms possession charge.

Meanwhile, searchers are out again today in Moose Lake looking for clues in Poirier's disappearance. She has not been seen since she was abducted from a gas station where she worked.

Heavy rains in Central Minnesota caused problems in parts of Kandiyohi County this morning. Up to 2 inches of rain fell in less than an hour early this morning, flooding streets and basements in Wilmer and surrounding towns. Wilmer Police Chief Jim Kulseth says the sewer system just couldn't handle all the water.

JIM KULSETH: The problem it was that much rain that quickly. Normally, the storm sewers do a pretty good job of keeping up. But when you get a couple of inches of rain in an hour's time, I don't know if they're designed for that.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: The flooding subsided in Wilmer by late morning. A forecast for the state of Minnesota today calls for showers and thunderstorms likely in Northern, Central, and Southern Minnesota. Heavy rain is possible with those storms and some of them could be severe. High temperatures from 68 in the Northeast to near 90 in the far south.

Tonight, evening, thunderstorms likely in Eastern, Central, and Northwestern Minnesota with lows tonight near 50 to 60 degrees. Checking conditions around the region, it's partly sunny in Rochester and 65. St. Cloud reports cloudy skies and 68. Light rain is falling in International Falls and 56. It's cloudy in Fargo and 66. And in the Twin Cities, cloudy skies and 70. That's news. I'm Greta Cunningham.

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JOHN RABE: 6 minutes past noon. It's midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm John Rabe, in for Gary Eichten. Sports edition of Voices of Minnesota is on the way.

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JOHN RABE: This hour on midday, we hear two voices of Minnesota interviews, Greg LeMond and Nancy Mudge Cato. LeMond is the three-time winner of the Tour de France, the bicycle race underway this month in Europe. Nancy Mudge Cato is one of the women who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during and after World War II.

The tour de France is a grueling three-week race that takes riders from the cobblestones of Paris to Alpine summits and through quiet French villages at dizzying speeds. The tour demands superhuman speed, strength, and endurance. Minnesotan Greg LeMond won the race three times. His last two victories came after a hunting accident left his chest full of birdshot.

Now, in his late 30s, LeMond is retired from bike racing, but he keeps busy racing automobiles, designing bicycles, and working for the charity World T.E.A.M Sports. LeMond told Minnesota Public Radio's Lorna Benson how he got started in the sport that's unfamiliar to many Americans.

GREG LEMOND: I just kind of fell into it. I mean, I ran into somebody at a bike shop. They told me to come to this club meeting if I had any interest in trying to race, and I didn't even know-- I did not know the sport even existed. And I started riding a bike really to get in shape and went to this club meeting, got into my first race, won it.

When you're 14 years old and you win something, you actually in cycling. At the time, they were giving prize money away. So I think I made $5 or $10 for first place. So it was a neat experience. And I immediately started-- I won my first 11 races that year. I'd asked the Federation to let me race in a category above my age group. I was 14 years old at that time, and I started racing with 16 to 19-year-olds and started doing well in that class.

The next year I started racing against Olympic level racers and started beating them and winning at a very young age. So I knew at about 16, 17 years old I had some talent. And I started deciding how I was going to figure out how to get to the top of the sport from about that age on.

LORNA BENSON: I've read that your mother would hold your bicycle, hold it stationary for hours while you sat on it.

GREG LEMOND: Yeah.

LORNA BENSON: Is that an exaggeration?

GREG LEMOND: I do remember in my mom's bathroom because there were a lot of mirrors there, because aerodynamics are very important in cycling. So part of it-- when I got into cycling, I was so passionate. I read every book I could about cycling. And I read running books on training and cross-country skiing books about training.

So I tried to figure out right away how to get fast. And part of it was aerodynamics. So that whole deal with my mom holding me in front of the mirror was purely just for seeing if my-- you want a very flat back. And so that was the purpose.

LORNA BENSON: It worked, though, right?

GREG LEMOND: It worked. I had a very good position, very aerodynamic position throughout my whole career. It definitely pays off. That's a big deal in cycling is good position on your bike.

LORNA BENSON: At that young age was it a drag to train or were you really into it?

GREG LEMOND: I was consumed by it. My first 10 years of my cycling career I couldn't get enough. I think that's what draws-- I think that's why certain people are successful at a young age, and especially athletics, because it does take tremendous sacrifice. It takes tremendous intensity to train every day. And if you don't have that passion, it would be so easy to walk away from it. No, I was consumed by it.

My whole goal-- at 17 years old, I set it five goals on a piece of paper. And one was to win the Junior World Championships. The other was to win the Olympics in 1980. The other was to-- the third one was to win the World Championships at 22 and then the Tour de France by the time I was 25. And believe it or not, I achieved every one except the Olympics.

LORNA BENSON: Because there was a boycott?

GREG LEMOND: Because of the boycott. And the great thing was that year, I raced first American to ever win an international stage race, multiday race in France. I was 18 years old at the time. And I beat the East Germans and the Russians. And so that following year, because of the boycott, I didn't go. I turned professional racing. And I started racing in Europe.

And the following year, the Russians came to the United States to race a race called the Cross Classic. At the time, it was in Colorado. And the gold medalist came to that event and I beat him, I think, by 5 or 6 minutes. So I won the race. And so who knows, maybe I would have achieved all five of those.

But I think I was-- I knew exactly what I wanted at a pretty young age. I look back and I don't know what a fool I'd look like. America, I didn't-- most people didn't even know what the Tour de France was and cycling in general.

LORNA BENSON: And an American had never won it.

GREG LEMOND: An American never even-- really no American even competed in Europe. There was this mystique about Europeans that they were from another planet. And there still is. Cycling is such a competitive sport. There's about 1,500 racers that make a living racing in Europe, and it's at a very, very high level.

The Tour de France itself is-- there's three major sporting events in the world, and that's the Olympics, World Cup, and the Tour de France. In terms of largeness, the Tour de France happens every year. And it has a history goes back to 1903. So it's a very competitive sport. And for me to start dreaming at that young age, I still look back and I go, oh I don't know how I really actually did it.

LORNA BENSON: When you think of that very first Tour de France win, what do you think about?

GREG LEMOND: Well, I'd already raced in Europe for six years at that point, and I already won the World Championships. I was third in my first Tour de France. I was second in my second Tour de France at 24. I was 24 years old. And I had actually won that. I took the lead in 1985.

And my teammate Bernard Hinault, who was the French hero of cycling, actually won it that year. But my team deceived me into letting me. I actually in 1985 had the lead by about 4 minutes. And they told me my teammate was just behind me to wait for him. I waited 4 or 5 minutes. He had been dropped from the group that was behind me.

And so there was a promise for me-- I threatened to-- I realized I actually lost my opportunity to win that race in 1985. And the team had promised that Bernard Hinault would help me win my first Tour de France in '86 and so--

LORNA BENSON: Wait, explain this. What do you mean you had to wait for your teammate?

GREG LEMOND: Well, in cycling, there's-- you're racing with a group of, say, 200 racers, and it's three weeks long. The Tour de France is-- I always try to explain to people it's like a golf event in a sense that it's the guy with the lowest stroke over four days wins the race. And that's the same with Tour de France. The guy with the lowest overall time wins the race.

And each day, you have a different course. And the Tour de France has individual days where you go by yourself against the clock. And Bernard Hinault, my teammate, took about 2.5 minutes out of me one day. And then we basically maintained the same pace the whole race. And we went through the Alps. We were about the same pace.

And then we came into the Pyrenees. And the guy in third place was an Irishman did a big attack. And as a teammate I followed him, but I was on a very good day. And Hinault, my teammate, who was leading the race, I was in second place. He was in first. He got dropped from our group. And he was about 4 minutes behind.

And as a teammate, a lot of times if somebody's way down on the overall placings, the team would ask you to wait for Bernard Hinault, the leader of the race to pace him back up. Well, they told me to wait for him because he was just behind me. They wanted to secure first and second place.

Well, they were-- it's a French team. And they really what they wanted was a Frenchman to win. And they wanted Hinault to win, not me. And because I had followed the third place rider, this is getting very complicated.

LORNA BENSON: Well, the upshot of it is you felt you could have won a year earlier.

GREG LEMOND: Well, I should have won a year earlier. And then what I'm trying to get to is that Bernard Hinault who was my teammate had promised because I made this big sacrifice in 1985 to work for me in 1986. So 1986 came along, and he was on one of his best years ever. So my first victory came about battling the same guy that was my teammate, and it was a teammate from the year before.

So my first Tour de France victory was not quite as a happy experience. Actually, I won the Tour de France that year but was not given really the credit for it from my team nor from the French press. They all felt Bernard Hinault deserved to win. So I fought a fierce battle with him so--

LORNA BENSON: We're talking with former cyclist and Tour de France winner Greg LeMond. Now, shortly after your first Tour de France win, you suffered a serious setback. You were injured in a hunting accident, in fact, shot in the back. I'm wondering if that must have been the worst experience of your life.

GREG LEMOND: Well, it was the most traumatic experience. I think I was on this ride in Vietnam and talking with vets who had had similar trauma and talking to the psychologist. I think that trauma is trauma, and it changes you. It changes your wiring and your brain somewhat.

And that's true, I think after-- I was at the peak of my career in 1986. I was by far the strongest in the European Peloton. And psychologically, I was the strongest. I think, in 1987 when I got shot, I went through a lot of suffering to come back. And I never really was quite the same person. I think emotionally a little bit, I don't know about more fragile, maybe a little more compassionate. But I am more fragile. It definitely changes you, a real traumatic experience like that.

But I always looked at everything from a positive point of view. I never would dwell on the negative. So I always-- I tried to put a spin on the hunting accident. And my spin was that it gave me a break from cycling, and it gave me time to reevaluate what I wanted in my life. And actually, that's when we moved to Minnesota in 1987.

LORNA BENSON: Some of the pellets are still in your body.

GREG LEMOND: I have about 35. I have five in my liver, about four in lining of my heart, quite a few in my spine.

LORNA BENSON: You came back after that and won two more Tour de France titles?

GREG LEMOND: I had hoped I'd win five or six Tour de Frances. So I always look at it as I missed my best couple of years. And physically, I was never the same afterwards. I struggled. I went so many up and down periods after that. And a typical pro bike race season is-- the Tour de France is one of many races. On average, a professional racer starts in February, finishes in October. And we race about 100 to 120 days a year or 120 different races.

And coming back from a hunting accident like that, I really wasn't prepared. Part of it was in order to race, you have to be on a professional team. And it's just like being on a Pro Football team or a basketball team. The teams have got to want you. They've got to sign you to a contract, and they've got to pay you. And when I got shot, I really had no team. No team in Europe wanted to touch me.

And so I faked it. I really-- I told the press in Europe that the accident was a very minor accident. I'd be back racing by the end of the year. And in fact, it was a very traumatic. I almost died from my hunting accident. And I went back in 1987 just to start races, just to let the teams know that I was fine and back.

But what I do is I start the race and after 2 miles, I'd claim I had a flat or claim I'd have a mechanical problem just so that-- I was actually getting dropped in the race after about 2 miles of a 100-mile race. So it was a real challenging period. For two years, I felt like I was under a microscope because every race I went into, people would say, he's finished.

And at one point, two months before my second Tour de France in '89, I thought I was finished. I basically told my wife that if I don't make a turnaround in the next couple of months that my career is over. And it was amazing because the next day I felt better.

It was like a relief, a release of pressure from-- I think I'd put so much pressure on me to perform and somehow the next day, I just felt physically and mentally a little bit better, and I started performing better. I ended up winning my second tour in 1989.

LORNA BENSON: Do you think that in part, it was because you had been so healthy prior to that and you were still within an age range where it could be done that you were able to recover?

GREG LEMOND: Yeah. Again, I don't think I ever recovered to the same extent. Remember my first Tour de France was 1986, and I started riding when I was 14. And it took me that many years to build up to win the Tour de France. And that's what even I didn't realize. When I got shot, I went from about 150 pounds person in 5% body fat to 130 pounds 18% body fat, which means I lost all my muscle mass and lost almost everything that took me 10 years to get back.

What it didn't takeaway was the mental knowledge of how to do it. And that's what got me back. But I still, from that point on, I don't really think I ever recovered 100% of my athletic abilities. I won in '89 and '90, but I look at myself as about 90%, 95% there. I think the race that I won in '86 was physically much more difficult. And I raced against a guy with much, I think, one of the greatest cyclists ever with Bernard Hinault.

And winning my '89 and '90 Tour de France, I think was more of a mental determination and tactics. I raced both races very tactically smart instead of physically the strongest. So I never was the same.

LORNA BENSON: You continued after your third victory to keep going for the next win. And it wasn't happening.

GREG LEMOND: No, I started-- I went way down, deteriorating really quickly after that. But it was kind of the same feelings that I had when I was coming back from my hunting accident. Coming back from a hunting accident took me two years to win my second tour. And I had these periods of chronic fatigue, of total exhaustion.

But for me, I always thought it was because I overtrained. I wasn't good enough condition. Eventually I got into condition. I won the '89 to '90 Tour de France. But after that, I had similar feelings of fatigue for three or four months. And everybody in Europe said it was in my head. And I said something's wrong with me. I thought I had lead poisoning.

LORNA BENSON: From the pellets?

GREG LEMOND: From the pellets, yeah. And I thought something there was causing my athletic ability to go way downhill. But every time we did blood tests for lead, and we did every type of tests, we found nothing. And in Europe, they found nothing. And they just said, I just-- they assumed I was just taking my money and putting it in the bank and not wanting to race anymore. And I wanted to race and do well--

I won my third Tour de France at 29. And in cycling, you could stay at a very high level to about 35 years old. So I thought I had at least two or more Tour de France victories in my legs. And so it was very frustrating. But I was eventually diagnosed with the muscle disease. And that's the reason I retired was because of this diagnosis.

LORNA BENSON: Not the way you would want an end a career.

GREG LEMOND: It's still hard. It was very frustrating because I felt that at the time, in 1987 or '86, I won my first Tour de France at 25 years old. In my mind, I had eight or nine years of possible domination. And in cycling, it's an amazing sport that injuries don't really happen in cycling. It's such a fluid sport.

And there are guys-- the last guy who won the Tour de France five times, Miguel Indurain, had a period of domination. And it seems to happen in cycling. The Tour de France is so hard. I think that it truly pulls out the best rider, best athlete. And there are very few injuries. And once you figure out how to constantly peak for the Tour de France, you can maintain a very high level. So that's what I kind of imagined. And I still won it three times.

But in 1991 when I started going downhill, it was-- the hardest part was that I really had this same determination that I had when everybody after my hunting said I'd never come back. Basically everybody told me just stop. You're never going to come back because I couldn't finish races. I was so bad. And so I had the same determination, this I'll-show-you attitude my whole last three years of my career, and it never happened.

And it kind of was almost embarrassing. I raced so poorly that-- but I look back at photos, I just didn't look healthy either. I looked tired all the time and didn't look the same as I was five or six years before.

LORNA BENSON: So do you think this happened for a reason?

GREG LEMOND: Well, I don't know. Yeah. Who knows? I think you take life as it comes and you make the best out of it. And it's funny. I think in America, had I won the Tour de France maybe five or six times, I was sportsman of the year for Sports Illustrated in 1989.

I'm almost certain that would have never happened had I not had a hunting accident. I could have won the Tour de France six or seven times and might not have ever been recognized by Sports Illustrated. So maybe it, and it does. Things happen in life. They shape the way you are. They shape your personality. And that's the way it is. And I'm sure I'd still be happy if I won the Tour de France five or six times. And I'd probably still be almost the same person.

LORNA BENSON: How tarnished was the Tour de France last year when some of the teams got kicked out for using drugs?

GREG LEMOND: That's a good question. Well, believe it or not, it didn't tarnish the Tour de France as much as you think. I think in America, it definitely put a really bad spin. Europeans have a different feel and part of it, the drug problem in any sport is part of that same. They look at it as the sport is so hard, and it would only be natural that somebody take something, which is it's a wrong attitude.

But I think, if you understand the sport of cycling, they are the first and the most vigilant drug testing sport in the world. There's more drug tests performed in cycling than any other sport. The problem is, it doesn't matter what type of money is spent, they're undetectable drugs.

The only thing I see as a solution is the Olympic Committee pushes the drug companies like Amgen, who makes this drug called erythropoietin, forced them to put a marker on it and it would eliminate so many things.

The thing that's good about it is that France is now making it a criminal. If you were a doctor who distributes even in a world of prescription drugs, they're illegal drugs, but in sports they're illegal, if this doctor is found distributing drugs to these riders without real health needs, it becomes a criminal prosecution. He faces up to seven years in prison. So I think that's going to limit a lot of stuff.

LORNA BENSON: What about helmets? Should they be required?

GREG LEMOND: Helmets-- I was the first cyclist. I helped design it was called the Giro. It's a bicycle helmet company. Jim Dempsey started, that company. He and I raced together. And he and I actually were the first ones to design a helmet like that. And I did it because I knew the danger, and I wanted to have something fairly safe.

But the fact is that in Europe, there was a movement to try to get riders to start wearing helmets. We in America have a safety standard. But in Europe, they don't have that. There's only one country, that's Switzerland right now, that has a safety standard for helmets.

And so for the Federation to implement, they have to have a safety standard first to get the guys to force them to wear them. But they do have them for the amateur riders. It's something-- it's like the hockey players at the time. Some of those riders are stubborn.

And you're finding out, if you look at photos in the Tour de France from five years ago, nobody hardly wore their helmet. And now you're you look at-- and this is what happened with the Federation. They started making amateur riders wear helmets. And now those amateur riders are professional riders and nobody really wants to race without helmets.

So if you look at the Tour de France, at least in the flat stages where it's really the most dangerous stages, not the mountain stages, almost 90% of those guys are wearing helmets. I didn't wear a helmet in the mountain stage either, and it was really not because I didn't want to wear a helmet. It was mainly because the competition wasn't wearing a helmet.

And believe it or not, when you get to that level, you think about every ounce of weight. And so believe the helmet is extremely light. But if you think you're at a disadvantage, you won't wear it. So that'll change. It already is changing.

That's a problem that's more-- the riders believe that they're professional. They're the ones who are going to get hurt and they should make that decision themselves. And they don't want the Federation forcing that. So I think that's going to change though.

Cycling is a very traditional sport. And in the '80s when I started wearing a helmet, I got criticized. I was the first rider to wear glasses. I was the first rider to wear Oakley glasses in cycling. And I was heavily criticized for it. But I use it for eye protection. And so all of a sudden, everybody is wearing eye glasses. And so the helmets are going to go the same route.

Everybody right now, there was such-- late '80s, early '90s, they're still riders that started racing 10, 15 years before that where helmets didn't exist at the time, at least the helmets that we know it. And now late '90s, those same riders all started wearing those safe helmets when they were younger.

Five years from now, probably everybody wearing a helmet. And then it will become an easier thing for them to pass because everybody's used to wearing a helmet. Federation will make it mandatory. And most likely we start wearing helmets.

LORNA BENSON: You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Lorna Benson. Today, we're talking with former cyclist Greg LeMond. Now, it seems strange to ask such a young guy this question, but what are you doing in retirement?

GREG LEMOND: Jack of all trades. It's funny when I got done with cycling, I was worried. I threw myself into just different projects. And I started a group of us here in Minneapolis. We were franchisees of Bruegger's Bagels in the West coast, and we had about three different states. Now we're partners with the founders of Bruegger's.

We I got so into that, and I ended up doing so many different things. And my last year, I've almost been to the point of burnout because I've been doing too much. But I started car racing about two years ago, probably for my need for speed. And I've done two years of a local businessman here in Minneapolis, sponsored a guy named Steve Knapp, who was third this year in the Indy 500.

His name is John Miller, and he's-- one of my partner Michael Snow in the bagel business, is partners with John in a milling company that mills pasta flour. And so he sponsored me two years ago in this USF2000. It's a formula type series. And so that was my first year, and it was a pretty high level. And I unfortunately crashed the car quite a bit and set poor John back quite a bit of money. But he helped me through it, and I had a sponsor this year who was willing to sponsor me again next year.

The problem with car racing-- I'm 37 years old, and I love it. But I got to be realistic what's my real future. My goal was to try to do the Indy 500. But the biggest problem, like in cycling, athletic ability. You can do it. If you're good enough, you can race the Tour de France.

But in car racing, even if you're good, you got to have the money. And you have to have the sponsor contacts or individually wealthy. If you don't have the right team, the right mechanic, the right engineer, the right engine, you're not-- even if you're a great driver, you're not going to go fast.

I've been doing a lot of work for charity. And I have several consulting contracts with different companies. And so I keep busy. But my goal was when I stopped cycling was I'd spend six weeks a year in Montana fly-fishing, and I've only made a week a year. So I've got to change something, change my priorities.

LORNA BENSON: You must not have much in the way of fear. Cycling is a very dangerous sport. These people die.

GREG LEMOND: Yeah.

LORNA BENSON: Same with auto racing.

GREG LEMOND: But it's a skill. And I think, you find out with people. And even in car racing, I have to say, I had fear in car racing. I definitely did not want to get injured. And I came into the sport amazed at the lack of safety concern, it seems, in car racing. But then as you get more knowledgeable in your skill level comes up, you go, well, it's probably not as-- it is dangerous, but it's still a manageable danger.

And it's all about I drove in Europe for-- lived in Europe for 14 years and driving on the highway there, I'd do 150 miles everywhere I went. And you don't feel like you're speeding because everybody else is doing 100, 120. You're doing 20 miles an hour faster. It's not a big deal. And that's the same with car racing. I think you adapt to the level that you're at, and it doesn't feel scary.

In car racing, I feel actually more vulnerable in a bike race than car racing because in a bike race in the Tour de France, you have to maintain contact with the group or the Peloton. If you're dropped from it, you'll lose tremendous amount of time because you're fighting the wind by yourself. So you have to be-- especially if you're trying to win the Tour de France, you have to be in situations that you don't want to be in, but you have to be in or else you can't win the tour de France.

Well, in car racing, you drive to the car's ability. You wouldn't drive a car that has a bad front suspension. It would feel scary. So you would pull into the pits and fix it. So you're always-- I feel like I'm really in control in car racing relative to bike racing.

LORNA BENSON: You mentioned that you enjoy trout fishing and--

GREG LEMOND: I'm what they call-- I don't watch sports on TV. I feel like an idiot when I meet other athletes because I don't know anybody. I am a participant sport athlete. I cross country ski or downhill ski, and I fly-fish. I golf. I play tennis. I took up surfing two years ago. I learned to surf about two years ago. I've got a couple surfboards.

And so what they call an active sports person. But I'd say my number 1 passion is fly-fishing. And I said, I grew up fishing when I was eight years old, started fly-fishing when I was 11 years old. So I've been at it a long time, but I never get enough of it.

LORNA BENSON: So is it possible for you to just sit around and do nothing.

GREG LEMOND: Yeah. Yeah. Not, not, not really at home. I get home for a couple of days. I'm thinking, oh I'd like to go skiing. I'd like to do this. I'd like to do that. My ideal-- but fly-fishing is not what you think. It's a very active sport. And it's very-- I go out fly-fishing, I'm exhausted at the end of the day, believe it or not.

You cast maybe 10,000 casts a day. You're constantly walking a river and analyzing where the trout are.

LORNA BENSON: OK, maybe you cast 10,000.

GREG LEMOND: No I'm in active-- no. I go on these guided fishing trips. We do a trip every year in Montana where we float down a river for five days. And it's a gorgeous river. And the guide said, I'm definitely the most active fly fisherman he's ever seen.

I always catch the-- not that I'm counting fish, but I always have the top number of fish. This last October, we did I think, I caught 60 fish in a day. And the next guy was about 15 fish.

LORNA BENSON: What does all this say about your personality?

GREG LEMOND: But that doesn't mean-- that wasn't competitive. That's because I love fly-fishing. We weren't counting fish, but the guide was counting fish and the other guides were. And that was purely-- I'm not-- I'm a friendly competitor. I'm not competitive in the sense that I would kill somebody to win.

LORNA BENSON: I know. You've retired from professional cycling. Is there any other cycle trek though down the road you'd really like to participate in?

GREG LEMOND: Well, I'd like to-- I told my son that it's up to him, but I'd love to ride across the United States with my son. When you ride a bike through a country, you smell the country. You really feel what it's like. So that's probably my next big bike ride, the next couple of years.

LORNA BENSON: Just have to wait for him to get old enough.

GREG LEMOND: Well, I'm hoping he's 14. He'll be before he goes to school, college. Maybe when he's 17 or 18. My kids can't get on a bike. They're into skateboards, so I can't get them on bikes. So I might be by myself.

LORNA BENSON: They don't want to compete with you.

GREG LEMOND: That's probably it. Yeah. I don't blame them.

LORNA BENSON: What's been the most satisfying aspect of your life?

GREG LEMOND: I think, I got to experience something that very few Americans. I look back-- in cycling, it's very hard for the average American to know what it's like. And I wish somehow there could be a great documentary done on the sport of cycling. And it's a really-- it's got huge history. It has all these characters and cycling.

And it was neat that I was able to take part of that and actually be one of the best at it in Europe. And I think there's no doubt that's-- and I always think-- car racing right now, somebody asked me, would I trade my place in cycling to be the number 1 Formula One car driver. Schumacher is making $40 million a year, and it's 20 weekends a year. That looks like a breeze to me.

And I wouldn't change for it. because cycling is-- I would challenge anybody to find a sport that's harder and more demanding, physically and psychologically. I doubt. There are very few sports out there. And very few people will acknowledge that in the United States because they don't know the sport.

But if you go to Europe, there would be no question with sportswriters or the average person what's the hardest sport. It's cycling. And so to be one of the best at, I think, one of the hardest sports in the world is pretty satisfying.

JOHN RABE: Three time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond talking with Minnesota Public Radio's Lorna Benson. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public radio, a special sports edition. Next, we'll meet Nancy Mudge Cato.

Nancy Mudge Cato is a preacher's daughter who grew up in the 1940s in small town New York, where she and the town boys played baseball every day. Just after college, Mudge Cato played four years for the Kalamazoo Lassies, one of the teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Mudge Cato is a former Phys. Ed teacher. She's retired from the University of Minnesota, where she taught Phys. Ed for people with disabilities. She lives now on a farm near Elk River. Mudge Cato told Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson her favorite sport wasn't baseball, but football.

DAN OLSON: Baseball can be a contact sport too obviously, but football is really a contact sport. You didn't shrink from this.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: The fellas talk about it still about how I used to tackle them when they were bigger than I was, but I wouldn't let go until someone got there to help me. So it was fun. It was fun. It was fun. I just had a wonderful time growing up in that small town.

DAN OLSON: So you went off to college and here, of course, was organized sports, a completely different environment, I gather, from a small town.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: But even then, it wasn't big time. Men's, yes, but women's we perhaps had eight basketball games in a season. No softball. I played on a town team. One of the coaches asked me if I knew there was women's baseball. And I said, never heard of it. I did not know baseball rules. I knew softball.

I'd never pitched overhand or anything. So I he put me in touch with a town team right near the college where they played baseball overhand pitching, 10-inch ball though bigger than-- this is a 9-inch, the men's, 1 inch bigger around. They taught me to pitch. They taught me to throw a fastball. Well, I had a good arm for a little kid, a good arm. And they taught me to throw a curveball. They taught me to throw a drop, and they taught me to throw a changeup.

So I had four pitches. I pitched no hitters, pitched one hitters, two hitters all the time.

DAN OLSON: You were a good pitcher.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Pitched game we had. And I never pitched when I went to what would be the majors. I never pitched. Isn't that amazing?

DAN OLSON: That is interesting.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: No one ever asked me to, and I never mentioned it.

DAN OLSON: These were young men teaching you the pitches or women?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, a man and his wife coached the team.

DAN OLSON: A man and his wife were coaches?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Yeah.

DAN OLSON: So they believed in sports.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: She was the manager, but he was the one that knew baseball.

DAN OLSON: So here you are making your way through college and you finish college, I assume, or did you go straight to the women's baseball league?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I finished. It was interesting because Earle McCommon was the commissioner of the league at that time. And I would have left school to go. I was so excited. I would have left to get to spring training because school wasn't finished when they had spring training.

I would have left. And he wrote me a letter and he said, don't do that. Wait until your school year is over then--

DAN OLSON: Really?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Wisdom.

DAN OLSON: That turned out to be very good advice.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Oh, wisdom.

DAN OLSON: Well, let's get the details here. So how did you first learn about professional women's baseball?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I learned about it from this coach originally. Then I played in the small town league and a scout from Fort Wayne, which was about 50 miles away, saw me playing and gave me a tryout, called me to Fort Wayne for a tryout. So I went there for a tryout.

DAN OLSON: What was that like?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: It was a very funny story. There's a very funny story connected with it. I don't--

DAN OLSON: And you have to tell us.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Really? Well, I went for a weekend tryout. I was still in college. And as I went-- as I observed in the locker room watching the girls dress, they had these socks that came up to your knees. And they would roll those socks up. And what I didn't know is that they had a garter that held those socks up. I didn't know that. I just watched them fold them and put them up. And so I went in to pinch run.

DAN OLSON: This was more than a tryout. You were being put into a game.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I was actually put into a game, but it was a preseason game, so it was. And so I was put in as a pinch runner. I was fast, real fast, and short legs, but I was fast. And so I was on first base and someone clouted it. And I went from first to third to home.

They kept waving me around. By the time I got between third base and home plate, two things happened. One is my legs buckled. I wasn't accustomed to running that hard that long. I was a pitcher.

And the other thing is that my socks were down around my feet. I was tripping over my socks and my legs were-- my legs just were not holding me up. I literally fell across home plate. I made it, but I don't know how. It was pretty funny story, embarrassing. I was embarrassed.

DAN OLSON: Yeah, but who cares. You scored a run.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I did. I made it.

DAN OLSON: And apparently that tryout was successful.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Yeah. But this this, I think, would interest you. You see, by that time, they had two farm clubs established because they didn't have a farm system. So they had two farm teams. One was called the Springfield Sallies. One was called the Chicago Colleens. And all they did was tour in the summer. And it was a promotional thing, and it was a learning experience for those of us who were just coming into the league.

It was a player recruitment kind of thing, and so we traveled-- when I played, we traveled up and down the east coast, way down south, down to Georgia. Sometimes they went to the southwest. Sometimes they went just south.

DAN OLSON: Good gravy, real cross country, traveling.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: All bus, all very exhausting. But when you're 20, who cares. This was a unique wrinkle in time. It was-- you can understand why those of us who played just realize how blessed we were.

DAN OLSON: Well, you played for how many years?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, I played for '51, 2, 3, 4. And '54 was the last year of the existence of the league.

DAN OLSON: So you saw the league go out.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I played in the last game that was ever played in the league. Interesting.

DAN OLSON: What was that like?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, at the time, we didn't know it was the last game. But Kalamazoo played Fort Wayne in what was called the Shaughnessy playoffs. It would be the equivalent of the World Series if you had two leagues. And Fort Wayne had a powerhouse. I probably should just punch Amazons. These powerful, strong women. And the game, it was the best of 7 series. And it went seven games and Kalamazoo won.

DAN OLSON: Holy cow, Nancy, you were--

NANCY MUDGE CATO: We were a real Cinderella team that year. Yeah.

DAN OLSON: What a thrill!

NANCY MUDGE CATO: It was. It was.

DAN OLSON: The people in Kalamazoo must have gone nuts.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, they were pretty excited.

DAN OLSON: Why did the league fold?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: There are a number of reasons that are given. One is that the ownership-- you know that Philip Wrigley started the league. Yeah. And there was a man named Art Meyerhoff who was-- Well, Mr Wrigley put him in charge. He was outstanding.

In fact, in the movie, he was portrayed. I don't remember that man. Yeah. And he took over the league when Mr Wrigley said, that's it. And he took over the league because Mr Wrigley was really into the Cubs. And so when the men started coming back, he just-- he wasn't.

DAN OLSON: What were you earning at the end?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I think I was earning about $100. They were supposed to be a cap of $100, but they paid some people under the table, no question about it.

DAN OLSON: So you didn't know it was the last game, but then when you learned that the season that the game, that the league was over, what was your reaction?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, I was sorry because I loved doing it. I did have a profession though, and there were a lot of women that didn't.

DAN OLSON: We're talking with Nancy Mudge Cato, former second base player for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League when she played for the Kalamazoo Lassies. Did your star status and what you brought, did that carry over into your job as a high school physical education teacher? Did the fathers and the school board and the superintendent say, hey, we should open the door wider for women now that we have this woman who knows baseball?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I don't think so.

DAN OLSON: I'm assuming you feel the change has been all for the better for women's athletics. What do you think is the next step in the evolution? We have pro teams already, have had them for a while. Is that the direction women's athletics is going?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, it looks like it doesn't. Women have improved, you know that as you've watched-- one of the biggest areas that I've noticed is watching high school basketball tournaments for women, for girls, for years. And you've seen the improvement.

I have a perspective that is not real popular perhaps with some women in that I'm not convinced that women should compete against men, never have been. Women playing women is a tremendous game to me. It was when I played baseball, and it still is to me.

But if you put women against men, I do not see it as an exciting game. We had a short. I need to just tell you one little story. We had a shortstop named Dottie Schroeder. Anyone that knows anything about baseball has heard of Dottie Schroeder.

There was a time when she was in Life magazine and they said if she was a man, she would have been $150,000 bonus player. Dottie Schroeder was she was a shortstop on my team. She was selected to play in an All-Star baseball team in Kalamazoo men's team. It was an honor to. And we all went. It was on a day off. It was scheduled on a day off so she could do it. And we typically didn't play on Mondays.

And so we all went. And Dottie took infield practice and the men shortstop, who was the best in the state, took infield practice. And so Dottie would take a ground ball, and she had wonderful hands. She fielded a ball cleanly. It was wonderful to watch her. She fielded the ball, threw it to first, and then the men took it, took the ground ball and threw it to first. And if someone would have said this to me, I wouldn't have believed it. There was a tremendous difference to me in the way she threw the ball and the way he threw the ball to first.

And I right then, as I say, if anyone, I would have argued, if anyone would have said. But ever since that moment, I have seen women competing against women, men competing against men.

DAN OLSON: Combination--

NANCY MUDGE CATO: That's not a real popular view among some women.

DAN OLSON: Is it a simple difference of physical stature?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: To me, it is. And the other thing that seems apparent, doesn't it, is that as women have been provided more opportunities, they have improved tremendously. Witness the high school basketball and other sports, whether it's softball or hockey or golf or whatever, women are getting better all the time because they're being provided with opportunities that for many years they didn't have. And it makes a big difference. But still, to me, the strength factor is big.

DAN OLSON: What is your take on the role of sports in our culture? You grew up playing arguably in the most enjoyable way that sports can be played with your friends in a small town in New York and then in college and in a very supportive environment. And then of course, you saw the big leagues. But for their time, of course, it was not the psychology and sociology of pro sports these days. What is your analysis of where pro sports have come to?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, I don't claim to be knowledgeable, but I do have an opinion and that is that I just could almost cry over where it's gone because money is too. The love of the game. Something has happened.

DAN OLSON: I suppose people look at college athletics and say, well, all college athletics has become is just a training ground, both physically, sociologically, and psychology for what's wrong with pro sports. What do you think?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, I think there's a lot of truth to it. I think there is a lot that has gone on for years that puts-- it puts athletes and it puts coaches in an untenable position.

DAN OLSON: But on the other hand--

NANCY MUDGE CATO: And we feed it. We feed it because we keep going, and we keep pushing. We feed it.

DAN OLSON: But on the other hand, it keeps opening doors wider and wider and more of them for women, all of this sports frenzy.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Yes, and I don't know that that's good, and if it's going to take them in the same direction.

DAN OLSON: I suppose we already know one of your favorite memories from playing professional women's baseball, the Cinderella World Series there, the Kalamazoo Lassies beat up on.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: That would be it really. That Is it. That is it.

DAN OLSON: And along the way, it must have been, I gather from your description, a great experience, the buses, the whole way.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Everything about it there-- yes, everything about it to me was wonderful because I loved to play. Someone said recently to me, well, you must not like to lose. And I said, I learned to lose. I learned to lose. So losing I like to-- I have much more difficulty if I don't play well. That's just that simple.

DAN OLSON: So your personal psychology of sports, then is you, I presume, would prefer to win. You enjoy winning, but you can accept losing, but you're hardest on yourself.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I know that if I don't play well, I'm not a happy camper. But I don't have to win for it to be a fulfilling experience. There's no question about that.

DAN OLSON: That's a great ethic. That's an ethic that probably escapes a lot of people.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: A lot of pressure, a lot of pressure on young people to the contrary.

DAN OLSON: Did the sight of women playing professional baseball open doors for young women? Did it have an impact on sports culture in this country, do you think?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: I don't know. At the time, there were young women all over the country in cities that had teams. And wherever the teams played on the farm tour, there were young women who longed to be involved. But then there was this gap of, what, almost 40 years where, and I'm sure you've heard this before, I didn't talk about it because who wanted to hear what you did 30, 40 years ago.

Well, it turned out when Penny Marshall came and went-- well, two things. One, the Hall of Fame, the acceptance into the Hall of Fame and that permanent. That was a big deal.

DAN OLSON: By the way, were you there? Did you go?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Yes, I went to that. Yes, I did go to that.

DAN OLSON: How fun?

NANCY MUDGE CATO: It was marvelous. And then Penny Marshall was there for that. And then when she decided to make the movie, then suddenly your phone is ringing and you're getting calls, and people want to interview you and want you to come and speak. And that's how it was.

But during that 40 year period, you didn't-- nobody talked about it. And everyone says the same thing. And when I went to throw the ball out at the dome, the people and my friends just scolded me for not telling them I was going to do that. And I said, who ever remembers when I was going to do that I thought, who ever remembers who threw the ball out. You don't remember.

But then when I was standing down there on the field and my name came on that big sign up there, and you look around and you see all these people, it's a big deal. It was a big deal. But no, I don't see the impact because there was a big gap where you didn't really see any repercussions at all.

DAN OLSON: Nancy Mudge Cato, thank you so much for your time. What a pleasure to talk to you.

NANCY MUDGE CATO: Well, thank you. It's a joy to have you.

JOHN RABE: Nancy Mudge Cato, second basewoman for the Kalamazoo Lassies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created by Chicago Cubs owner Philip Wrigley during World War II. Mudge Cato lives on a farm near Elk River. She spoke with Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson.

In case you missed it, we'll rebroadcast the Voices of Minnesota with Greg LeMond and Nancy Mudge Cato tonight at 9 o'clock. Tomorrow on midday, we continue our series of Main Street Radio remotes focusing on the Midwest farm crisis. We'll be live at the Clay County fair. That's from 11:00 to 1:00 tomorrow.

Programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by the Pillsbury Company Foundation, caring for the community by giving kids a loving lift. That's it for midday for today. John Rabe in for Gary Eichten. Thanks to John Bischoff, Carrie Dwyer, Dan Olson and Lorna Benson. The show is produced by Sarah Meyer.

SPEAKER 2: Reserve your--