Since I wanted this column to hit around the time the Elite Men were coming through, I set it up the night before and hit the publish button from an Apple iPhone as I was sitting up on the railway embankment to get a good view of the runners.

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Leuco said he got a WhatsApp message from a Vatican official who said that the Pope had read his column and wanted to know the journalist's email address.

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But when we met at the restaurant I wanted to read him something I'd written in a March column, at the height of "Linsanity, " about a 1970 Knicks-Baltimore Bullets playoff game I attended.

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When he told me late last fall that he wanted his life to be just his, I told my editor that I was going to stop at the column's one-year anniversary.

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