Blogs, Tiger Woods, and You - Brian

This is my inaugural blog, the first of many sports related commentary that will come from my mind grapes. These will be kept relatively short so I may revisit issues from time to time to elaborate on them and discuss new sides of the same story.

The first issue I want to tackle (just to get it out of the way) is Tiger Woods. Now I know I’m a little late on the issue, but it’s still being talked about and I want to get my opinion out there before it gets too old. First thought about this whole issue? Who cares. I really don’t care about the personal lives of super star athletes. That’s not why I’m watching them. I watch them because they are ATHLETES; therefore I care about their sports careers. If you are interested in gossip, immerse yourself in TMZ (by the way, the new site TMZ Sports threatens to erode the fact that sports are sports; more on this when the site is officially launched). So when evaluating Tiger Woods, all I care about is his number of wins (56 wins this decade; more than all but three golfer’s career wins) and not the number of women he had affairs with. So while it’s a big deal now, down the road nobody will really care. When Kobe is lighting up opponents and winning championships, how many people are thinking about the rape issue? None. This is how it will be for Tiger in a few years, which is how it should be right now. He shouldn’t have to wait; but he will. One of the few major athletes who is still haunted by something like this is Pete Rose. He will probably never get into the Hall of Fame because of his betting habits, but facts are facts: nobody has more career hits in baseball, nobody. Out of the top 19 leaders in career hits, Rose is the only one not in the hall of fame (hell, even the guy ranked 966th is in the Hall). So he might not deserve to be in the Good Decisions Hall of Fame, but he deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. So America, I ask you to let sports be sports and let the CW handle the rest.