Be careful while pulling out . ..

[Slaky]

I was waiting for Jason Whitlock's response to Tiger. And was not disappointed.

Corner Boys Unite! Ho!
"The ones I've met have all been scandalous, tail-chasing hounds. No different from the frat boys I met in college or the corner boys hustling on the block."

"Let me give you another example. Reilly, the millionaire columnist for ESPN, wrote a damning piece for Sports Illustrated in 2004 about then-Colorado football coach Gary Barnett and a female kicker who claimed she was raped by a couple of her teammates. Reilly blasted Barnett, saying the coach didn't properly monitor the more than 100 players on his team. Reilly never mentioned that just weeks before police investigated a sexual-assault allegation that stemmed from a high school party at Reilly's Denver home. Reilly was not at home at the time. But his children allegedly hosted a party at his home and a 14-year-old girl claimed she was assaulted by two high school football players."

Whitlock runs anywhere from terrible to very good, so I never know what to expect from him.  But that was a good one.

I was just thinking about Reilly yesterday. Up on his high horse all the time. I'm really glad Whitlock is around to call these guys out on their bullshit and he seems to be the only guy who consistently does it. Sometimes he's just being mean (which I also support) like when he just rips Chris Fowler for no reason other than dislike.

Anyway, these high profile sports reporters love to take the trendy topic and bleat from their clouds of judgment about the right thing to do. All these guys are full of shit. Right now it's all about concussions and how we need to monitor these guys and we can't risk their health. Two years ago it was, "GET BACK IN THE GAME YOU PUSSY. YOU MAKE MILLIONS TO PLAY A GAME."

Good for Whitlock.

I'm fine with what Whitlock said, but let's just make sure we're not turning Tiger into some kind of victim here.

Not at all - just calling out the morality police for being the hypocrites they are.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Whitlock runs anywhere from terrible to very good, so I never know what to expect from him.

Often enough in the same piece.

What sports world has Charlie Pierce been covering? The Tim Tebows are a rarity. Athletes — male and female — are, generally speaking, some of the most sexually aggressive people on the planet. They have perfectly sculpted bodies they love to show off. They have a self-confidence about their sexuality non-athletes generally don't have.

But this is deeper than just athletes. Has Pierce ever spent time at a wealthy golf country club? Men (and women) with money are, generally speaking, the second-most sexually aggressive people on the planet. Who the hell does Pierce thinks flies women like Rachel Uchitel around the globe to party?

Tiger, like all men and women, needs to be judged by his peers, not angry, 60-year-old virgins.

Pierce should've opened his column by admitting he dislikes Woods and his opinion is skewed by that bias.

What Pierce piece did Whitlock read?

Sure, Pierce's latest is bitter and asshole-ish. And the original profile was a bit hamfisted. But is the takeaway from either really that Pierce is a total prude who wants to take Tiger to task for being a poon hound? Or even that he dislikes Tiger himself?

Yeah, he harps on about how phony the media mythology is. Pierce isn't really putting this on Tiger, though, is he? His main target in this regard seems to be IMG and, to a much lesser extent, Earl Woods. His original 1997 profile, hamfisted though it may be, is mostly about how Tiger may be the greatest golfer of all time, and how—looking past the phony, outsized mythos—this is what really matters.

And isn't this the same exact fucking thing Whitlock is bitching about?

This is the moral high horse Tiger's critics ride on. These are the people shouting on TV and whining in print that Tiger, in his last public statement, had the audacity to mildly criticize the way the mainstream media handled this controversy.

And Tiger never lied to us. Oh, he might have lied to himself, his wife and his kids. But he never lied to the public. From what little we know about Woods, his running buddies off the course are Jordan, Barkley and Ken Griffey Jr.

You know what they say about birds, feathers and flocks.

If you saw me at a strip club with Ronald McDonald, would you be shocked to see me at a drive-thru ordering a Big Mac at 3 a.m? Hell, no.

So why are we feigning shock that Tiger likes side dishes? Jordan and Barkley don't? PGA stands for Pussy Galore Association.

The media are lying to you. They won't tell you their real agenda.

Pierce:

Back in 1997, one of the worst-kept secrets on the PGA Tour was that Tiger was something of a hound. Everybody knew. Everybody had a story. Occasionally somebody saw it, but nobody wanted to talk about it, except in bar-room whispers late at night. Tiger's People at the International Management Group visibly got the vapors if you even implied anything about it. However, from that moment on, the marketing cocoon around him became almost impenetrable. The Tiger Woods that was constructed for corporate consumption was spotless and smooth, an edgeless brand easily peddled to sheikhs and shakers. The perfect marriage with the perfect kids slipped so easily into the narrative it seemed he'd been born married.

Anything dissonant was dealt with quickly and mercilessly. Tiger's caddy, an otherwise unemployable thug named Steve Williams, regularly harassed any spectator who Williams thought might eventually harsh his man's mellow. The IMG handlers differed from Williams only in that they were slightly more polite. The golfing press became aware that stories about Tiger's temper, say, or about his ties to unsavory corporate grifters, would mean the end of access to the only golfer in the world who matters.

The main difference I'm seeing is that Pierce is placing the onus on Tiger's corporate image managers, while Whitlock is focusing his ire on the media. They both write like assholes, but they're facing in different directions.

Except that Whitlock is, for some reason, treating Pierce as the epitome of the "puritanical" writers who regard Tiger as "evil" for slipping out of this IMG-media constructed phony image that they both reject.

[Andy]

Whitlock writes like he's pissed that Pierce ripped Simmons' book to shreds.

I give him credit for pretending to read the whole thing. 

I can't.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Whitlock writes like he's pissed that Pierce ripped Simmons' book to shreds.

I give him credit for pretending to read the whole thing. 

I can't.

Whitlock should've opened his column by admitting he dislikes Pierce and his opinion is skewed by that bias. They're journalists. They're supposed to be transparent.

[Tinker to Evers to Chance]

http://www.break.com/games/tiger-woods-wife-outrun.html