Tiger Woods: Now, He’s Human

Whoduhthunkit – Tiger’s human. And, come to find out, stupid, too.

Of course, this is no surprise to me since I’ve been trying to convince my friends of this for some time. My contention was and is that Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods was a user of performance enhancing drugs, a/k/a steroids. “No, not Tiger,” my Woods worshipping pals would declare. “He would never cheat!”

Blah blah blah… We all know now that that is not the case – he’ll cheat and he’ll cheat again. What makes it worse, now that we know his first response when confronted with the unflattering truth is to lie, he swore time and time again that he did not use performance enhancers. We have to be skeptical here. Add to this the amazing coincidence that he decided to pull the plug on the 2008 season just one week before regular testing was to be implemented. That “bad knee” business that enabled him to play all year up to that point was a pretty convenient excuse for dropping out of sight and cleaning up those vital fluids.

I know there are a lot of golf fans out there who prefer to think of El Tigre as just another Superman. But, if you ask me, he’s only human.

The Thrill Is Gone

I’m still a baseball fan… a Yankee fan; but, I’m not anything like the baseball freak I was once upon a time. It’s no wonder I was something of a math whiz when I was a kid, the way I used to pour over the daily box scores and monitor the stats wars. By the time I was 10, I had memorized the Red Book, the encyclopedia of baseball stats and records, cover to cover. And, although my enthusiasm for the game lessened over the years, I remained a dedicated fan.

But, now, in the wake of the steroid/performance-enhancing-drug scandal, I find my interest in ye olde national pastime has fallen to new depths. The endless revelations regarding McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Clemens, Bonds, A-Rod, Giambi, Ramirez, not to mention scores of fringe players, have made me an unabashed skeptic, distrusting the performances of all players.

Now, if someone’s knocking the snot out of the ball, I know they’re on the juice. It’s obvious. Contrarily, if they are mired in a slump, like Big Papi has been thus far in the 2009 season, I automatically think that their prior success was the result of steroid use and that, now, they are off the juice. That’s just the way it is.

While I was watching a game the other day, the players suddenly appeared to me stripped of all magic, lure, and charisma. There was nothing special about them at all – they were just a bunch of pitiful old men getting paid big bucks for playing a little kids’ game.

Will baseball ever recover from this mess?

Will I?