My friend TP was eating breakfast with his 11-year-old son early Wednesday morning when the following words danced across the bottom of their television:
“Tiger Woods has entered a sex addiction clinic in Mississippi.”
Almost instantly the father let out a barely audible groan, something along the lines of, “Oooooooo-uuuugh.”
He then thought, “Do I really want to try to explain this to an 11-year-old?”
Fortunately, his son was up to his bicuspids in Count Chocula, so he never saw the news note.
But what if he had? We’ve long known that Tiger was a pretty fair swinger, but must we now explain to our children that their favorite golfer is a sex addict? And just when did garden variety philanderers become addicts?
Is Tiger now going to reach into his pocket every time he meets someone and pull out a ball marker or golf tee bearing the words “I am a recovering sex addict”?
Moreover, whatever happened to the old Hollywood PR line “We ask that you respect Mr. Woods’ privacy in this difficult time”?
Then again, Tiger’s folks have supposedly said nothing. This was apparently leaked by someone else, though how will we ever know for sure? After all, we can surely agree that an illness or addiction is far less reprehensible than an old-fashioned lack of self-control.
Besides, you can theoretically be cured of an illness, which means all those companies who’ve dropped His Stripeness as a spokesman — Accenture, AT&T, Gillette, Tag Heuer — could bring him back in time. Once he’s cured, of course.
This isn’t to say Tiger has been alone in shameful behavior.
Just last week we saw a tearful Mark McGwire finally admit to using performance-enhancing drugs five years after he refused to answer questions from Congress about his drug use.
But instead of saying, “I did it because it made my forearms the size of oil drums and gave me enough power to knock the ball halfway to Mars,” he said he took the stuff to make him feel better. Apparently nothing more than industrial-strength aspirin.
And for roughly a week no one in baseball said a whole lot worth repeating concerning McGwire’s remarks because, well, probably most of baseball was doing the same thing, a little more or a little less.
But Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk was done before ‘roids became all the rage in major league locker rooms. He retired in 1993, so none of his 351 career homers were chemically enhanced.
Which is why his Wednesday comments about McGwire and others should carry such weight.
Said Fisk of McGwire’s remarks: “That’s a crock. There’s a reason they call them performance enhancing drugs. That’s what it does — performance enhancement. You can be good but it’s going to make you better. Some guys who went that route got their 5-year, $35 million contract and now are off in the sunset somewhere. Because once they can’t use (steroids) anymore, they can’t play anymore.”
And we haven’t even addressed the Lane Kiffin story about working so late for so many straight nights that he fell asleep at the wheel of his dealer car last August, crashed it a half-mile from his house, abandoned it and walked home without telling a soul until the next day.
Are you kidding me?
So who do you believe? Is Tiger a troubled sex addict or a troublesome cheat? Would McGwire have still hit all those home runs if he’d been taking aspirin instead of andro? Was Kiffin merely asleep at the wheel or are the rest of us for believing him?
Pro golfer Jesper Parnevik introduced Woods to Elin Nordegren nine years ago. After learning of Tiger’s tawdry behavior a few weeks ago, Parnevik said, “We thought better of him, but he is not the one we thought he was.”
As sports unfortunately keeps teaching us daily, is anyone?
E-mail Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com