Daily Archives: December 1, 2009

Tommy Henrich died today. He was 96, bless him.

Man won four rings with the Yanks.

It has clearly been a tough week for Tiger Woods. Over at Esquire, Charles Pierce weighs in with his take:

Tiger Woods and I go back a long ways. A little bit over twelve years, truth be told. Back then, I wrote a profile of him just prior to his winning the 1997 Masters, the first major accomplishment of his professional career. Over the course of a day’s worth of interviews, which were themselves the result of negotiations with his People at the International Management Group that were so protracted they should have been moved to Panmunjom, Tiger made some distasteful remarks and told some puerile and sexist jokes. Seeing as how they occurred during my limited interview time, I included them in my story, along with some not-overly-subtle intimations that Tiger had a reputation even among golfers as something of a chaser. The quotes were a Media Thing for a brief time, and the ensuing dust storm looks positively charming compared to what’s certainly coming after the events of this past weekend, which already appears to be something between Al Cowlings on the highway and an episode of The Real Housewives of Gated Communities. Back then, all that happened was that Tiger’s People at the International Management Group accused me of wiretapping a limo driver. (Me and Gordon Liddy!) And that Tiger’s father, Earl, whom I still miss, told Charlie Rose he hoped my story wouldn’t do permanent damage to his son’s career, and that Charlie Rose waved a copy of the magazine and told Earl he intended never to read the story. This is why Earl was an entertaining con man and Charlie Rose is a salon-sniffing Beltway yahoo.

Better still, Esquire has reprinted Pierce’s classic 1997 profile, “The Man. Amen.”

Well worth checking out.

Here’s an odd one, Luchi De Jesus’s cover of “Round Midnight.”

Will Leitch on Matt Holliday and the Yanks:

Holliday is exactly the player the Yankees need, a relatively young, high-average, hit-to-all-fields complete player who would look downright gorgeous batting fifth, behind A-Rod. He won’t turn 30 until January, and he’s a proven postseason performer (if you ignore his unfortunate dropped fly ball that cost the Cardinals Game 2 of their NLDS) and a sturdy lineup fixture. He’s not a Gary Sheffield/Jaret Wright type looking to cash in after a big year. He’s a cornerstone. The market is currently depressed for him, but only because the Yankees haven’t yet entered the bidding. If they want him, the Yankees can have him

Nobody around here is going to sniff at Derek Jeter winning SI’s Sportsman of the Year honor. That’d be like moaning about Paul Newman finally winning an Oscar for The Color of Money. Over in the Post, however, Joel Sherman wonders if Alex Rodriguez isn’t a better cherce:

Sports Illustrated should not run from an atmosphere it helped create. After all, SI is the entity that outed A-Rod as a steroid cheat.

And Rodriguez should win this award. He embodies where sports are now. He is the intersection of illegal performance enhancers, advancements in sports medicine, celebrity and on-field genius.

Rodriguez could end up in People or US Weekly because of Madonna, Kate Hudson or his inner Centaur. Or he could end up in the New England Journal of Medicine for his rapid, successful return from major hip surgery. He could be in a game of shadows over “boli” or playing his game, baseball, brilliantly.

And his 2009 story also included redemption. He became a better teammate — less obsessed with himself — and as the hitting star of the postseason, he freed himself from the choking shackles.