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What do Tiger Woods and the late Bernie Madoff have in common?
Neither of them permitted anyone to ask any good questions.
Last week Woods reemerged to face the media he had conditioned to ask only fawning questions in exchange for same-old-stuff quotes. Reporters had long ago been trained to kiss his fanny at the risk of losing access. Yet this time someone had the temerity to ask Woods to explain what the heck happened in his latest, highly suspicious car-driving saga, from February.
Woods went suddenly sour: “All those answers have been answered in the investigation, so you can read about all that there in the police report.”
No you can’t. The investigation and ensuing report raised far more questions than it answered. For starters, was a legit investigation conducted by California law enforcement as would apply to you and I, or was it given the quick brush on behalf of the one and only Tiger Woods?
After all, Woods had previously pleaded guilty to reckless driving when he was found in a drug stupor behind the wheel of his Mercedes in Florida. Hard for Los Angeles cops to miss it; it was in all the papers.
Yet the California authorities failed to administer a blood test that commoners who have inexplicably driven off the road at high speed — over 80 in a 45 mph zone — would have undertaken. Why was Woods issued a free pass, especially given his driving-while-impaired record?
But Woods long ago was conditioned to believe — and with ample reasons — that he is excessively entitled to play by his own rules, even being excused for an illegal drop at The Masters with a mild, next-day two-stroke penalty that would have left others disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.
Blowing whistles on Tiger would be bad for golf and attendant TV ratings, thus he’s encouraged to play by his own rules. The media years ago granted him immunity and impunity.
Consider: A since-arrested, convicted for illegal drug-dispensing and defrocked miracle cure doctor from Canada was frequently flown to Woods’ home in Florida to treat his aches and pains.
What was that all about? No one — not the PGA, not the golf media and certainly not the Tiger-reliant TV networks —would dare pursue that one. Woods has been schooled to expect such entitlements and privileges.
So Woods was startled last week when someone had the gall to ask him to explain his solo crash that nearly killed him, though much of the media still reports the episode as “an accident,” as if caused by two parties.
Perhaps Woods can’t help but operate off the Madoff formula, the kind that cost the Mets’ Wilpon family ownership a reported $500 million as they sought unrealistic, fantastic returns on their investments with Madoff, the dictum that begins and ends:
“You’re not allowed to ask any questions” — at least not those kind.
It’s official: NFL officials much better than you think
While never-instant replay has made NFL officials fish-in-a-barrel targets, I often find their work to be so good as to surpass the human condition that replay unrealistically was intended to eliminate.
The Rams-Packers game on Fox last Sunday was loaded with close, tough calls, yet the decisive officiating crew got all of them right the first time, every time, and even survived a needless replay stoppage, called from above, that confirmed a complete pass call before the half.
The most extraordinary came on a leaping catch by Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp at the very back of the end zone for two points. The catch was sensational, but so, too, was the call.
The back judge, as if blessed with two sets of eyes, seemed to have simultaneously checked the catch and Kupp’s landing, inches clear of the boundary. And he nailed it.
These men, and increasingly, women, rarely receive the credit and admiration they earn. They’re so much easier to bash.
Paul Jackson — The Post’s longtime travel editor and a kind, smiling presence as he walked through the coarse chaos of the newsroom as deadlines neared, passed away last month at 95.
Though he never spoke of it as far as I knew, Jackson may have been the youngest World War II American correspondent to serve outside the U.S. Assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, he edited the ship’s newspaper and managed its radio station, in addition to reporting to his battle station, while the “Big E” patrolled the Pacific.
His work was read and heard by 2,200 crewmen on the most decorated ship in the war.
For all the break-it-down analysis following the Giants’ win over the Eagles last Sunday, the play that replaced more local misery with a measure of success and the faintest glimmer of hope was widely downplayed.
With 15 seconds left, Philadelphia had a fourth down, trailing 13-7. Jalen Hurts scrambled free then hit WR Jalen Reagor with a perfect pass inches from the end zone. Reagor dropped it, thus no TD and no PAT to beat the Giants, 14-13.
Though we’d never know it had we not watched, that was the big story in that game.
Yippee! Jets get Lofton
CBS gives us the very underrated, understated and darn good listen, James Lofton on Sunday’s Eagles-Jets game. He’s one of those guys you’d like to be seated next to.
Reader Douglas McBroom suggests that MLB management should keep changing negotiators until it comes up with one to blow the negotiations.
The Alabama-Auburn game last Saturday was loaded with transfers from here, there, everywhere. At one point CBS’s Brad Nessler noted the play of “a sixth-year-senior.” Like the old gag: “I went to college for two terms: Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s.”
The advertisements for LeBron James’ next kids movie will show him dancing abound on an NBA court while grabbing his crotch and shouting expletives toward the stands. To think this guy lectures America on right over wrong.
As the Bears prepare to abandon Soldier Field for a new stadium, thousands of PSL suckers face the likelihood of losing thousands of dollars for their one-way financial devotion. But Roger Goodell wouldn’t allow that, would he? Not after his claim that PSLs are “good investments.”
What difference does it make who WFAN hires to be heard between its sports gambling come-ons?
This is our first winter without both Doc Emrick and Marv Albert. Now that’s climate change!
Not that anyone on TV on NFL Sundays will choose to debunk stats they’ve cited for years as significant, but among the top five red zone TD-scoring percentages are: No. 1 the Niners (6-5), No. 2 the Saints (5-7) and No 5. the Seahawks (3-8). The Patriots (8-4) are 24th; the Packers (9-3) are 25th.
There’s still plenty of time for Rob Manfred, MLB team owners and the MLBPA to read up on the stock market crash of 1929. Remember: In the history of world, there has never been a line on an earnings graph that has pointed straight up.
New LSU coach Brian Kelly faking a Southern accent? Nonsense; he’d just arrived from South Bend!
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