After Grog Blog

WOODS IN THE BABES

How things change. Popular one day; pariah the next:

Tiger comments on current events

I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect. I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family. Those feelings should be shared by us alone.

You gots to read the comments, if you gots about a month to spare. Almost 10,000 posted in one day. A sample:

Woodman: Man is your Christmas gonna suck.

Best of Sweden: Elin should go and bang Fat Phil Michelson.

Gus Dog 86: Don't buy Nike clubs. Tiger isn't perfect. I knew these clubs sucked. It couldn't have been my swing.

Mos Deep: TIGER!!!! YOur the MAN. Got a stable of girls you just boosted your street credit. Finally you showin the black in ya. Keep that stable full playa. You got the magic stick bro.

'TOX SELLS

Yeah, but which face?

Mind you, with that forehead she'd be dynamite to highballs anywhere in the penalty box.

MAIN DIEU!

An "enforcer" smashes the opposition's best player; a lunatic hand-balls a goal; a striker takes a dive to win a penalty; a defender commits a "professional foul"; a batsman refuses to walk when he knows he's out; a bowler and fieldsmen appeal when they know a batsman is not out; a fielder claims a catch he knows has bounced; a full-back grabs a full-forward's jumper; a full-forward whacks a full-back in the balls; Terry Henry hand-balls against Ireland; same shit, different bucket.

A CRAWFORD PRODUCTION

The Crawford Report is in so it's time for assiduous, comprehensive and considered debate on the future of Olympic Sport funding.

For:

Since the governments give loads of lolly to miners and car makers and scientists and Indonesians and universities and homemakers and battlers and authors, they should also give it to runners and throwers and peddlers and paddlers and archers and water-poloers and tae-kwan-doers and ice-faller-overers and, role-modellers, blah, blah, blah.

Against:

If you aren't good enough, quick enough, coordinated enough to play a proper sport - cricket, Aussie Rules, rugby league, Association Soccer Football, maybe rugby union and tennis - then get stuffed.

"If it hasn't got a ball, it's not a sport."

~~ Tony T.

Your thoughts?

CUT & DRIED

"There is no way Tiger will miss the cut. You heard it from The Bogle."

~~ Brett Ogle, SEN

Tiger is unlikely to miss the cut in the Masters. But what if he did? John Brumby would have egg on his face; especially after his monster introduction at yesterday's press conference so tightly tied him to the event. The public would be short half Tiger's appearance fee of $3,000.000. And there would be one almighty rumpus.

It's not surprising those behind the Masters, the golfing fraternity and the media are adamant Tiger will do the business. Even if a large percentage of the claims are made with breath bated and fingers crossed.

Mark Allen, SEN's golf guru, is one of the few dissenting voices. He is convinced Tiger won't win because his game is not suited to the Kingston Heath layout.

Back in promotion-land:

"There's no doubt Tiger will be in the red shirt, in the last group, on the last day."

~~ Tim, the golf reporter on SEN

We will hold him to that, and remind him that in sport there's no such thing as a sure thing.

OVERKILL OR CURE

I suppose a simple "hello" was out of the question:

TARA BROWN: When you're the best sportsman in the world, the scrutiny is unrelenting. Even when you're just out practising your game, there are always countless camera lenses and thousands of eyes trained on Tiger Woods's every move. Mostly it's in awe - how can one man make the complicated, and often unfair, ways of golf look so simple? Tiger Woods rarely agrees to interviews. He's so famous he doesn't have to. At first he's quite serious, business-like, but when it appears there's no mistaking that trademark smile. In trying to explain golf, in 1916 the New York Tribune wrote, "Golf is in part a game, but only in part. It is also in part a religion, a fever, a vice, a mirage, a frenzy, a fear, an abscess, a joy, a thrill, a pest, a disease, an uplift, a brooding, a melancholy, a dream of yesterday and a hope for tomorrow."

TIGER WOODS: Damn. (LAUGHS)

~~ Tara Brown welcomes T-Woo to Sixty Minutes

By the way, Tiger's in Australia.

I CAN'T EXPLAIN

Tara's bombastic intro reminded me of The Kids are Alright and an interview Pete Townshend did on German TV:

Interviewer: "There is an element in the storyline, the image in the mirror, the pinball, and the sensibility in general - 'See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.' - which reflect a certain sense, the phenomenon of the youth subculture. There is narcissism; there is a kind of new sensibility; there is a strong tendency for playing; and no more putting it into aggressive forms of counter-action."

Pete: "Ummmm."

SNOW LAUGHING MATTER

Foxtel is taking the piss:

Channel 500: Vancouver 2010 Preview

Tiffany Cherry & Matt Shirvington walk through our
sensational coverage of the upcoming Vancouver Olympic
Winter Games which starts February 13th 2010. The only
place to see the games in full is on FOXTEL and AUSTAR.

That's right: Channel 500. Foxtel has introduced a 24 hour advertisement for two weeks of Winter Olympics.

LETHAL LIZ

James Hopper claims that American football used to be tough. He should thank his lucky stars and stripes he never had to play sock-her against Elizabeth Lambert:

What was the ref doing?

Two deliberate trips; a punch in the back; a dangerous kick; a scything tackle; sitting on an opponent; extreme hair pulling; a smack in the face; a smack to the back of the head.

The penalty? A yellow card for arguing.

(Thanks for the football link, Brownie.)

CHECK & DOUBLE CHECH

Thorough due diligence was done when the Chechen president entered Mourilian in the Melbourne Cup:

"Ramzan Kadyrov ticked all boxes."

~~ VRC spokesman, SEN

BRUCE: "CORREEEEEEY!"

Box these:

• Shocking
• Master O'Reilly
• Crime Scene
• Mourilian

HUNCH DRUNK

Box these:

• Viewed
• Master O'Reilly
• Newport
• Basaltico

ANDRE AGACKI

The only reason the ATP believed Andre Agassi's farcical excuse for snorting gack - "I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs" - is because they wanted to believe it. Better to let him off than have tennis soiled by having their top player disgraced by a drug scandal:

Andre Agassi: I lied to escape a ban for taking hard drugs

Andre Agassi makes the sensational confession today that he lied to the tennis authorities to escape a ban for taking hard drugs.

Agassi recounts sitting at home with his assistant, referred to only as Slim, and being introduced to the drug. “Slim is stressed too ... He says, You want to get high with me? On what? Gack. What the hell’s gack? Crystal meth. Why do they call it gack? Because that’s the sound you make when you’re high ... Make you feel like Superman, dude.

“As if they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, I hear these words: You know what? F*** it. Yeah. Let’s get high.

Is there another decade to rival the Nineties for gutless administrators?

SOUTH GERMANY

Thanks to Pete Tweet comes this excellent article on the lashings of lolly lavished on our Aussie times three Olympic campaigns:

Fool's gold

AUSTRALIA’s athletes set off for the Olympic Games in Canada in July 1976 in what were, even for the 1970s, horrible uniforms, but with high hopes. We had done well in Munich four years earlier, winning eight gold and seventeen medals overall, placing us sixth on the medal tally.

I'LL DRIVE WHAT HE'S DRIVING

Remember When Harry Met Sally? Well, here's When Marky Met Flaggy.

WROTE COUTURE

Ashley Mallett, resplendent in 1972's finest, proves that no self-respecting sportsman-come-writer need strip for a calendar.

KICK THE PUNT

It took David Schwarz another three years to kick his gambling addiction after the horror story below, and doubtless there were many other similar nightmares. But at least he finally did kick it, and more power to him.

A Demon for the punt

VICTORIA Derby day 2002 could have been a defining moment in the life of former AFL star David Schwarz. Unfortunately it wasn't.

Schwarz had just retired after a remarkable 173-game career for Melbourne and was intent on becoming a professional punter.

While many footballers consider Derby day a social occasion, Schwarz was very much caught up in the gambling side of the afternoon.

As he stood in the betting ring and watched Choisir race away to win the L'Oreal Plate he was feeling very content. He had just had $25,000 each-way on Choisir at 5-1.

But his joy was shortlived. Protests by the third and second placegetters were upheld, leaving Schwarz $50,000 out of pocket because, as there were only seven starters, there was no dividend for third place.

CONFLICTS OF INTERESTING

Mentioned Richard Hinds over here at what could, maybe, almost, possibly be the oldest cricket blog in the known world.

Hinds is always worth the read. Here he tackles the tennis commentary:

Choking with joy over Jimbo's calls

It is the common refusal or inability of ex-athlete commentators to openly criticise, or even point out the obvious faults and mistakes of present-day players, coaches or officials that continues to stifle local sports broadcasting — particularly infuriating when it is due to mutual management deals, friendships, continuing involvement in the sport or some other conflicting interest.

Here he visits Olympic funding:

Sorry John, the Olympic funding bid doesn't wash

Is the common media interpretation of Coates' warnings about reduced funding — that Australia's reputation as a sporting nation would be diminished if we fell down the Olympic ladder — the myopic view of those in the thrall of the Olympic movement? These are, after all, a collection of mostly minor sports in which Australians have little emotional investment, and almost no practical involvement, for all but 16 days every four years.

Regarding the second article: I'm surprised Peter Bruckner hasn't already popped up somewhere to defend the Olympic ideal.

SPANISH GUY

PUNT BOWL

Fair enough. That Aussie punter Ben Graham is playing in today's Superbowl is reasonably noteworthy in the overall sporting scheme of things, especially given the circuitous way he got there. Even if the Cardinal's offense has The Greatest Day in its travelled history - down Route 66 don't ya know - and Graham only ever gets to hold for the kicker, he will have had a bigger night that Dinara Safina, probably Serena Williams, and certainly the tennis spectators.

But let's not get carried away.

Both Saturday papers in Melbourne had the beater out exaggerating Graham's importance to the Cardinal cause. The Age went with Graham set to shackle speedster, while the Herald Sun went one, and maybe ten orders of magnitude greater with Ben looms as lethal weapon.

It's well known that the Strayan media rarely miss a chance to exaggerate Straya's standing in the world. There is barely an Aussie achievement that is not hailed as "the greatest" or "WBP". On the flip side, there's that patronising tone American sports folk have of saying things like "Really, I didn't know they played football in Australia." This is usually accompanied by mentions of a quirky sense of humour, strange accents and kangaroos.

But surely, somehow, somewhere between Australia's grasping perception of itself as one of the big guys and America's blithe unawareness that there actually are other guys, there's a middle ground where lurk sensible, rational sports folk.

The fact is, if Ben Graham turns out to be Arizona's lethal weapon simply by kicking the ball out of bounds to curtail Santonio Holmes run-backs two things will have happened: one, no one else scored; and two, all the other players went home.

Ain't gonna happen.

What is going to happen is this: Arizona are going to get spanked.

The Cardinals are only in the Superbowl courtesy of Philadelphia's Donovan McNabb's generosity of spirit. Unfairly, but just as unavoidably, the names Andres Escobar and Hanse Cronje bounced around inside my brainbox when McNabb missed 132 open passes (that's a lot of misses when you consider he only attempted 75 passes) in the NFC championship game. Had McNabb not had an absolute shocker, the Eagles would have won comfortably.

Pittsburg will not be so generous. When - not if - the soft Cards secondary give the Pittsburg offence room to move, Big Ben Roethlisberger will pick them apart. Conversely, the Pittsburg defensive line will cover James and Hightower, while their secondary are not going to give Fitzgerald and Boldin anything like the room they got against Philly.

Of course, I could be wrong.

STUPID PUNT!

Terrific article by Patrick Bartley in today's Age:

How a high-flyer came crashing back to earth

MANY AFL footballers, especially in the off-season, relish the odd dabble on the races.