I am consumed, as I am sure all imperfect beings are, by the furor surrounding Tiger Woods' sudden and somewhat vertical descent from his image pedestal.
There will be those who will have much sympathy with his plight, as there will be those who will have none.
However, I was reading a quite brilliant editorial on Yahoo Sports offered by Dan Wetzel.
I was fully absorbed by Wetzel's strong, persuasive arguments that Woods should really not bleat about the tabloid world, when my right eye was drawn to an ad from the Professional Golfers Association. I immediately took a shot of it, because, well, please look at it.
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(Credit:
Chris Matyszczyk)
Some clever word-associating media planner or algorithmic program has managed to juxtapose this article about revelations in the life of Woods with an offer from the Professional Golfers Association to reveal the secrets of Woods' great rival, Phil Mickelson.
His, um, golfing secrets, as far as one can judge.
This touching coincidence approaches the poignancy of the Twitter billboard seen recently in Mobile, Ala. And one wonders how quickly anyone will notice that perhaps this is not in the finest of tastes, especially as it is coming from an organization that makes quite a lot of money from Woods' exertions.
As I am typing this sentence, the "Phil's Secrets Revealed" ad has moved on. One wonders just how quickly it will return.
He calls himself Agent Zero. His shirt number is a big, fat zero. And this accurately reflects the number of tweets Gilbert Arenas has posted to his Twitter account.
It's not that Arenas, the Washington Wizards point guard, isn't confident of his literary skills. Oh, no. Just look at his finely sculpted blog.
However, according to The Washington Post, Arenas has no interest in being a small time Twitter player. He wants 1 million followers before he will start to offer tweets from his copious and wondrous life and imagination.
Just last week Arenas told the Associated Press that he's chosen to go for 1 million because "it's so far-fetched."
And when some cruel know-it-all tried to point out that the way folks normally get followers is, well, by tweeting, Arenas replied with the sagacity of Wittgenstein: "I'm trying to do the opposite."
So that you can get some sense of Arenas' twittering possibilities, I have embedded a small piece of film featuring the Arenas bobblehead, quite a character in its own right.
However, I know you'll be wondering just how far away Arenas is from achieving immortal far-fetchedness. Well, he's pretty close to catching Shaquille O'Neal, who enjoys just over 2.5 million followers.
Yes, Arenas has already amassed, at the time of typing this, 5,717 followers. Perhaps the 4-9 Wizards will need to win a few more games before his Twitter page is swamped by mass anticipation of Arenas' first tweet.
Boxing's popularity seems to have been overtaken by such pleasures as mixed martial arts and American Idol over the last few years. This doesn't seem to have discouraged Facebook users from forming groups around their love of expressing hate for certain boxers.
According to the Telegraph, WBA World light-welterweight champion Amir Khan, a Briton of Pakistani heritage, has decided to threaten the social-networking company with legal action over some of these Facebook groups.
Together with his manager, Frank Warren, Khan has employed legal counsel after so far failing to persuade Facebook to take down so-called hate groups aimed at him. These groups, in the view of Khan and Warren, made racist and defamatory comments about the boxer.
Khan and Warren complain that they have so far received only standard acknowledgments from Facebook and have therefore employed the law firm Lupton Fawcett.
"The problem is, when you search for a celebrity on the site, you also come across pages using the celebrity's name and image that have no official link but in some instances are full of defamatory and illegal content," according to a quote in the Guardian of Lupton Fawcett's Stephen Taylor Heath.
Khan is a somewhat-polarizing figure in British sports. However, it is perhaps surprising just how many Facebook hate groups there are aimed at him. I counted more than 20.
Does he know there appear to be 1,600 "Hate MySpace" Facebook groups?
(Credit: Cc Deneyterrio/Flickr)Facebook's terms of service are very clear about hate: "You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence." So perhaps it's hard to understand how the company can allow so many groups that claim they hate Amir Khan in their very name.
One can, of course, argue that you can say you hate a sportsman, in the sense that the mere sight of them arouses unpleasant thoughts (for some, David Beckham, for others, the German national soccer team). One doesn't necessarily wish that person or those persons harm.
Indeed, when one goes through the Amir Khan hate groups, the vast majority seem to dislike Khan for his attitude, for only fighting (in their opinion) boxers of a poor level and for his lack of boxing skill.
Much of the tone and content, however, is undoubtedly abusive, and there are suggestions of racist overtones in certain comments. Khan's lawyers say they are specifically focusing on material that they believe is defamatory or racist.
This case lends further indication that many interpretations Facebook makes of content on its site are highly subjective. In removing some Holocaust denial groups and one Muslim-hating group, Facebook made it clear that it made its own judgments on what should be considered hateful speech.
It will be interesting how far Khan's lawyers are prepared to push their case. It will also be interesting whether other sporting personalities will join together in attempting to remove potentially defamatory content from Facebook and other sites.
While it seems almost comical that there appear to be 1,600 Facebook groups that profess to hate MySpace, there are only 54 that claim to hate David Beckham, and only one Facebook group appears when you search for "I hate the German football team."
You don't want some old chap in a large check jacket with a florid pocket handkerchief staring up into a basketball player's nostrils and asking him inane mundanities.
No, you want to hang on the every direct word of your favorite, or perhaps not quite so favorite, athlete.
For you, therefore, there is Jockipedia. Oh, yes, the very name might make you think that this is Wikipedia for jocks. But it's more than that. Well, not really.
Jockipedia, the creation of a former network news producer called Douglas Warshaw, is your own encyclopedia of every musing that emerges from a famous athlete's tonsils or touch-screen telephone.
It allows you to surf by athlete's name, by league, even by country. And each entry looks not merely at such frippery as Twitter. No, it delves into the athlete's personal blog site, their Facebook page, MySpace page, their charity site, and even their contributions to Flickr.
You can absorb Estonian tennis player Kaia Kanepi's personal Web site (it's really a little dull), just as readily as you can speedily keep up to date with the Twitter feed of Red Sox power (occasionally) hitter David Ortiz. Yes, all two of his tweets.
Warshaw told the New York Times: "The Tower of Babel is getting bigger (....) The desire to find people will just get bigger. It just is. It's like gravity. Every day, more and more athletes, not just the professionals, are doing this online."
Warshaw also has very lofty goals for his informational tower: to have every athlete in the world included on Jockipedia. Naturally, he will need a little help from many eagle-eyed Estonians, anal Albanians, baseball-loving potheads, and others before he can reach his goal.
Still, would life really be worth living if we couldn't have instant access to the Twitter musings of, say, Lakers' splendidly erratic shooting guard, Sasha Vujacic? Here is the very latest: "No matter what they say to you! No matter what is thrown upon/against you! Never lose your believe! Never lose focus! Dreams DO come true!"
Jockipedia. Where the Shakespeare in every athlete is revealed in all its glory.
It's one thing to go and play with LeBron James. It's quite another to face Bruce Manley.
Perhaps you are not yet familiar with the name. Manley is something of a YouTube cult hero for his rather picturesque basketball trick shot skills.
Somehow, Shaquille O'Neal, the newest Cleveland Cavalier, saw the video. Apparently, his ego was piqued even more than when he saw Orlando's Dwight Howard claim to be Superman.
So what did the NBA's king of social networking do? He Twittered a challenge to a HORSEing duel.
"i wanna play this guy n horse for a thousand dollars, find him pls http://bit.ly/CK5nk," read Shaq's tweet.
According to the HoopDoctors.com, Manley has accepted Shaq's challenge and the contest should happen some time in July. So I really would encourage everyone to look at the YouTube video I have embedded.
If you are not utterly astonished by his tree-point shot, then your emotions have left you for another woman. And, yes, I said tree-point shot--no spelling mistake.
As for the shot Manley hits totally blind from behind a wall, well, if that isn't extraordinary talent then I am the new chief executive officer of the Golden State Warriors.
Will Shaq be able to compete against this kind of ability? It will be very interesting which H-O-R-S-E rules they choose to play. But, if I were a betting man, and perish the thought, I would be betting Manley.
Unless, of course, there's some very fine editing going on here.
When you hear an NFL coach uttering the phrase "screenplay," you expect he has a scowl on his face and his team is 3rd and 7.
However, according to The Times-Picayune, New Orleans Saints' head coach, Sean Payton, has had a full-contact drill with his artistic side and penned an outline for a movie screenplay.
Because it's such a fine idea, or because he has just the right connections, Payton has hired famed Hollywood agents CAA to fulfill his dream of Oscar contention. Which might come slightly sooner than Super Bowl contention.
You will, I know, love the story. It revolves around a little boy whose grandfather gives him a special refurbished Xbox with whizzo magical powers.
This Xbox can control the outcome of NFL games.
The New Orleans Saints. Might their poor play last season suggest they were already controlled by someone's Xbox?
(Credit: CC JaseMan/Flickr)Let he who has not been fooled by a fake Twitter page cast the first stone.
Yet, though Kanye West has demanded that Biz Stone and friends do something about fake feeds, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has gone one step further.
He's suing.
According to the Associated Press, La Russa who is, let's not forget, a lawyer, was appalled to discover someone had set up a Twitter account allegedly bearing his name and a sick sense of humor.
According to the complaint, filed last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, one tweet of the now now-deleted account read, on April 19: "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher."
For those of you who don't follow baseball closely, Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile died in his hotel room in 2002 of an arterial blockage. While relief pitcher Josh Hancock was killed in a car accident, after which his blood-alcohol level was said by authorities to have been twice the legal limit.
Quite a sense of the jolly, this Twitterer.
However, unlike other fake Twitter pages, the fake La Russa feed did apparently include a few words that read: "Bio Parodies are fun for everyone."
It will be interesting, should the matter ever come to court, what weight might be given to this alleged disclosure.
In his lawsuit, La Russa allegedly claims that the tweets were "derogatory and demeaning" and that the feed damaged his trademark rights.
However, it seems as if he is giving an intentional walk to the person who actually created the fake page. Which is an interesting decision.
I wonder about college basketball coaches. It's hard for them to be squeaky clean. Or even vaguely shiny.
So they certainly don't need their daughters' social networking to cause more discombobulation in their attempts to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Mahatma Gandhi.
You see, I am currently placing my mind beneath the shiny hair of John Calipari, the new basketball coach at the University of Kentucky.
Calipari does seem to make quite a few people tense involuntarily. I am suddenly reminded of a 1994 incident in which Temple coach John Chaney threatened to kill Calipari at a press conference. (I have embedded the video, purely for nostalgia's sake.)
One recent critic appears to be an ESPN.com journalist named Pat Forde. Forde happens to live in Kentucky and tends to drizzle on the Caliparade. For example, when Calipari was hired, Forde asked during his introduction whether the Kentucky athletic director would mention his two trips to the Final Four. Or merely one.
"Because the first one, with Massachusetts in 1996, was officially vacated from the NCAA record books after an agent hooked up star center Marcus Camby with cash and prostitutes," Forde said.
Now Calipari is a fond Twitterer. He tweeted that he thought Forde's criticisms were personal.
But the coach's socially networked stirring is nothing when compared with that of Megan and Erin. These would be his daughters. Both are college students. And both are esteemed Facebookers.
Megan unfortunately used Facebook to reveal who would be Dad's replacement at the University of Memphis, which might not be considered perfect media management.
Indeed, it prompted Dad to be quoted by CBS Sports as saying: "I told them that they have to get off Facebook. This stuff is crazy."
The feisty girls decided not to listen to Dad. In fact, the highly amusing folks at Deadspin have been following Erin Calipari's remarkably literate Facebook postings about ESPN's Forde. They make for stirring digestion.
The dictionary definition post, for example: "To Pat Forde, Pat Fording. Pat Fording (verb): To say or write something with no background or sources. To act like you know something when in fact you do not. 2. To repeat the same story in different words 3 or more times. eg. "You told me that story three times!" "Oh, sorry for Pat Fording that."
Or how about the hair-besmirching post: "Source: "Pat Forde's hair received improper benefits of around $10,000 from Just For Men Hair Club and his hair also had someone take his SAT for him."
Gosh. What will Daddy tweet now? Will he take away their laptops? Will he have them transferred to Oral Roberts? Or will the wise avuncular corpses at the NCAA decide that social networking, even by family members, is a heinous violation?
The Golden State Warriors don't play defense--except, perhaps, when it comes to the indefensible.
Please imagine you're a disgruntled Warriors fan. For two seasons, everything seemed to suddenly and strangely go well. After what felt like 20 seasons of desperation, playoffs were reached. No. 1 seeds were defeated.
Then, for reasons that seem all too evident to those who give the Warriors money (disclosure: myself included), there is a handbasket drifting downward from purgatory with a large Warriors logo printed on its side.
Naturally, fans voice their views on various sites. One of which is WarriorsWorld.net. Much of the commentary lately has been of a negative nature.
One shining beacon of light was offered by "Flunkster Dude." Commenting on a season-ticket holder conference call hosted by General Manager Larry Riley, President Robert Rowell and TV play-by-play man Bob Fitzgerald, he wrote: "I actually enjoyed the call and appreciate their honesty."
Which not so many other commenters did. Even fewer do now, as the WarriorsWorld.net chaps traced the IP back to a certain office. You're there already, aren't you? Yes, to the office of the Golden State Warriors.
Flunkster Dude is, in fact, Flackster Dude. Real name, Raymond Ridder, PR man for the Golden State Warriors.
The journalist who published the revelation this week, Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, received a very quaint response from Ridder: "It was 100% me. And I'll take 100% responsibility, if anybody thinks I did anything wrong. It was completely on my own. I've never been told to do anything by anybody here. It was just me."
Naturally, I enjoyed his response and appreciated his honesty. Especially the part about never having been told to do anything by anybody.
However, Flunkster Dude was not done. He continued to offer his honesty in a most disarming way: "It was nothing malicious at all. I just wanted to get the conversation going in a positive direction-I thought we had a good conference call, I had some good conversations with some season-ticket-holders, then I got to my office and I looked on the internet and all I saw was negative comments, complaints, nothing positive."
So the obvious step for a fine PR chappy was to hide that he was a fine PR chappy, in the bizarre hope that, by leaving a positive comment, all like-thinking, enlightened fans, marveling at the Warriors 29 wins last season, would emerge from beneath some unseen parquet and toss more garlands on top of his.
Now here's the fun part. (You thought there wouldn't be a fun part?) This doesn't appear to be the first time Flunkster Dude has flacked his wings and flown.
He admitted to Kawakami that he had posted four other bonmots on WW.net. All, you will be overwhelmed to hear, were dunks on behalf of management.
One was even a negative comment about one of the better (but not, sadly, better-dressed) journalists who follow the Warriors, a tall man who plays a mean game of pickup (he's played and squashed some friends of mine), Matt Steinmetz.
You might think that Flunkster Dude has flunked the very first test of social media.
You might think that someone who posts anonymously about honesty, when himself being just slightly less than entirely honest about his interest in the matter, might just think about a career in politics.
However, I might think that you have never been a fan of the most maddening, ridiculous, disquieting, arrogant, ignorant and, just occasionally, sickeningly lovable mess that is the Golden State Warriors.
I will not hear anyone criticize their sublime fish and chips, though.
(Disclosure and, um, an ad: I appear regularly on Patrick Mauro's nationally syndicated show on Sports Byline USA, Sundays at 11 p.m. Honestly.)
Fine twittering is like fine wine. Deep, fluid, and just a little dark.
Which is why when one comes to consider which sporting figures have taken their tweets to an exalted level, one doesn't look at the number of followers they might enjoy.
No, one examines their tweets. One swills them around one's mouth. And one spits them out to see just what effect they might have on others.
This list was compiled with some joy and not a little pain, from research that goes beyond that which most scientists could endure.
But please let me start with mentioning those who simply didn't make the cut. I will be dedicating a separate post to these damned souls. They deserve a place all of their own. Today, we are sticking with the best.
So let us begin at No. 10. May I introduce John Daly, professional and controversial golfer and alleged rabble-rouser. You might imagine that John would be a ribald tweeter. You might think he would talk about drinking and partying and his many, many wives.
But no, his Twitter feed shows him to be lovable and charming. An example: "Send some more twitters my way I'm liking the new meets on here." And last Friday he revealed: "just weighed it at 225 LOST 55 POUNDS!! That's so AMAZING!" Just to show that he is fine man, John follows more people (5,121) than follow him (4,951)
No. 9, The Rudy Report. You may not be familiar with the Rudy Report. Neither am I. However, it wafted across my Twitter world and has the ability to open the eyes just occasionally.
A sample: "Pro golfer Wayne Levi was the first PGA pro to win a tournament using a colored (orange) ball. He did it in the Hawaiian Open in 1982." It made me only wonder who might have been the second to win with an orange ball. Surely, no one.
Or try this from just a few hours ago: "In Somalia, Africa, it's been decreed illegal to carry old chewing gum stuck on the tip of your nose." How many of you knew that?
No. 8, John (Speed) Raser. Again, not a household name. John is a 26-year pro golfer who fancies himself as something of an entrepreneur. John has a little wit.
And his heart is definitely in the correct segment of his body. To wit: "I literally hate every #Celtics player except for Ray Allen. Big baby, Rondo, Perkins, and Starbury can all kiss it." John follows around the same number of people (3,137) as follow him. A healthy sign.
No. 7, Terrell Owens. Oh, do scoff away. But when Terrell commits himself, nothing will stand in his way. Not even the Cowboys logo. Terrell has become a regular tweeter. He eats salad and he bumps into film directors.
Sample: "@joecaine i LOVE ALL my DALLAS FANS 2! no love lost there, it's nt ur fault i'm nt there but got mad love 4 ya!! go get my Bills jersey!!"
Another sample: "Met john singleton n airport last nite b4 i took off 2 dallas! maybe u'll c me n 1 of his movies n the future!" Indeed, maybe we will.
No. 6, Frankie Muniz. I can already hear you suggesting that I have lost my earthly bearings, as Frankie Muniz is that little boy/child/man person from "Malcolm in the Middle." Indeed.
But he is now trying to become a racecar driver. He drives the No. 77 car for Team Stargate Worlds in the Atlantic Championship. So, hah. Frankie's tweets are adorable. His love for someone called Elycia Marie is quite breathtaking. He also has incidents at his Arizona home.
Sample: "Was walking my dog and after running from a coyote, a GIANT rattle snake came slithering towards my dog and I.. (Sigh) Beautiful Scottsdale!" You see, he has a sense for the dramatic. Did he kill the rattler? Did he? Perhaps we will never know.
No. 5, Stewart Cink. He's the golfer who, when he takes his cap off, is far more bald than you think he's going to be. Cink loves to tweet.
He offers interesting tips about clubs, ball spin and the joys of travel. Sample: "Hope everyone enjoyed their rest last night! Too bad you weren't on the redeye with me back from Vegas. Guy puking in bag across isle." Too bad.
No. 4, Muhammad Ali. Oh yes, I have now lost my mind. I am being unusually offensive. But, no. There is a lovely Twitter feed of daily quotes from the man himself.
You may find, as I do, that his words are rather more interesting than his boxing. Sample: "I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world."
Second sample, because it's Ali: "'How tall are you? So I know in advance how far to step back when you fall down!' (Favorite question to opponents at prefight weigh-ins)"
(Credit:
CC BelieveKevin/Flickr)
No. 3, Baron Davis Here's the thing about Baron Davis. Baron Davis is an interesting man with interesting friends. You know, like Jessica Alba. And Adam Sandler. He plays for the Clippers. Because someone has to.
And at least they play in LA. Baron, without whom the Golden State Warriors are just the Golden State Wa, is into film, music and helping those not as lucky as himself.
Sample: "Go support the youth promise act, tell your local officials. We need to help our underpriveledge (sic) youth."
Second sample: "Speaking to congress next. Showing them Made in America. Crips and bloods movie. Then talk about the youth promise act." Yes, Congress.
No. 2, Barry Zito The San Francisco Giants pitcher is another sportsman with a brain. One that he actually uses. His tweets vary from simply sporting stuff to philosophy, poetry and Alyssa Milano.
Sample: "'To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.'-Elbert Green Hubbard." Second sample: "it's late, i just misspelled niece. ugh. nite yall.." You see how he opens himself up to criticism? Love it.
No. 1, Shaqille O'Neal Could it really be anyone else? It is irrelevant that Shaq, the self-styled King of Twitteronia, has over 1 million followers.
The only thing that matters is that is Shaq is poetry and poetwittery is Shaq. And Twitter is not about sending people interesting articles you've just read. It is about poetry. Pure and simple and complex.
Sample: "In the words of austin powers Yeaa vaby 1 million friends. tweeps, tweeple, twittereans, twitteretts, twitterdees thank u 4 da support."
Second sample: "Confession I admit to taking performance adhancing cereal....Frosted Flakes mixed with Fruit Loops and Bananas. Pls dnt judge me."
Third sample, because he's the winner: "Should I challenge tiger woods to a homeboy style putting contest? I kno what you are thinking, I dnt putt like I shoot free throws, lol."
I know some of you might be wondering, "where is Lance Armstrong?" Or "where is Dwight Howard?' Well, perhaps you'll have to wait for my list of the worst sports twitterers to find out.
