I got to thinking over the past couple of days, who becomes a hero for cheating on their wife and who becomes a villain. While Tiger Woods is seemingly being villified in the media, and rightfully so, I couldn’t help but wonder how one of the greatest cricketers of all time cemented his legendary status through similar “transgressions.”
Shane Warne: the man, the myth, the legend. The King of Spin became famous for bamboozling batsmen all over the world. Warney also gave the legend of Phar Lap a run for his money, developing a reputation for being a stallion off the field, with an assortment of fillies left in his wake.
Cricket's consummate ladies man - Shane Warne.
Warney is a big fan of the text message, as is Tiger. There hasn’t really been any info released on what Tiger’s SMS skills are, but I doubt they can match such suave Warney gems as:
“Where are you now… waiting for you, should I get dressed or stay naked, room 2011… Shane.”
or
“I would like to tie you up in the rain and watch you get so wet, water dripping all over your beautiful body … and then slowly come up and kiss you everywhere and make love to you. Yum!”
Warney celebrates another successful text message... er, wicket.
Then of course, there was the time Warney fired off this text – “Hey beautiful. I’m just talking to my kids. The back door’s open.” – intended for his mistress but sent instead to his ex-wife, who replied, “You loser, you sent the message to the wrong person.”
The list of Warney stories goes on, but somehow it only makes people love him more. The only other athlete I can think of who endeared himself to his fans for completely screwing up his life is Lawrence Taylor. No matter how much cocaine LT did, Giants fans including myself seemed to give him a pass, and that includes post-retirement.
So why do Warney and LT get cheered and Woods gets jeered? For me, it boils down to the fact that Warney and LT truly are just like the rest of us. Warney and LT are seemingly ordinary people with extraordinary talents. Warney had already been kicked out of the Australian academy before he was out of his teens and LT was allegedly a troublemaker in his youth as well.
Warney appeals to the umpires, and the ladies.
There is nothing ordinary about Woods and there never has been. There is nothing ordinary about the way his father raised him with a one-track mind on golf. There’s nothing ordinary about his career path and success. There’s certainly nothing ordinary about some of the things that have been written about him in the last 10 days either.
On a slightly separate tangent, people wonder about Tim Donaghy’s claims that David Stern manipulated the outcome of NBA playoff games in an attempt to gain the best matchups and ratings possible. The answer that is often thrown out in opposition to this claim is, “Why would David Stern risk destroying the entire reputation and history of the NBA to do something so stupid?” That’s funny. A lot of people are asking the same thing about Tiger Woods. “Why would he so brazenly have sex with as many women as he possibly could and risk losing his entire fortune?” Well, apparently he has. Of the many incredible things he supposedly said to these women, one of them is that he didn’t feel he was financially secure.
With Woods, as with Stern, anything is possible.
