Tiger Woods is to modern golf what Babe Ruth
was to baseball
By Kevin B. Blackistone
The Dallas Morning News
(KRT)
DALLAS - Tiger Woods is not Jackie Robinson.
Lest we forget, it is in the current issue of (ital) GQ (end
ital) in which Tiger tells jokes that sons and daughters of Jackie
find offensive.
Lest we forget as well, it was just a few years ago when the
then-teenage legend of the links protested that he was not some
black pioneer. He was Asian, he declared, the only son of an African-American
father and a Thai mother. Maybe it was a coincidence, but Tiger
didn't change his tune until after he received zillions of dollars
from Nike to make its golf products cool in black circles.
Lest we forget, too, as Tiger properly did not on Sunday, there
were other sons of African-Americans on the links before him.
Calvin Peete was among the favorites to win the Masters in 1986.
Lee Elder, who was on hand Sunday at Augusta to witness Tiger,
broke the Masters' color barrier in 1975. Charlie Sifford broke
the pro golf's color barrier long before them all.
No, Tiger Woods is not Jackie Robinson. He is a first black
Masters champion, but not the first black pro golfer.
What 21-year-old Tiger Woods is is a modern-day Babe Ruth.
Not since the Babe, after all, has a single personality done
for a sport what Tiger has done for golf. Not Michael Jordan in
basketball. Not Joe Montana in football. Not Wayne Gretzky in
hockey. Not Carl Lewis in track. Not Andre Agassi in tennis. Not
Earl Anthony in bowling. Not Cigar in horse racing. No one in
anything at any other time. Save the Babe.
To be sure, baseball was suffering the ill effects of the Black
Sox scandal when Boston sent the young Babe, which it used mostly
as a pitcher, to the Yankees before the 1920 season. The New Yorkers
decided the Babe's prodigiousness at the plate was too good to
slight in a starting rotation. They made him an every-day fielder.
The rest is truly history.
The Babe didn't invent the most-anticipated play in baseball,
the home run. He just perfected it. That was why they called him
The Sultan of Swat.
Everywhere he went with his Yankees, crowds turned out like
the game never had seen. They came to see the Babe. He didn't
disappoint until he retired some 15 seasons later with all manner
of championships and records in hand. Baseball was changed forever.
It was then that it became America's pastime.
Golf hasn't been suffering, but it hasn't captured the imagination
much in a long time, either. It didn't like the swagger John Daly
brought. Greg Norman is as loathed in some bunkers as he is liked.
Jack Nicklaus is a senior. Arnold Palmer doesn't shoot 67s anymore.
He is 67.
The game didn't have a Jordan or Montana, Gretzky or Lewis.
It didn't have personality or a personality. Until now.
CBS reported Monday that its broadcast of Tiger's record-setting
win at the 61st Masters received the highest local overnight rating
for any golf major in history. About a third of all TV sets turned
on were tuned in to Tiger.
A friend traveling Sunday told me that travelers crowded around
airport TVs to watch Tiger. He saw one black woman wiping away
tears as Tiger donned that green jacket.
Tiger is so popular, so engaging, he could have his own network.
Tiger TV, we'd call it.
He has Magic Johnson's smile. Michael Jordan's daring. The
Babe's swat. People want to reach out and touch him, and try.
Maybe more than anything, though, Tiger is what we were told
to expect and then some. It is rare in sports, or anything for
that matter, when someone or something turns out to be as great
as advertised.
We know the story all too well after last weekend. Tiger was
groomed from the crib by his father, Earl, to be a great golfer,
just like Todd Marinovich was groomed from the crib by his father,
Marv, to be a great quarterback.
Todd, sadly, couldn't handle it. Tiger, gloriously, has.
There were the titles as a tyke. Then, as a junior. Later,
as an amateur. Sunday, as a pro, at the pinnacle of his sport.
Tiger was so good that he played his best at Augusta on the
most-difficult holes.
Imagine that.
"That's what's so phenomenal," said Leonard Jones,
one of just two black PGA Class A pros in Texas, who said he got
tears in his eyes when he saw Tiger embrace his father after winning.
"To see a young man happen the way his father envisioned
it is amazing. We all want our kids to grow up to be the greatest
whatever. I'd like to know his Tiger's father secret."
As we stay mesmerized by Tiger Woods the next generation and
a half, maybe we'll find out.
(Kevin B. Blackistone is a sports columnist for the Dallas
Morning News. Write to him at: Dallas Morning News, Communications
Center, Dallas, Texas 75265.)
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