That’s Game 6!

I always thought I’d see Tiger Woods pass Jack Nicklaus. I always thought Tiger would retire into a billion-dollar sunset, the greatest who ever played the game. I always thought he’d outlast them all.

I never – not for a second – thought I’d see Tiger Woods turn into his Frosted Flakes counterpart, Tony – a caricature, an absurdity. A joke.

But it happened. And life for Tiger Woods certainly isn’t Grrreat anymore.

Strange, isn’t it – the level to which this once-glorified icon has sunk in a matter of weeks? From Thanksgiving through today, the life of Tiger Woods has taken more turns than an Augusta National green. As the 6th and 7th – and now 11th and 12th – mistress popped out of Pandora’s Box, Woods morphed from the ultra-real, identifiable figure of the fallen husband into a complete and utter cartoon. It’s staggering just how far and how quickly he fell. Woods’ pristine image was in shambles a week ago. Today, it’s in danger of being forgotten forever.

Isn’t it?

Who in five or 10 years is going to look at Tiger Woods and remember the dorky, boy-next-door prodigy we all grew to love? Too much has come to pass, between the text message transcripts and the porn stars and the awkward, panicked voicemail. The life Eldrick has lived thus far is over. That much is clear. But this, of course, begs the question –

What happens next?

Where does he go from here? Hell, where do we go from here?

A sit-down with Oprah, as Rick Reilly suggested? Nah, that’s no good. Who can take anything the guy says seriously now? And that’s not a shot at his infidelity, but simply a reference to the incomprehensible divide between his public and private realities.

How about a few more finely-worded statements, then? Nope. No good. Presents the same problem as the Oprah interview. No scripted, PR wizardry is going to help him now.

So, what then? What should this guy do to recoup even a smidgen of his crumbling empire?

The answer is simple. He should do exactly what he is doing:

Nothing.

At this point, the 9-iron is so far out of the bag that Tiger’s best course of action is, frankly, to shut up and stay away. Sometimes the best PR is the also the easiest – ignore everything. That way, maybe soon – maybe much longer – we’ll all start feeling, well, a little bad about the whole situation.

Sure, right now you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who feels sorry for Tiger Woods. Clearly, the billionaire made his bed (or….something like that) and now he must lie in it. But – and this might be a leap – most of us are essentially reasonable people. And isn’t it getting at least a little bit excruciating having a greenside seat to the continued airing of one man’s dirty laundry? Isn’t there some line here that we really don’t want to cross? The guy is an idiot – of course, that much is clear – but do we really want to dig his grave? Right here? Right now?

Maybe we should all stop for a second and think – as Tiger should have done – about his family. All this nonsense – every new picture, every new transcript, every new revelation – has to be just as embarrassing for his wife, Elin, as it is for him. Hasn’t she suffered enough? And anything he could say in the media would only add to the public flogging she’s taken already.

So that’s why Tiger should stay silent, and stay out of the public eye. Take care of things at home, and show up in the spring ready to go.

Nothing he can say at this point will make this any better. But, if he just goes about his business – which is, lest we forget, being the greatest golfer in the world – then perhaps one day everyone might start to remember why we loved him in the first place.

Remember – Tiger Woods didn’t become Tiger Woods, global icon, by being some kind of Ward Cleaver, family-man superhero. He made a fortune – even from sponsors – because he was the greatest golfer any of us have ever seen.

Don’t believe me? Think it had a little something to do with his airbrushed image?

Wrong.

Look at Ray Allen – by all accounts a devoted husband and loving father. He’s done very well for himself, but he’s no Tiger Woods. He doesn’t have a billion dollars in the bank. This is because, while he’s very, very good at what he does, he’s not the best. Tiger Woods is the best. And people would have purchased his razors regardless of his image.

This is what all the media types, shouting from their soapbox about sponsors and ad revenue and all the youngsters whose hero is now a punchline …. this is what they’ve forgotten:

Tiger Woods is a golfer.

He’s not a sports messiah. He’s not Barack Obama. He’s not some kind of spiritual figurehead. He’s a guy who hits a little white ball a very long way and wins championships at a rate we’ve seldom seen before.

Why he ever turned into this White Knight in the first place, I’ll never quite understand.

Many athletes are philanderers. In fact, many fantastically wealthy people, famous or otherwise, are too. It’s the nature of Having. When you Have as much as Tiger did, you can generally Have Whatever You Want. And, for many people, the temptation is impossible to resist.

So, excuse me if I can’t understand why the Tiger story came as such a shock.

All we ever knew about Tiger Woods was that he was really good at golf, exhibited an intense ultra-competitiveness on the course, hung out with Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley off it, and was terrifically boring in the media. That’s it. He didn’t tell us anything else.

So why the surprise that another manically-driven, mega-rich athlete had trouble navigating reality outside the tournament ropes?

Michael Jordan drew the blueprint for this type of behavior years ago, and Tiger simply followed suit. He brought things to another level, for sure, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

But, fortunately for Tiger Woods, Jordan also provided the blueprint for how to get out of such a bind when the curtain finally falls:

Keep winning.

Look at Kobe Bryant. He had it just as bad as Tiger in the summer of 2003. When he was accused of sexual assault, his sponsors trampled each other fleeing for the door. And that includes Nike. But here we are, just six years later, and Mr. Bryant is back on top, smiling with his family and peddling sneakers once again. Why? Because he kept winning and kept amazing us and kept giving us sports fans what we all really want in the end – an escape.

So yes – life, for Kobe Bryant, is once again very good. Hell, these days you can even catch him on TV, as a puppet, jabbering away for Nike in goofy commercials with Puppet Lebron.

If Tiger is smart, he’ll take note:

That’s the kind of cartoon you want to be.

Pedro Martinez will be back where he belongs tonight:

On the mound, with the ball in his hand, in Yankee Stadium.

Sure, a few things have changed since the last time our Old Friend was in this position. He’s a lot older now, for one. He relies more on guile and precision these days, topping out at 91-92 mph on a good night. And Yankee Stadium looks a little different than it used to. It’s a little flashier, a lot newer, and there are empty seats everywhere.

But the general idea is still the same:

Pedro wants to win. Yankees fans desperately want him to lose.

Whether Martinez wants to win because he loves the Phillies or because he hates New York, however, isn’t totally clear. I tend to think he still has the best interests of Red Sox fans in mind:

““It wouldn’t surprise me at all,’’ Martinez said yesterday, when he was reminded that Sox fans are rooting for him. “I know they don’t like the Yankees to win, not even in Nintendo games. And knowing that I am part of Boston, I consider myself a Bostonian . . . I’m pretty sure that every Boston fan out there can feel proud that I’m going to try to beat the Yankees, and I’m going to give just the same effort I always did for them. They’re special fans, and they will always have my respect.’’

Doesn’t that sound like a guy who might be wearing the old gray No. 45 under his Phillies jersey?

It begs the question – why exactly wasn’t Pedro pitching for the Red Sox this season?

Theo Epstein rolled the dice with plenty of aging reclamation projects last winter. First there was Brad Penny – that didn’t work out. Then there was John Smoltz – hell, he’s 42! Would it have killed Theo to give 38-year-old Pedro a second shot at Boston glory?

I understand baseball is a ruthless business, but is there really zero room for good memories? Not even for karma’s sake?

But bringing back Pedro wouldn’t have been merely a nostalgia move. As we’ve seen this postseason, the guy can still pitch. He’s just more crafty today, unable to rely on upper-90′s heat. But the talent, the swagger, the unavoidable gift is still there. Sure, he’s been injured a lot, but that never stopped him before. Remember the ’99 ALDS against the Indians when an ailing Pedro shook off a back injury and threw six hitless relief innings, striking out 8 and walking 3? That game told us all we needed to know about whether an aging Martinez could still be effective. He was hard-pressed to hit 90 mph that night. But his brilliant performance served as the perfect blueprint for the pitching style he would have to adopt later in his career – a clever, artful technique based largely off his extensive knowledge of the game.

And he’s done it. He’ll do it again tonight.

But that’s neither here nor there now.

Pedro Martinez belongs to Philadelphia now, and tonight he’s hoping to help them towards their second World Series title in two years.

But, by acknowledging us, his old loyal fans, he’s also given Red Sox Nation a little more of a stake in tonight’s Game 6 in the Bronx.

I hate what I am about to say.

I mean, I really, really hate it. I detest the very existence of it. It’s gag-inducing. It’s embarrassing. It’s completely blasphemous. Frankly, it might even be dangerous.

But, here it goes:

The 2009 Yankees are a likable team.

(Dodges lightning bolt).

Seriously. They are. Apart from two players – corporate ding dong Mark Teixeira and WWE wrestler-as-closer Joba Chamberlain – this year’s Yankees team is a respectable, hustling, personable bunch. (At this time last year, A-Rod had what I fully believed was a lifetime membership in the above Weiner Club, but I can’t even bring myself to hate him anymore, after everything that’s happened. I just feel bad for him.)

This Yankees club is built around – can you believe it? – clubhouse guys like Nick Swisher. I know, I’m as shocked as you are. Just two years ago, the idea of the uptight, clean-shaven Yankees employing a mohawk-sporting goofball like Swisher was unthinkable. But it’s true – this year’s team actually features some likable characters. Hell, even one of their biggest (poor word choice, perhaps) stars, C.C. Sabathia, is by all accounts a good, fun-loving guy. He’s even an activist, for crying out loud (Sabathia spoke publicly in 2007 against the increasing scarcity of black players in Major League Baseball).

And then you have the two guys that even the most strident Yankee hater is hard-pressed to loathe:

Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

Sure, there’s a populace of Red Sox fans who refuse to say a good thing about Jeter, but as a general rule, the more knowledgeable the fan, the more respect he or she has for the Yankee captain. I mean, what can you really say about him, other than he is a solid shortstop, a proven playoff winner, and an absolute social swordsman? What’s to hate?

Then there’s Rivera, the – earmuffs Papelbon – greatest closer of all time. Not only is he dominant, he’s dominant at 40. And, he refuses to take any credit for his success, claiming instead that his ridiculous, wiffle-ball cutter was a “gift from God.”

Yes, apparently history’s finest closer is also a humble, reserved, regular guy. He doesn’t preen and pose before pitches (Take notes, Jonathan). He doesn’t taunt batters or launch obnoxious fist pumps after strikeouts. Rivera has no need for histrionics. He just goes out and pitches. Does his job. And does it better than anyone else.

So, yes, the 2009 Yankees are unfortunately likable. They are, in fact, everything that the 2009 Red Sox weren’t:

Spirited, passionate, determined, hungry.

They are a team of guys who stand on the top step of the dugout, ready for things to go their way. They are the kind of team that wins World Series championships.

They are, really, a team that very closely resembles the 2004 Red Sox. And we all know how that went.

So, do I think they’ll win it all?

Yes. Absolutely.

And I almost hope they do.

Maybe then Red Sox Nation will get its fire back.

I’ve decided to come clean:

I’m having an affair. Two, actually.

One is taking place on the West Coast, just outside of Hollywood.

The other is playing out near the Rockies, in the thin air of Denver. Let’s just say I’m a newly minted member of the Mile High Club.

That’s right - while my beloved Red Sox pack up the uniforms and mothball the duckboats, I’m carrying out a torrid fan fling with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Oh, and I’m cheating on Bill Belichick with Josh McDaniels.

I know. It’s terrible. I feel awful about it. It’s awkward, all this sneaking around. All these confusing feelings. I feel dirty. But I can’t help it.

Manny Ramirez is like an ex I just can’t shake. It’s ridiculous, I know. I thought I was over him, after all the tantrums and the commitment issues and the rocky breakup. But I miss the goofy bastard, I really do. And so do the Red Sox.

So I’ve been following his new team from afar this year and you know what?

I’m starting to fall for the Dodgers.

The team is exceedingly likable, filled with personable stars like Jim Thome and Brad Ausmus, with the winner of the “Manager I’ve Always Liked But Couldn’t Admit It” award, Joe Torre, at the wheel. Plus, the franchise is gaudy with history:

Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, Dem Bums, Sandy Koufax, Ebbets Field.

And then there’s announcer Vin Scully, who deserves his own category.

The 81-year-old Scully is a certified baseball Icon. Listening to him call a game is like rolling around in freshly cut grass. You can smell the dirt of the basepaths and the rosin on the mound. Scully’s old-timey cadence summons visions of sandlots and stickball, his tenor evoking Ray Kinsella’s idealized pastime – a pure incarnation of a game that has, unfortunately, long passed us by.

But you’d never know it, listening to Vin.

His voice is as much a part of the game as the thwack of a Louisville Slugger. For sixty years Scully has called Dodgers games, many of them by himself, and there’s no one in the business who does it better.

With all that, how can you not love this team?

Then there’s the Broncos.

What can I say? Josh McDaniels seduced me.

It happened right after last week’s game against my Patriots, just after the final horn sounded on a frustrating Pats loss:

While Bill Belichick wandered around looking like a lost nursing home patient in a ridiculous Eskimo parka, McDaniels ran towards the corner of the end zone, his right arm raised in a Mile High salute. He stopped, the crowd stood, and then McDaniels launched four of the greatest fist pumps I’d ever seen, one nearly catapulting him forward onto the grass. It was an emotional outburst that you’d never see from Bill Belichick. And that’s why I loved it.

Perhaps it was the fist pump, or perhaps it was the memory I have of McDaniels offensive-play-calling prowess (hell, he turned Matt Cassel into a franchise player), maybe it’s his age (33), or maybe it’s just that I’m a little tired of Belichick’s All-Business approach to the game, but I’ve spent much of this week in the throes of an all-things-McDaniels affair.

I hate to say it, but between Manny and McDaniels, Scully and Stokely, thin air and LA smog, my Fan Will is being tested, and tested well.

And really, can you blame me?

Tonight I’ll be watching the Black & Gold from the last row of the Garden for the first time in many months.

(I couldn’t make it to the opener, and I’m pretending that game never happened anyway).

As a Bruins fan, I want to say that anything less than a Stanley Cup Finals appearance will be a disappointment.

As a detached observer, I’m saying the same damn thing.

This Bruins team is young, it’s skilled, and it’s tough and it belongs in the hunt for a banner.

But some – many, even – will say that last year’s squad overachieved; that they got lucky; that they played over their heads. Some will say that without disgruntled forward Phil Kessel, this Bruins team can’t score.  Those critics will just point to the first game against the Capitals and say, “Look! No Kessel means no goals!”

Some will say that the Bruins of last year were an aberration; a fluke; a freak outlier in the middle of a long, consistent string of futility. “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while,” they’ll say.

To them I say this:

Just watch.

This Bruins team is a group constructed around rugged warriors like Milan Lucic and Zdeno Chara. They have skill up front and strength in back. And they have a Vezina-winning hothead named Tim Thomas minding the net, and a guy behind him in Tuukka Rask who has the potential to be just as good. If not better.

So, the haters can hate and the critics can criticize, but the fact is this:

The group of guys taking the ice tonight at the Garden know how to win, and they will. Because of them, Boston is a hockey town once again.

And that’s not going to change any time soon.

Lucic’s ready.

Are you?

To my loyal readers, I apologize for the lack of posts recently. It’s been busy around Game Six headquarters and I haven’t had much time to put anything up on the site. I’ll try to step it up in the near future, but in the meantime here is a little something to tide you over.

The countdown is on.

Michael Jordan will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame tonight – a formality that’s akin to Ernest Hemingway winning a spelling bee or Albert Einstein getting an A on a science fair project.

Of course Michael Jordan belongs in the Hall of Fame. Hell, Michael Jordan is the Hall of Fame.

People often ask me why I steadfastly refuse to agree that one day we’ll see Another Jordan. They grit their teeth and say I’m living in the past, blinded by nostalgia and rose-colored glasses. My Game 6 post dismissing the LeBron vs. Jordan debate as foolish and wildly premature has inspired more comments than all my other columns combined. Just Google “Lebron vs. Jordan” or “Kobe vs. Jordan” and you’ll quickly understand the fierce passion flowing beneath any questioning of MJ’s legacy. It’s almost like partisan politics at this point. Either you’re a Jordan guy, or you’re a LeBron or Kobe guy. There’s no middle ground.

But, as a Jordan guy, what really frustrates me about the whole debate is this:

There is no debate. There actually is a right answer, and that right answer is that Jordan is the single greatest basketball phenomenon of all time and there will never be another one like him.

Ever.

Period.

This is when all the crazies slam their fist on the bar and yell, “You don’t know that for sure! Do you have a crystal ball or something?” And I’ll calmly lean back, smile, and explain that I don’t need a crystal ball to know that there won’t ever be another MJ.

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there will never be another Michael Jordan whether you want to admit it or not, because Michael Jordan – as an entity, as a brand, as a soaring basketball comet, for God’s sake – emerged from a perfect storm of factors that transcend basketball and will never be replicated.

Skinny little Mike Jordan from Wilmington, North Carolina became Michael Jordan, the global, billboard-sized icon, because of the historic convergence of three things:

Talent, timing, and sheer golden-goose style luck.

Yes, Michael Jordan was a magical basketball player, easily the best the game has ever seen. He was quick, he could soar, and he could shoot the lights out.

That’s not to say that there will never be a better player. To say that is to ignore progress and to turn your back on something that seems rather inevitable. But what we do know for certain is that there won’t ever be a better player who also has the good fortune of coming along at exactly the right time, with exactly the right kind of charisma. And that’s where the timing and luck come in.

Michael Jordan emerged at the same time that a fledgling 24-hour cable sports network was getting off the ground, and right after a little-known shoe company in Oregon had gone public. Twenty-five years later and in no small part because of Jordan, these two companies, ESPN and Nike, are household names all over the world.

Yes, just as ESPN was beginning to establish a little elbow room for itself in the television market, along came a kid named Michael Jordan, a player tailor-made for Sportscenter highlights and boundless coverage – just the thing for a budding sports network with countless broadcast hours to fill. With ESPN’s help, the Jordan brand exploded and the Bristol, Connecticut company grabbed ahold of his #23 jersey and rode it all the way to the bank.

At the same time ESPN was beginning to make a name for itself, Nike too had dreams of superiority. Just as Jordan was emerging on the national scene at UNC, the top brass at Nike was feverishly looking for a way to distinguish the company and break out of the running shoe market. They finally settled on a daring plan to create and market a signature basketball shoe around an incoming NBA rookie, in hopes that the player would emerge as a star and thus open the consumer floodgates for the company. The year was 1984, and Nike had a number of viable options to choose from in the NBA draft – Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, and even John Stockton were all considered. But the decision was ultimately Sonny Vacarro’s (the basketball shoe business legend who would eventually move to Adidas) to make, and the response he gave would transform Nike and alter the course of sporting history:

“The kid from North Carolina.”

And off they went.

Eventually Jordan’s perfect mix of charisma and stunning basketball talent would pave the way for his ascent to the peak of celebrity, but had he come along ten years later than he did – like Kobe, for instance – MJ’s legacy would look a lot different than it does today, the date of his Springfield coronation. ESPN’s constant Jordan highlights and Nike’s breakthrough ad campaign shaped and built “Michael Jordan” into a worldwide brand that only the greatest and most determined athlete could possibly live up to.

Fortunately, Michael Jordan was – is – the greatest and most determined athlete we’ve ever seen. He had spectacular skills, sure, but it was the intangibles that rocketed his game into the stratosphere: Incredible competitiveness, an impossible work ethic, a profound desire to win, and a nastiness that propelled him past concocted rivals and imagined slights.

Clearly Michael Jordan had the talent to be the best, but so have many others before and after him. What MJ had that those others didn’t was the dedication to be the best, and the backing of a corporate structure that fundamentally needed him to succeed. And yes, today both Kobe and LeBron have the muscle of ESPN and Nike behind them (witness the ubiquitous puppet commercials from last season’s NBA playoffs) but the difference now is simple:

ESPN and Nike don’t need Kobe and LeBron. They’re doing just fine as is, thank you very much.

But in 1984, both companies were scrappy start-ups, willing to take just about any risk to get where they wanted to be. They were hungry, and they rolled the dice on Jordan when it appeared he had some potential to be great because they knew he could be their way out of the dark. Today, Nike and ESPN are giants – veritable illustrations of corporate success. No longer are they the market underdogs, with nothing to lose and everything to gain. In a word, they’ve arrived, and neither Kobe nor LeBron can do anything about it. Unfortunately for them and their rabid fans, it will take another ESPN and another Nike to create another Jordan, and that’s not happening any time soon.

Or ever.

The Jordan phenomenon came about because of two things – a sports media revolution and the worldwide explosion of the athlete-celebrity market. It was in the confluence of both that a King was born.

Tonight, he’ll be fitted for his crown.