Wry On The Rocks

     Tiger Woods’ agent has announced that Tiger will finally come out from hiding on Friday morning in front of a limited-attendance press corps.  Some of the Tour players think that the timing of his appearance, in the middle of the Accenture World Match Play, is selfish and takes coverage away from the tournament.  When asked if Tiger couldn’t put his announcement off until Monday, his agent Mark Steinberg nixed the idea and said that, “it is important that he speak on Friday.” 

     My reasoning?  Friday at 5 PM is the deadline for announcing your intent to play a tournament the following week.  And what tournament is on the calendar for that week….The Waste Management Open!!  Perfect.

Just when I thought the Globe had forgotten all about Tom Brady, he’s back in full force.  He’s once again the center-fold in the Names section of the Globe…and once again, yep,  publicly canoodling with Gisele what’s-her-name.  You should note  that it appears in the same issue as the announcement that the Globe will not be shut down as previously threatened by the New York Times.  Coincidence??  Not really.  Apparently, Mark Shanahan & Meredith Goldstein, editors of Names, have been promised the sought after life-time employment if they feature Tom ”the canoodler” Brady at least once a week.

 You know the marketing guys at Anheuser-Busch are getting a little long in the tooth when you read that they are going to build a whole campaign around table tennis, more popularly known as ping-pong.  The boys at Bud have heard that ping-pong is really cool again and they aim to cash in with a series of national tournaments culminating in finals to be held in Las Vegas.  They have partnered with the Mark Gordon Company which produces “Grey’s Anatomy” which, while I have never watched, I don’t think has anything to do with ping-pong.  But, showing that he’s up on the-whats-happening-now scene, Gordon Company exec Jordan Wynn claims that ping-pong has sex appeal…”It’s taking on this cool cultural space of short-shorts and retro headbands…..”  Retro headbands??  Short-shorts?? No question you’re hep to the in-crowd,  Jordan.  You don’t happen to be sporting a duck-tail hair cut by any chance?

I don’t know what game the retro headbanders are playing in St. Louis, Augie, but  now that you’re owned by a British company, something obviously got lost in the translation.  I think it’s entirely possible your instructions were to start sponsoring a game  the Brits call PINT PONG and the first word got garbled in transmission.  Over here it’s called BEER PONG, Augie…or just PONG…no paddles needed.  Just a ball and lots of beer!   

Best advice at this point…send duck tail boy back to TV land and back off the ping pong thing.  Trust me…Forrest Gump was not a beer drinker.

How many more months am I going to have to open the paper and see Tom Brady on the society page?  I don’t want to see my quarterbacks on the society page…I want to see them on the sports page where they belong!  And I damn sure don’t want to see them “canoodling” in public.  What’s with this?  All I see of Tom Terrific is pictures walking down Manhattan streets with flowers in his hand…walking through international airports carrying that models luggage…grinning like an idiot as she waves to the paparazzi.  What happened to the quarterbacks of old…men…men of legend with legendary names…”Slingin’ Sammy” Baugh, Roger, “the Dodger”, Staubach…Kenny, “the Snake”, Stabler…and my all time favorite “Broadway Joe” Namath.  And in New England, what do we have; Tom, “The Canoodler”, Brady!  Quarterbacks used to be men in the NFL.  Bobby Layne played half his games without a helmet for Christ’s sake.  Brady would lose his cover boy contract with Vanity Fair if he tried anything like that.  Don’t get me wrong; if Tom feels the need to be led by the nose by some  foreign model that’s his business, but Jesus Tom, next time you feel like canoodling, how ’bout closing the damn door!

Quick…Who’s the current heavyweight champion of the world?  Uh huh! OK, who’s playing center field for the USA team in the World Baseball Championship?  Left Field? 3rd base? Pitching?  What is the World Baseball Championship?  Just checking.