Thursday, April 01, 2010

April 1 Quickie: Tiger, Final 4, More

Here's a thought experiment: Go back one year from today -- April 1, 2009 -- and pretend you read a news report or blog post that said, basically:

Tiger Woods cheats on his wife with more than a dozen women of various levels of reputation.

You would think it was the weakest April Fool's Day joke of all time -- so absurd it doesn't even come close to being believable. Google changing its name to "Topeka" is less far-fetched.

April Fool's Day has always been pretty lame -- in sports, it's particularly dumb, because it is so easy to come up with a fake or flimsy rumor and spread it.

For gosh sake, that's like 90 percent of sports media on NORMAL days.

But in the Post-Tiger Era (or "Post-Tiger-Scandal" Era), there isn't a prank or hoax you could pull that causes as much cognitive dissonance as this very real Tiger story.

And the Vanity Fair piece just pushes it along, with all sorts of new details. Just in time for the Masters next week.

More you'll find in today's SN column:

*96 teams in the NCAA Tournament isn't the end of the world and it doesn't ruin the event.

*No one should be surprised by the Colt McCoy accurate-but-no-arm-strength workout yesterday. That's how he rolled for his entire career -- successfully, I should add. As long as his shoulder is OK, I'm actually bullish on McCoy as a pro QB. As always: In the right system.

*I'm not big on the NBA regular season as some sort of harbinger for the playoffs -- however, I do constantly see great symbolism: Like the Thunder beating the Celtics in Boston last night.

*My starting fantasy SS is Elvis Andrus, so I'm hardly one to talk, but I'd stay away from Jose Reyes as an early-round fantasy pick.

*With his new Nike deal, LeBron staying in Cleveland just got a lot more intriguing -- as before, I think it will come down to whether or not he wins a championship there this year.

Complete SN column here. More later.

- D.S.

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