We have assiduously eschewed any mention of Tiger Woods and his recent troubles in this space, and we only do so now tangentially.
A story in today's New York Post reports that the fallen superstar is now working with former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who now runs a crisis response and control group called Ari Fleischer Sports Communications, in anticipation of him returning to the links and the attendant press hysteria that is sure to follow.
If there was ever a case of somebody making it simply because of his name, doesn't Ari fit the bill? He created his company in 2008, and we're told he's already worked with Major League Baseball, and of course, Mark McGwire, whose coming out of hibernation after five years earlier this winter didn't exactly go the way that the former slugger envisioned it, did it?
If you'll recall, Big Mac did a series of interviews with selected media organizations, climaxing in a one-on-one with the MLB Network's Bob Costas. That's when the steroid-scarred star admitted that yes, he did in fact indulge for years on the juice, but that drugs in no way helped him become a better player, that in fact he took them only because he was recovering from injuries, of which he had many back with the Oakland A's in the early 1990s.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2010.