Kirk Gibson's Walk-off Home Run

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I'm a Los Angeles Dodgers fan. Always have been. I don't really know why. I've never lived in Los Angeles. In fact, I've only been there twice in my life.

I grew up in central Arkansas, which was kind of an extension of St. Louis Cardinals territory. There was a minor league team in Little Rock that was affiliated with the Cardinals for a long time, and, when I was a child, I could always get Cardinals games on my radio. When folks in my hometown went on a summer vacation, nine times out of 10 they went to St. Louis to see a game or two. Heck, even my family did that a couple of times — and no one in my family could be called a Cardinals fan.

It would have been so easy to do as most of my friends did and take the Cardinals as my team. But I guess I wanted to assert my individuality so I picked the Dodgers.

And I have been loyal to the Dodgers ever since.

They haven't always made it easy. Many times, they haven't come close to being in the playoffs. Then, when they have been in the playoffs, they've often found some way to blow it.

They're in the playoffs again this yearm currently facing the St. Louis Cardinals for the National League championship. The Cardinals won the first two games during the weekend, but the Dodgers won Game 3 last night and are hoping to even the series tonight.

I discovered it was a small club, too. that list of Dodger loyalists. I didn't know any other Dodger fans when I was growing up. I met one or two in college, and I met one or two after I finished work on my bachelor's degree so I know that Dodger fans did exist in Arkansas when I lived there. They were just few and far between.

The last time the Dodgers were in the World Series, 25 years ago, I was certain they were going to lose it. They had had a spectacular run that year, beating the favored New York Mets for the National League title, and pitcher Orel Hershiser had had a remarkable year, setting a record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched in the waning weeks of the regular season.

But the foe in the World Series would be the Oakland A's, an intimidating team that had rolled through their American League competition behind the exploits of the so–called "Bash Brothers," Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. Oakland swept the Boston Red Sox in the AL playoffs that year.

The A's won four more games that season than the Mets did. Their 104–victory total was greater than any American League team except one in nearly 20 years — the 1984 Detroit Tigers, who also won 104 games.

I just felt like the Dodgers couldn't compete with the A's. Neither did most sports observers.

In those days, I was working on the sports staff of a modestly sized afternoon newspaper in north Texas. Game 1 of the World Series was on a Saturday night, the one day of the week that a morning edition was prepared — for delivery on Sunday morning. Everyone on the staff was at work from about 3 in the afternoon until midnight.

The game began around 7 that night, and I timed my dinner break so I could run home and start my VCR with the first pitch. That way, I knew I could watch the game later.

As it was being played, though, I tried to monitor it from my desk, which was in view of the newsroom TV (there was no commercial internet to consult in 1988 — I had access to the sports wire, of course, and it provided score updates, but details were sketchy until game accounts began to move). From time to time, people came in from the backshop to ask about the score, and, for much of the evening, it seemed things were going to play out about as expected.

Things weren't going well for the Dodgers. They took a 2–0 lead in the first inning but immediately surrendered it to Oakland when the A's scored four runs in the top of the second.

The Dodgers added a run in the sixth but trailed, 4–3, in the bottom of the ninth.

Kirk Gibson had been the offensive star of the season for the Dodgers, but he was hobbled by injuries to both legs and had not started the game that night. However, in the ninth inning, he decided to make himself available for pinch–hitting duty and came to bat with one on and two out.

What followed was so implausible, so dramatic that no novelist or screen writer could have gotten away with writing it.

Oakland's ace reliever, Dennis Eckersley, was on the mound. No other reliever in the majors had as many saves as Eckersley did that year. Oakland fans regarded him as automatic — and rightfully so.

The count was full, there was a runner at second, and Eckersley threw a slider. Gibson swung, connected and drilled it over the fence.

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Most people, when asked what they remember about that moment, will tell you they remember Gibson pumping his right arm in jubilation as he circled the bases.

And I remember that, too. (It was the crowning touch on a moment in baseball history that has truly become iconic in the last quarter of a century. It is always shown in baseball's postseason, along with the clip that is arguably the Dodgers' lowest moment as a team — the Giants' Bobby Thomson's walk–off homer in the deciding game of the National League playoffs against the Dodgers in 1951.)

But what I remember most about that moment is watching Gibson's painful run around the bases. And I use the word run generously here. It wasn't really a run. It was more of a walk that was intended to be a run, but it just didn't work out. Sometimes it was a limp.

Kind of gave a new meaning to the term walk–off. Gibson's spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

But, when you hit a home run, you don't get extra points — or credit — for running around the bases at a record clip. All you've got to do is touch each base — especially the last one.

And that's what Gibson did. The fact that it took him longer than usual to do it simply meant Dodger fans had more time to savor the moment — and A's fans had to suffer through it longer.

By the way, Gibson played for the '84 Tigers.

Shocking Phi Slama Jama

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"Sure, 15–footers are fine, but I like to dunk."

Clyde Drexler

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I've seen a few really noteworthy upsets in championship settings in my life.

Most of the time they seem to come in baseball — the Amazin' New York Mets of 1969 and the Kirk Gibson—led Los Angeles Dodgers of 1988 come to mind — and, occasionally, they come in football — when the Miami Hurricanes knocked off top–ranked Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl, for example, or when Joe Namath took the New York Jets to a triumph in the third Super Bowl.

Sometime the outcome hinges on an obvious mistake. Perhaps it is a bad call, like the one that turned things around for the Kansas City Royals against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1985. Other times, it may be a poor strategic decision by a coach or a player.

And sometimes the upset occurs in an individual sport, not a team one — like when Mike Tyson lost his heavyweight title to Buster Douglas.

But of all the team sport championships in my memory that were not decided by a blown call or a blatantly poor decision by a coach or a player, there was one really epic upset, the NCAA Tournament finale between the University of Houston and North Carolina State played 30 years ago tonight.

Houston's Cougars were widely regarded as just too good to lose. The roster had Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, the best and probably best–known members of "Texas' Tallest Fraternity" — Phi Slama Jama — but they had plenty of talented support from guys like Benny Anders, Larry Micheaux and Michael Young.

Phi Slama Jama specialized in dunking the ball. The players were big and physical, and they played in the last years when neither the shot clock nor the three–point shot existed in college basketball. If the game's pace had been faster or if making a long shot had been rewarded with an additional point, Phi Slama Jama might not have been as successful as it was.

But in its time, Houston went to back–to–back NCAA finals and lost both. In their second appearance, the Cougars went up against a pretty strong Georgetown team led by Patrick Ewing. My memory is that Houston's loss in that game really didn't surprise me. The Hoyas and the Cougars were considered to be evenly matched.

But the same could not be said of Houston's foe 30 years ago tonight, the North Carolina State Wolfpack. N.C. State barely managed to get in to the NCAA Tournament that year; the Wolfpack were seeded sixth in the West but won three cliffhangers en route to the Final Four.

Cliffhangers weren't anything new for the Wolfpack. They had to endure seven of them in their last nine games just to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. In so doing, they had earned the nickname "Cardiac Pack."

Top–ranked Houston, by comparison, had cruised through the tournament. In their national semifinal with #2 Louisville 48 hours earlier, the Cougars won by 13 points.

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It was probably the greatest Cinderella story in my lifetime — so far, anyway.

N.C. State was a huge underdog that night. I remember that, at the time, I was working for a small–town newspaper in central Arkansas, and I was covering a county government meeting that night. I covered these meetings on a regular basis, and I knew that, even though they tended to draw very small crowds, the officials tended to get into long–winded arguments about damn near everything.

In my experience, if one of those meetings was over in less than two hours, it was a miracle.

I was disheartened by this knowledge because I really wanted to see the game, and I was convinced that I would miss most, if not all, of it.

But fate seemed to be on my side. The meeting ended early. I asked a few of the officials some questions, and I left, certain that I could be home before tipoff.

As I walked out, a county police officer who always attended the meetings called out to me. We chatted for a few minutes, then I excused myself, explaining that I wanted to see the game.

"Who do you think will win?" he asked me as I started walking down the hall.

"Houston," I said, without hesitation. I simply couldn't imagine North Carolina State winning the game.

But I was wrong.

N.C. State led by eight points at halftime, then squandered the lead in the second half but rallied by exploiting Houston's Achilles' heel — free–throw shooting.

The Wolfpack frustrated the Cougars, fouling them every time they had their hands on the ball. Olajuwon fared pretty well, hitting six of seven attempts, but, as a team, Houston barely managed to sink half its free throws.

Phi Slama Jama's reputation was built on power ball. As Drexler said, he liked to dunk — as did the rest of the Cougars. Free throws weren't something on which they spent a lot of time.

Still, it took a slam dunk by Lorenzo Charles just before the buzzer to lift the Wolfpack to that improbable triumph.

Charles died nearly two years ago when the bus he was driving crashed.

Real Clear Sports recently named Charles as the top player who found fame in the NCAA Tournament.

The Wolfpack didn't find fame in the 1983 championship game. N.C. State had won a national crown before.

But the title they won 30 years ago tonight was their most memorable.

The Disturbing Death of Junior Seau

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When I became a sports copy editor, I thought it was the best job I could possibly have in journalism.

I had worked as a general assignment reporter prior to that time, and I covered many depressing stories. I figured sports was all fun and games, and I welcomed it. Red Smith wrote that people go to sports events to have fun, and then they pick up the newspaper the next day to read about it and have fun all over again. That was pretty much how I viewed it.

Sure, I knew it wasn't fun for the teams that lost big games, and it wasn't fun for their fans.

But it wasn't the end of the world, either. It wasn't life and death. The sun (as Annie observed in the musical that was named for her) will come up tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar.

I quickly learned, though, that sports isn't all fun and games all the time. It is deadly serious business for some folks. It is a huge, often insatiably ravenous beast, and there are those who become consumed by it.

Wait 'til next year. That has long been the defiant rallying cry of the runners–up. Except for those who were retiring, there would be another opportunity.

And when athletes finally hang it up, there frequently seems to be a second career for them. It is true that some athletes retire to live out their lives in relative obscurity, but others become coaches or commentators. Some become successful businessmen. A few go into politics.

Usually, as I say, there is that encore for the ex–athlete that can partially provide whatever he has lost because of his retirement.

I guess what is needed varies from one individual to another. Some need that adoration of the crowd. Others need the money. For some, it is the camaraderie of their teammates.

And most athletes find some kind of substitute in their post–playing career lives. Most of the time, that substitute probably doesn't come close to making up for what has been lost. Professional sports is a big stage with a bright spotlight and a huge, adoring fan base.

For an athlete like Junior Seau, who played in at least part of 20 pro football seasons and was named All–Pro a dozen times, the financial rewards of an athletic career are like winning the lottery every day, the cheers are loud and unending, and the closeness one feels with one's teammates probably can't be matched in any other occupation, perhaps not even military service.

I gather, from what I have read, that he missed it all. Maybe it had been a part of his life for too long. Maybe he did not know how to function without it.

After all, one does not become a professional athlete without spending many years on the other levels — college, high school, even junior high and middle school.

I don't know how many years Seau played football, but he was only 43 when he apparently shot himself in the chest yesterday. His professional playing career and his college career would have accounted for more than half his life by themselves — and it is reasonable to assume, I think, that Seau must have played the game for at least half a dozen years before that.

He may well have played football for three–quarters of his life.

From what I have been hearing in the last 24 hours, Seau struggled to find his niche in life after football. Apparently, he never found it. In the absence of any other explanations — like issues with drugs or alcohol or overwhelming debts — one must conclude that there was nothing that could meet his needs the way football did.

He may also have suffered from the kind of brain injuries that we hear mentioned so often in connection with football players.

And brain injuries are deceptive because there is still so much about the brain that people do not understand. Outward appearances are often unaffected by brain injuries, and, to a casual observer, Seau looked the same as always — a little older each time we saw him, but that happens to everyone.

My grandmother had a series of what were called at that time mini strokes. She didn't look any different to me, but she often spoke about these things that were in her head.

Perhaps Junior Seau had a similar sensation. He played linebacker, and linebackers are subjected to all kinds of violent hits on the field. It is reasonable to wonder if he, like so many other former athletes, suffered from chronic repetitive brain injury.

In most, if not all, of the 50 states, a suicide is also considered something of a homicide so, by law, an autopsy must be performed on the victim, and an autopsy on Seau can go a long way toward answering the unanswered questions.

Because he shot himself in the chest, Seau's brain can be examined, and perhaps some things can be learned from this tragic chapter in American sports history.

Perhaps something good can come from something so unspeakably bad.

The Dunk Heard 'Round the World

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Ever since I heard the news of Lorenzo Charles' death in a one–vehicle accident Monday in North Carolina, I have been thinking of the spring night in 1983 when his upstart North Carolina State Wolfpack upset the heavily favored Houston Cougars in the national championship.

I remember the night vividly. I was working as a reporter for a newspaper in central Arkansas — my first job out of college.

One of my standing assignments was to cover city and county government meetings (I wasn't alone in that; it was a small newspaper staff so everyone — even those whose job titles might make you think they were above such routine duties, like managing editor — had to cover some city and county government meetings) ...

... and such a meeting was being held that night.

But the meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:30, as I remember, and the game wasn't supposed to begin until two hours later.

I had been following the NCAA Tournament closely that year, as I tended to do at that time in my life, and I was interested in seeing the championship game — even though I was sure I knew how it would turn out.

When the meeting wrapped up earlier than I expected, I was elated. It meant I could go home and see most, if not all, of the game.

As I was walking down the hallway of the building in the direction of the exit, I recall a brief conversation I had with a city police officer who was on hand (why he was there, I do not know, unless he was assigned to provide routine security that night).

I told him I was on my way home to watch the game. He wanted to know which team I thought would win.

"Houston," I told him. "No way N.C. State can win."

But I was wrong.

Oh, Houston did race to the lead, but the Cougars squandered it with terrible free throw shooting in the second half. The game was still anyone's to win as the final seconds ticked off.

That was when one of the most iconic moments in modern sports history occurred.

With the score tied at 52–52, one of Charles' teammates fired a shot from 30 feet (it would have been a three–point shot under modern rules, but the three–pointer was still a few years away).

The shot appeared to be coming up just short of its mark when, seemingly from nowhere, Charles came into view, grabbed the ball in the air and dunked it for the winning points.

It was one of those moments when the entire world seemed to stop for maybe a split second — and tried to absorb what had just happened. I have only experienced a couple of these moments in my life, and they are never merely upsets or the unexpected.

They are unthinkable.

It was a time when 12 teams were seeded in each region (the 12th seeds had to win the equivalents of play–in games), and N.C. State had been seeded eighth in its region. That season, the Wolfpack (who lost 10 games in all) had earned the nickname of the "Cardiac Pack" for winning seven nail–biters in their last nine games just to get into the tournament.

Houston, meanwhile, was ranked #1 in the nation, was making its second consecutive Final Four appearance and had the look of a dynasty.

The 1982–83 Cougars went undefeated in the Southwest Conference, losing only three games all season — and, in fact, they returned to the national championship game the following year (but lost to Georgetown).

Six members of the team eventually were drafted into the NBA.

A stunned N.C. State coach Jim Valvano dashed madly around the court, looking for someone to hug, some way to express his delight at winning the upset of a lifetime.

It was for such a moment that the song "The Impossible Dream" was written.

Some of N.C. State's players might have ended up in the NBA, anyway, even if the Wolfpack had not won that game. But the fact is that three players were drafted into the NBA later that year, including the fellow whose lob Charles plucked out of the air and dunked for the winning points — and it is possible that some or all might not have been chosen had it not been for their victory over Houston.

Later, Charles and another teammate were drafted into the NBA as well, bringing to 11 the number of future NBA draftees who were on the court that night.

Charles' NBA career was brief, however, and the Brooklyn native had short stints with some European teams, but his basketball career had been over for more than 20 years. He was operating a bus for the rental company for which he apparently worked when it crashed in Raleigh, N.C.

Sadly, it seems, great things did not happen for Charles after that evening of almost unimaginable glory.

But if you have ever watched an NCAA Tournament game, you are almost sure to have seen in the archival footage Charles' sublime, almost tentative, dunk that clinched a championship ...

... and seized a slice of immortality.

Sportswriting ... Like Nothing Human

In these difficult economic times, it shouldn't surprise anyone that employers are looking for ways to save money.

These days, most employers show little or no interest in training people to do a job that needs to be done. They want someone with hands–on experience. If the new hire is a little rough around the edges, well, they figure they can soften those edges — and, in the long run, they'll be better off because they hired someone who could step in and be productive from the first day. They didn't have to devote time and money to training.

In this quest for economic efficiency, advanced technology seems to have renewed a desire in business managers to make one–time investments in machines (or software) that can do jobs people have been doing for a long time.

From a purely business, dollars–and–cents perspective, I suppose that is logical. Machines (or software) don't need to be paid. They don't have bills to pay and families to support. They don't mind working overtime or on weekends.

That can work pretty well in some endeavors — but not in others. And my conclusion, based on years of working in the newspaper business, is that it's the kind of solution that tends to appeal to bottom–liners.

For a long time, the way that publications responded to recessions was to cut back on copy editors. Reporters could do their own fact checking, they reasoned. They could check their own spelling and grammar. Well, they could do those things — but most of the time they don't.

And, the reasoning continued, they could perform multiple tasks when on assignment — like taking pictures or shooting videos. They might not have much experience at those things, but just give 'em a camera. Anyone can aim and click, right?

Heck, for that matter, anyone can write. All it amounts to is stringing some words together in sentences — and making sure those annoying little things like spelling words correctly and checking facts are done.

I presume that is the reasoning behind some new software from Narrative Science. Justin Bachman of BusinessWeek reports that Narrative Science's software can take the box score from a game and produce an article that is every bit as good as anything that was written by humans.

To prove the point, Bachman takes articles provided by the sports information departments of two schools that played each other in baseball on April 24 and compares them to an article that was "composed" by the software — and asks the readers which one was generated by a machine.

Then Bachman triumphantly identifies the article that was produced by the software and quotes the software company's CEO: "There's no human author and no human editing. But the stories sound really good."

Now, granted, taking the Joe Friday — "Just the facts, ma'am" — approach works sometimes — and, to the eyes and ears of someone who never studied journalism or worked for a newspaper or a magazine or any other kind of newsgathering organization, the stories may seem adequate. They may even "sound really good" — although Narrative Science acknowledges it is always looking for ways to make the software system "a less bad writer."

"The 1,000th story of a subject is materially better than the first," the company's CEO says. (Perhaps the software's writers should take News Reporting I.)

And, according to the Big Ten's director of new media, it's "less expensive" than hiring beat reporters. So it meets the goal of saving some money.

Nevertheless, in spite of all these benefits, I don't think machines will take the place of general assignment reporters.

Oh, sure, it has its place. I used to work on the sports copy desk of a community newspaper. Space was limited, but the paper had made a commitment, long before I started working there, to print brief articles on Little League and T–ball games. This was something that was mostly done for the parents, who would presumably boost circulation a bit on the days after games were played.

On weekends, there might be a couple of dozen such games, and someone had to go through the statistics of each game and highlight the most crucial ones in a paragraph or two — which also had to include the teams' records and when they were scheduled to play again.

If we had had such software in those days, I suppose we could have fed the information from the games to the computer. It would follow its fill–in–the–blanks article–writing procedure and generate stories on all the games in a fraction of the time a flesh–and–blood person would require.

But what would have been just fine for children's sports would not have been sufficient for the rest of the newspaper's sports coverage.

There was a large university in town, and a staff writer was assigned to cover the sports teams there. When the football team or the basketball team went on the road, the writer went along. Sometimes we had to wait for the writer to finish his story and call the office to dictate it (this was in the days before a writer could transmit a story electronically from a remote location).

But, compared to the "data–intensive" articles that Narrative Science is capable of providing, the articles that were generated by the human tended to be superior. I wouldn't say our writers were even close to perfect, but they could interview players and coaches. They could explore angles that computer software could never come up with on its own.

And their writing skills usually were good enough to give each story a unique flavor — whereas, I suspect, Narrative Science's articles tend to seem formulaic rather quickly.

Bachman concludes that Narrative Science "can make some writing by humans obsolete."

That's probably true of routine writing assignments.

But if you want quotes (and surveys show that most readers do) about big plays or upcoming opponents — or if you want articles that call for dogged reporting on things that coaches and athletic departments may be reluctant to discuss in much detail — the severity of a player's injury, for example, or whether a star athlete is going to face criminal charges for something — computer software won't get the job done for you.

"After tackling sports," Bachman writes, Narrative Science "will move on to medical, financial, and survey data."

Good luck getting that software to explain complex medical and financial subjects in reader–friendly terms.

Telling It Like It Was

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I don't know whether Howard Cosell listened to and enjoyed the music of Frank Sinatra — in hindsight, it seems odd not to know that because we knew Cosell's opinions on just about everything else.

But when considering Cosell's life, matching him with anyone else seems inappropriate.

They were contemporaries, quite close, in fact, to the same age (Sinatra was a little more than two years older). And, while Sinatra sang about "doin' it my way," that was how Cosell lived his life.

If someone ever does a film about the life of Howard Cosell, I think Sinatra's music should be the soundtrack.

Cosell certainly did things his way. Or, to paraphrase his own catchphrase, he told it like it was.

We knew that Cosell liked his ten–dollar words, which tended to make him come off as elitist, aloof. He couldn't resist the temptation. Maybe it was his legal training. Maybe he just always had a fondness for big words. But he just couldn't restrain himself, even on the most somber of occasions.

Like Dec. 8, 1980, when I and millions of people who were watching Monday Night Football learned from Cosell that John Lennon had been killed.

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"Remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all of The Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival."

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"Unspeakable" struck some people as a bit much, but that was just Cosell expressing himself. Besides, to those of us who were Beatles fans, the murder of John Lennon really was unspeakable.

No other word was adequate.

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Cosell definitely had his own style, and he was really famous, I suppose, for two things — his longtime affiliation with Muhammad Ali and his years with Monday Night Football. The stories of each could be books in themselves.

Ali and Cosell had something of a symbiotic relationship. Cosell did the ringside duty for most of Ali's early fights, then he made a name for himself as part of the Monday Night Football broadcasting crew.

But Cosell often seemed to be on top of the American sports scene — long before ESPN.

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His astonished call during the Frazier–Foreman fight — "Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!" — has become part of sports lexicon. He also covered the Bobby Riggs–Billie Jean King "Battle of the Sexes" and Olympics competition for ABC, including the murders of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Games.

When the subject was Cosell, you seldom found fence sitters. People either really liked him or really hated him, but it was a funny kind of hatred. People didn't hate him to the extent that they wouldn't watch Monday Night Football. Instead, they tuned in in huge numbers, hoping to witness the rare moments when he was caught unprepared. The meticulous Cosell brought the kind of in–depth reporting to sports that once was the hallmark of hard news coverage, and he was rarely unprepared. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, some enterprising bar owners sponsored contests, with winners getting the chance to throw a brick or something else that was big and heavy at Cosell's image on an old TV.

It's hard to believe it was 15 years ago today that Cosell died. In all honesty, I think his death was overshadowed by the Oklahoma City bombing four days earlier and the memorial service for the victims that was held only hours after Cosell's death.

Cosell's death may not have received the attention it deserved, but his absence has been felt.

He was one of a kind.

And he definitely did things his way.

Tiger and the Truth

As a journalist — and I'm talking about a real journalist, with college degrees and newsroom experience and everything — I find a lot of sense in what Dan Le Batard writes in the Miami Herald about the recent Tiger Woods incident.

"Truth," he writes, "is one of the many things that gets trampled today when boring facts can't keep up with the media's need to feed instantly and the public's appetite to be fed faster than that."

It's always been frustrating for journalists that news stories are often incomplete, that reporters must wait while facts are gradually disclosed and answers emerge.

It is even more frustrating today.

"We get news faster than we ever have," Le Batard writes. "We just can't trust it to be right."

So, as Le Batard observes, in the absence (so far) of a statement from Woods, the "news" we get tends to be gossip and speculation. And we're left with, as Le Batard writes, "what we kind of know."

It strikes me as yet another chapter in the evolving debate over the role of "citizen journalism." I have often written, particularly in my Freedom Writing blog, about the conflict between today's citizen journalism and traditional journalism. And nothing I have seen suggests to me that the so–called "citizen journalist" (whose only qualification to report the "news" often appears to be nothing more than the fact that he/she has access to a cell phone and a computer) is better prepared to inform the public on matters of substance than the journalist who went to college and covered general assignments for newspapers.

It has to do with more than the writing ability of the citizen journalist. It has to do with news judgment.

John McIntyre, former copy desk chief at the Baltimore Sun, mentions the Woods incident briefly in a blog entry titled "Not news." To a certain extent, he is correct. The fact that someone was involved in a single–vehicle accident a few feet from his own front door in which, apparently, no one was seriously injured likely would not, in the opinions of most news editors, be newsworthy.

But what makes this case unusual is the fact that it wasn't Joe Six–Pack who was involved in the accident. It was Tiger Woods, the #1 golfer in the world and one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

The fact that Woods is known to millions, obviously, is going to affect the newsworthiness of the story. And news judgment is certainly something that one learns and develops. In my experience, it is seldom, if ever, something that one is born with.

It is a topic about which I wrote about last summer, as the media (both traditional and nontraditional) got worked up about the memorial service for Michael Jackson.

Actually, the day that Jackson died is a perfect example of the tug–o–war that goes on between speed and accuracy today. On that afternoon back in June, the citizen journalists were quick to report that Jackson had died, but CNN refused to say anything more than it could confirm, which was that Jackson had been taken to the hospital. Once CNN got someone in authority to confirm that Jackson had, indeed, died, it joined the media chorus proclaiming his passing and scrambling to get comments from those who knew him, who worked with him or who merely listened to his music.

I must admit that I appreciated CNN's insistence upon confirming such a development before running with it — even though its competitors did not seem to hesitate to get the word out. What if they had been wrong? Once the world breathed its sigh of relief that Jackson had not died after all, how many news organizations would have been sued for jumping to an unsupported conclusion?

Well, Woods needs to bite the bullet and speak to investigators. After postponing meetings on Friday and Saturday, Woods apparently canceled an interview that was scheduled for today. He made a statement on his web site accepting responsibility but offering no other details.

The citizen journalist may be too awed by Woods' celebrity status to pursue the matter any farther. But the trained journalist, who must answer to his editors, will not let it die that easily. And, while it may not seem that way on the surface, that is a good thing for Woods.

I understand this is embarrassing for him, but will rampant, unchecked rumors be less so?