I'm Not The Only One

Phew. I thought I was going crazy, but Simmons reassures me - this Tiger story is the sports story of the decade.

But the Tiger Zoo nailed every gotta-have-it component for a big-time story with legs. First, it involved one of the most famous living athletes. Second, it started definitively with a specific incident -- and not just any incident, but something that made us say, "Wait, this seems fishy, I wonder what really happened here ..." and quickly became more complex than we imagined. Third, it built steam over the next week, crossed into the mainstream and dominated conversations, e-mails and tweets. Fourth, it transformed our collective perception of a famous person and made us re-evaluate every opinion we had about him. Fifth, it grew so enormous so quickly that everyone with a forum (radio show, column, blog, whatever) felt obligated to come up with an angle on it.

and

I wish I didn't care. I wish I wasn't gossiping about it like a 10th-grade girl. I wish I could say, "You know what? It's between his wife and him, we need to stay out of it." But there are just too many wrinkles to this baby. The biggest star of this decade ended up in the biggest sports story of the pre-teen double-zero aughts.

Me too.