Hero worshiping fools

There was a time many years back when many golf fans and pundits would bet on Tiger Woods to win any particular tournament over the rest of the entire field.

And it wasn't a bad bet. From the late 90s to maybe 2008, Woods had the most dominant decade the golf world had even seen, seemingly winning damn near everything.

But that was then. Fast forward. Now is a lot different.

Eldrick Tont has won a grand total of one tournament in the past five years. It just happened to be the last one of the prior golf season.

Yet fools persist. Some have the audacity -- see stupid -- to think taking Woods over the entire field today is a decent bet.

The various world golf rankings have dear Tiger somewhere between #10 and #20. And they want to take THIS guy over the entire field? HAHAHAHAHAHA.

A much more appropriate bet would be wagering on if Eldrick will make the cut in any tournament. That's about a coin flip these days.

Former NY Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera is another example of duh getting in the way of common sense.

Soon to be up for Hall of Fame consideration, some geniuses think he might be the first guy to score 100% on the first ballot of Hall voters.

Please.

The dude was a relief pitcher. Granted, a very good one, but still very limited in his abilities. He was only good for pitching one inning -- two tops. He never had to bat, or run the bases, or field anything other than the occasional ground ball back to the pitcher's mound. Truly a one dimensional player with little stamina at that.

Yet again, fools persist. Somehow they've come to the mind-numbing conclusion that this guy is more worthy of Cooperstown than the likes of Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, or Ty Cobb, the very first inductee. But none of them got 100% of the votes. What are these people smoking anyway?

To boot, how in the HELL did Cal Ripken Jr. receive the highest percentage of votes ever? There was nothing spectacular about him. Pretty good fielder, decent hitter, average arm, and no speed to speak of. He just played a long time, breaking Lou Gehrig's "Iron Man" record. And he wouldn't have done that if his daddy hadn't been his manager for so many years with the Baltimore Orioles. Ripken often played while he was hurt, to the detriment of the team. No other manager would have allowed that.

It's the whole "hero" thing. Everybody's a hero these days. Cops for merely doing their jobs. And OMG, anybody in the military. Heroes all. They're handing out medals faster than your average Olympics.

Case in point. Not long ago, yours truly worked alongside a guy that used to be in the US Navy. He enlisted to serve his country, and hopefully get to sail hither and yon seeing parts of the world he would never have a chance of seeing otherwise. He was in for four years.

And never set foot on a ship.

Nope, according to my bud, he wound up doing most of his time in Norfolk -- he called it "No-f-ck" Virginia, at a big naval base there.

So while others were in the "sea-going" Navy, by his account he was in the "golf-playing" Navy.

And still he received various medals, another regular "hero", which he laughs about to this day.

Heroes, heroes, everywhere.

Everybody's the greatest -- until the next one comes along in about 15 minutes.

It not only takes away from those that are truly deserving of the honor, but is getting so watered down as to be sickening.