thecheeseisblue

Surprise, surprise. Tiger Woods, bum knee and all, wins the U.S. Open by beating Rocco Mediate. Regardless of the eventual outcome, the best part of the story still lies with Mediate. People have been saying it was a great victory for Tiger and, of course, it was. But, even with his injury everyone expected Tiger to win. The true story is the 40+ year old Rocco Mediate overcoming fatigue, both physical and mental, and endless stress to even reach the ninety first hole against the world's number one player. We all know Rocco is currently ranked in the 150's, as the announcers so frequently told us, but how about the fatigue he had to beat. The 46 year old, not a young man by any standards, had to not just play these five days in a row, but survive a sudden death playoff just to get into the tournament. Going into the fourth day, the question was would Tiger hold on or would Lee Westwood catch him. Not a thought towards Rocco. Nobody gave the man a thought before, or all throughout the tournament until he was suddenly leading it. Tiger has multitudes of great moments. Rocco has never, and probably will never have another chance, to have a moment like this. So Tiger won his fourteenth major in dramatic fashion, but from this tournament there is only one thing that should stick out in people's minds. Remember Rocco. One of the most affable and personable guys on tour, this is his moment, regardless of the fact that he didn't win. Let Tiger take his other moments. Remember Rocco.

600 home runs is, obviously, a momentous occasion, with only five other players having done it, and only three of them cleanly. Though it is something to be celebrated, when the name is Ken Griffey Junior, thoughts begin to turn to what he could have accomplished. Watching Griffey as a 19 year old kid, hitting 16 home runs in his first season, everyone knew he had the smoothest swing ever to come through baseball. When he really started to pound the ball, hitting 50 home runs in back to back seasons, there was no question Junior could get to 800. Then came the injuries, limiting him to 317 games over four seasons, and then forcing him to miss another 105 in the next three. Now Griffey is still going to be a Hall of Famer, and will obviously go down as one of the greats, but there's no way to help thinking about what he could have done rather than what he actually did accomplish. Griffey is obviously an incredible player, but he poses the question: Which is going to be left as his legacy, what Griffey did accomplish, or what he could have accomplished if not for injury?