Lorena Ochoa, AOL, and PC Gone Wild

By Nicholas Stix

People differ as to who the world’s greatest athlete is. Some say it’s David Wright, some pick Carlos Beltran, still others prefer Johan Santana, and some are still carrying a torch for Jose Reyes. But not AOL’s Kevin Blackistone. In “Ochoa Hottest Athlete in Sports,” he says it’s female golfer, Lorena Ochoa, who just won four consecutive tournaments. Though Valentine’s Day was two months ago, Blackistone even wrote a valentine to Ochoa:

“Dear Ms. Ochoa,

“Please accept my congratulations on the continuation of your magnificent run in the LPGA last weekend in Reunion, Fla., at the Ginn Open. Even Tiger Woods hasn’t done what you just did, win a fourth title in four consecutive weekends. And we all marvel at his stranglehold on the PGA. Some among us have even said he’s the most-dominant athlete out there. Well, what does that make you?”

Tiger Woods! Oh, I forgot all about him, what with it being baseball season, and me preparing to have my heart broken all over again, by those overpaid bums in Flushing. Back to the valentine.

“It’s just a shame the nearly unprecedented body of work you’ve put together as a golfer in general and woman sports standout in particular was overshadowed coming out of last weekend by novelty.”

Blackistone is mad because race car driver Danica Patrick finally won a race, the Indy Racing League’s Japan 300. He doesn’t like Patrick because she’s pretty, and she does awful things like wearing slinky skirts when she appears on late night talk shows that accentuate her, um, “personality.” Boo! Hiss! And men race car fans like the way she looks. Double boo/hiss!!

“Indeed, the best thing about Patrick’s victory in the Indy Racing League’s Japan 300 was that it put her in the sports news for the right reasons finally rather than sexist reasons, which she not only perpetuated but exploited….

“As much as Patrick, 26 like you, appeared to be daring to advance the cause of women in sports by challenging the guys on the Indy circuit, she was stalling the women’s movement, if not setting it back.”

This mook isn’t a sportswriter; he doesn’t like sports at all. He’s a feminist! All he cares about is the so-called woman’s movement (i.e., feminism). He’s just trying to pass himself off as a sportswriter, in order to peddle his propaganda.

Ochoa and Patrick aren’t advancing causes, they’re seeking glory, which is as it should be.

Yeah, I know, I’m a political writer, too, but I don’t pose as a sportswriter. (And I can write on sports.)

Now, if Blackistone merely wanted to celebrate Ochoa as the best female golfer, that would be unobjectionable. But that’s not enough for him.

“If you pull of [sic] the Lorena Slam [Blackistone’s coinage], capturing the LPGA Championship and U.S. Women’s Open, you would match what Tiger did at the turn of the millennium by owning all four majors in your game at the same time.

“I read that like Sorenstam, and the one-time girl golf prodigy Michelle Wie, you’ve been invited to play in PGA Tour events but you’ve declined. You are to be applauded for not feeling the need to prove your excellence by playing against men….

“Ms. Ochoa, you are the best at your sport – if not any sport – and by a long shot right now. That’s saying a lot more than winning a single event.”

Lorena Ochoa’s sport is golf; “women’s golf” is not a sport. If Ochoa is “the best at [her] sport,” it means she is better than Tiger Woods. But of course, she isn’t, so she isn’t the best at her sport. She’s the best female golfer right now. And I’m not slighting that. If I sound pedantic, it’s because I have to be, in order to root out Blackistone’s sophistry.

There is no equality in sports (or much else, for that matter), no matter what Kevin Blackistone may fantasize and try through word games to bring about, assuming he doesn’t engage in such silliness just to impress his wife or girlfriend.

That was one aspect of pc in Blackistone’s propaganda op. Another was the question to an AOL poll on the same page. “Which athlete is more dominate [sic] in their sport?” with Lorena Ochoa and Tiger Woods as possible answers. As if they played different sports. Sixty-five percent of respondents chose Woods.

“More dominate”?! Blackistone’s screed was itself an exercise in affirmative action propaganda, and that question was AA in action. It sounds like something a Hispanic who wasn’t fluent in English might say. And whatever the ethnicity of the individual who wrote that question, neither he nor the editor who proofread it has any business working in journalism. Hell, I never made mistakes like that when I wrote in German.

Actually, there was yet a fourth exercise in pc on the page, a poll question, “Which tour is more competitive?” with LPGA and PGA as possible answers. Eighty-three percent of respondents chose PGA.

In a bygone era, George S. Schuyler (1895-1977) referred to stuff equivalent to what AOL posts for its customers to read as “moron fodder.” AOL is a poorly run business, and promotes not only political correctness, but stupidity, and has contributed to the general impoverishment of American culture. Bad business practices, “diversity,” and general stupidity all together? Can such a divergence be mere coincidence?