Media often overlooks the ‘real’ stories

Wait a minute. Don’t these guys read the papers? Don’t they listen to the radio and TV sports reports? They can’t do this.

There was something disconcerting about the media coverage of the just completed U.S. Open, “the one that Tiger Woods didn’t win.” Much of the coverage was about nobody caring, nobody watching, and nobody showing up because this was golf without Tiger.

The stories hinted that Retief Goosen and Mark Brooks, the two in the playoff, had played the regulation rounds so poorly they should have just gone home Sunday. They were lucky Tiger wasn’t on the course Monday.

Well, Tiger was on the course Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He played poorly. Goosen and Brooks played better. Ultimately, Goosen played well enough to win, no small accomplishment.

Woods is still the best golfer playing today and maybe the greatest ever. To say sports fans want to watch him perform is to state the obvious. However, there is always an undercurrent for the underdog. There is still joy in seeing the unknown win one, the grinder actually grind out a victory.

Goosen did just that. The story isn’t that Tiger didn’t win, it’s that Goosen did.

The media today is in danger of missing some great stories. Sports media outlets have hitched their wagons to the Mark McGwire, Tiger Woods, Shaquille O’Neal trains. The big guns in any sport are always the lead stories, but not the only ones.

There is a MLB team in Seattle that may get “greatness” attached to its name before this year is done. It is composed of outstanding players, all of whom shun the spotlight and go about their business as professionally as any team in any sport. The Mariners are for real.

Yet, because they are a West Coast team and have no swaggering stars, they receive far too little media attention. In fact, the press can’t stand the fact they are winning. Like the Open story, the press wants the big guns up front because that’s whom the press has been touting. How dare someone else win!

There are times one wonders if the sports press has decided the story before it happens and then has no intention of covering anything but that story. There are a lot of fans who see through that guise.

What the press needs to do is stand back and take a look at how their customers, the fans, are reacting to stories like Goosen and the Mariners. The fans know, care and revel in the underdog winning. They enjoy seeing the upset and earnest joy of those who may never win again.

Sports events are just that -events. Every day there are winners and losers in terms of the final score. There are heroes every day who come and go and create nice stories for that day.

Over time, those who succeed more often than others take on the mantle of the star. Those stars who outdo other stars become the superstars. They fade and others take their place.

That is the evolution of sports from the daily grind to the record and history books. However, every day there are wonderful stories that fans care about. The superstars will always garner the major attention, but to downplay the Retief Goosen stories as if they are losers is to miss the whole point in the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.