John Grindrod: What interesting explanations

First Posted: 1/26/2015

My, I had quite a bit of trouble with some of the explanations I heard last week coming out of that wonderful world of sports. Now, I suppose if there are no criminal elements to what is said by folks, their versions may just fit on that little-white-lie shelf. After all, many psychologists tell us none of us go more than a day without some deception.

Lest I be pursued for libel or its close cousin slander, I won’t come right out and call the folks I’ll discuss today liars, but let’s just say I’m skeptical.

Now, in the case of little-known Australian pro golfer Robert Allenby, I guess the take-away is that it is possible to go to the island paradise of Hawaii and still have a pretty lousy time. No doubt, he wasn’t too happy about missing the cut at the Sony Open the Friday before last. But as it turned out, that was the good part of the weekend.

By Saturday, Allenby’s face was swollen and scratched and his eye partially shut from what he says was a beating that accompanied his being robbed after he was abducted and thrown into a trunk in a lower-level parking lot of a wine bar.

According to Allenby, this all occurred after several drinks. At closing time — historically, some all-time lows are registered on the old good-judgment meter at this hour — he said he got separated from friends. He was told by some alleged “perps” that when he was in the restroom, his friends had gone to a downstairs parking lot. He then rode down the elevator with his “new friends” and was beaten up, thrown in a car and driven away — as in, kidnapped.

Sounds to me like the next installment of “Taken.” Where was Liam Neeson when Allenby needed him?

As for Tiger Woods-and-the-case-of-the-missing-tooth tale, if there was some creative reconfiguring of what really happened, well, I can sort of relate. His is a story of dental misfortune, which sort of makes us kindred dental spirits.

Woods, ever the dutiful boyfriend, flew to Italy to surprise his girlfriend, skier Lindsey Vonn, who was gunning for and indeed got her record 63rd World Cup victory. While there, he was photographed with a front tooth missing. When I saw the picture, I immediately thought of that dentist, Stu Price, played so well by Ed Helms in “The Hangover.”

Woods and his agent Mark Steinberg’s version as to the missing chopper is he got hit by a media-type’s camera in the rush toward Vonn on stage after her victory. Not only has no such media type come forward to take ownership of the “accident” and apologize but also the race official who was Tig’s escort, Nicola Colii, succinctly told AP, “I was among those who escorted him from the tent, and there was no such incident.”

Sort of reminds me of my own tooth distress when I cracked one of my front teeth by engaging in that disgusting habit of biting my nails. When I went to my go-to dentist, Gary Brunk, for a diagnosis and fix, he asked what happened. I told him I cracked the tooth engaging in another bad habit of mine, chewing ice. I figured that habit was a tad less disgusting. Sorry for the lie, Gar.

Of course, the big sports story last week involved what now has been accorded its own “gate” title, as all famous scandals seem to merit. We have Deflate-gate, the mysterious disappearance of air in 11 of the 12 balls (no doubt, the 12th was for the kicker) the Bill Belichick-coached Patriots and his quarterback Tom Brady used to thrash the Colts in the AFC Championship Game the Sunday before last.

After the discovery of the under-inflated balls, last Thursday’s pressers of the two potentially duplicitous “B” Boys — Belichick and Brady — were full of denials and an accompanying profound sense of shock and dismay as to where the air went in all those balls that magically became far easier to grip for America’s pretty-boy QB.

Hmm. Conjuring up my best “A Few Good Men” Tom Cruise character Daniel Kaffee, I say to you, Coach Belichik and QB TB, when it came to doctoring those balls, if you guys didn’t order the Code Red, who did?

Alas, perhaps, with all of these cases, if we were to mandate, as Cruise’s Kaffee did, “I want the truth,” our quartet of possible prevaricators would simply channel their own Jack Nicholson’s Col. Nathan Jessup and toss back that classic retort, “You can’t handle the truth!”