Rick Reilly rips off Rick Reilly

In his 2nd ESPN article, Rick Reilly rips off Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated. He starts this week's US Open article:

"Rooting for Tiger Woods is like rooting for Justin Timberlake to get lucky, Exxon to hit a gusher, Bill Gates to find a twenty on the sidewalk. It takes no imagination. It takes no courage."

I know that sounded familiar. So I went through the Hoagie Central archives and found this quote I posted in May 2007 about rooting for the Yankees:

"It's like hoping Bill Gates wins the lotto, it's like rooting for Brad Pitt to get laid."

A few observations.

• I see in a year he's updated his reference from Brad Pitt to Justin Timberlake. Fair enough.
• He's also swtiched from "laid" to "lucky." I don't remember if the original was in print or where I saw it, but apparently working for Disney/ESPN doesn't give you as much freedom.
• He's stuck with Bill Gates as a archetypal rich man but downgraded the metaphor from lotto to finding a $20. But I think it works better. A fine improvement.
• And of course, he thinks that everything that applies to the Yankees applies to Tiger Woods.
  

Is Tiger the Yankees of golf? I think it's a lot easier to root for Tiger than the Yankees because there's no strings attached, like you have to be from New York. Tiger is America, neo-American if you will. And how do we choose which golfers to like anyways?

If there's no team affiliation, how do we grow affinity for anyone? Skill? Personality? Coolness? Tiger's got 'em all. I guess my point is, I like Tiger, and I don't think it's like rooting for the Yankees.