Mass of messes will alter our view of celebrity

Put this year down in the history books as the tipping point, the one that recalibrated sports celebrity. Tiger Woods should just give up on idol status now and go off somewhere to do bong hits with Michael Phelps. Or Tim Lincecum. A National League Cy Young Award winner got caught with pot in his car, and the most decorated Olympian of all time was trapped by a camera phone.

Even Olympics heroes like Michael Phelps were making the wrong type of headlines this year. (Getty Images)

On the same calendar, we have the entries: A-Rod confessed to steroid use; Manny Ramirez was suspended for doping; Andre Agassi admitted to testing positive for a drug and lying his way out of punishment. At this point, they're all better off than Woods, even though their misdeeds were directly linked to their professional lives.

Woods has been driven into seclusion, taken a temporary leave from his sport, lost a longtime sponsor and endured ridicule that only Bill Clinton can fully understand. Is it possible to impeach a golfer for marital infidelity? In effect, it's already happened.

The offenses of this year seem pretty mild overall. For depth of depravity, they can't begin to match 1994, when O.J. Simpson took his Bronco ride on the San Diego Freeway and some Tonya Harding associates took a baton to Nancy Kerrigan's knee. But for breadth and hyperbole, 2009 went to the head of the list the second Woods' SUV rammed a fire hydrant and a neighbor's tree.

For the most part, punishment and public censure did not match the severity of the offense. Phelps took far more heat than Agassi. He was suspended by USA Swimming even though the organization does not test for -- and, therefore, ban -- marijuana use out of competition. Agassi took a far more dangerous drug, should have been suspended, wasn't and then profited from his confession in an autobiography (386 pages, $28.95).

But Agassi wore long hair until male-pattern baldness aced him, and he pitched himself as a wild child for years. Lincecum has a sweet demeanor, but he wears his hair like a child of the '60s and pitches in San Francisco, where the air around any random corner is likely to carry the scent of Amsterdam. He let down some young fans and their parents, but the incident won't haunt him.

Woods' known sin is a personal one, neither criminal nor relevant to his game. But he has become the jock world's Hester Prynne, while reports that he had received treatment from a Canadian doctor suspected of dealing in performance-enhancing drugs barely resonated, even though they hint at behavior that might undermine everything he has accomplished professionally.

Ascribing this relative apathy to a reluctance to hurry judgment would be foolish; most rapid conclusions are simply being reserved for the photos of Elin Nordegren Woods' bare left hand, free of her wedding ring. Perhaps Tier will rebound from the adultery scandal as well as A-Rod did after he admitted to doping. But A-Rod never enthralled the public the way Tiger did. He projected disingenuousness long before his drug use turned up in a Sports Illustrated story, and well before his marriage dissolved. Visibly and openly flawed, he became more credible and likeable than when he tried to sell an image of perfection.

Woods had the biggest pedestal in sports, and a lot farther to fall. But to topple so far over adultery?

How could fans have been so naive after the all-time hits leader in baseball was banned for life for betting, after the new home run king was indicted for lying under oath in a steroids case, after Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, Michael Vick, Pete Rose, Tonya and O.J.? Nobody, at least not in a critical mass, criticized swimmer Dara Torres for ditching her husband and having a baby out of wedlock with the fertility doctor she had consulted with her spouse. She was glorified as a mom and role model for post-childbirth 40-something fitness.

Tiger built up an illusion that no one should have believed. He's still trying to maintain that facade, apologizing to his fans on his website for actions that require remorse directed only toward his wife. The attempts to placate the public suggest that he is clinging to something that has vanished, something that existed strictly in people's imagination. The effort makes him pathetic, even to people who don't care how often he violated his marriage vows.

At least he hasn't paid the price extracted from Steve McNair. All in all, Woods probably isn't very grateful. He wanted to be a role model of a certain type, and he ended up being another kind altogether. Just as he forced the enlargement of golf courses, he and his cohorts in the 2009 scandals should end up shrinking expectations of perfection. The next time a superstar athlete is tempted to project a pristine image, he should think again, then go ahead and get caught in a scandal right away. It will numb the painful parts of fame.

Gwen Knapp is a sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle