Let me root, root, root for the home team

In the summer of 2020, someone named Cameron Champ kept appearing on golf leaderboards. In HDTV, he looked hot off the PGA assembly line: white guy, zero body fat, joylessly perfect swing and total blindness to a world beyond 18 holes.

My first thought from the couch: another golf robot. Hope he hooks his drive into the lake.

Then, in late August, Champ showed up at the BMW Championship wearing one black golf shoe and, Sharpie-d along the heel, a white golf shoe with the words “Jacob Blake BLM.”

Turns out, Cameron Champ is a biracial, socially aware professional golfer.

Holy rara avis, Batman! I hope he wins the next 10 majors.

Aside from the reassurance that I’m still wrong about everyone, the Cameron Champ revelations embodied a big twitch in my little sports world. Society is now an active ingredient in my rooting. After decades of mindless fandom, I’m like the Tinder client who suddenly changes his preferences from “leggy/fun-loving” to “literate/vegan.”

Beginning roughly Jan. 20, 2017, at 12:01 p.m., when our 45th president was inaugurated, my team loyalties have come with socioeconomic strings attached. Player stats got bundled with off-the-court conscience. And really, when champions are enhanced or degraded by their RSVPs to White House invitations, I’m pretty sure Scrupulosity Rooting is “a thing,” maybe even bordering on “a syn

D4] a biracial professional golfer, wears mismatched golf shoes, including a white Nike model that displays the message “Jacob Blake BLM.”

The Chargers hope to avoid another meltdown should they build another big lead.