How media works. Part 1,347.

 You get used to what people don't get, after awhile. Or you fake it. Or you sigh wearily, shake your head and explain it all again for the eleventy-hundredth time.

Even if you're explaining it to a 51-year-old man who's been in the public eye for more than a quarter century, and should get how things work by now.

Alas, Phil Mickelson does not. Or at least his representatives don't.

Everyone got all warmed around the heart when Lefty won the PGA as a 50-year-old in May, becoming the oldest golfer ever to win a major. People ate it up like gourmet chocolate, because of course they did. Lefty's a popular guy. No one could have better starred in such an endearing storyline.

Ah, but now. Now he's just being a butthead.

This upon the news that Phil got all miffed at the Detroit News this week because it published a story this week that he (through his attorney) says was intended solely to embarrass him. The story -- published in advance of the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit that began yesterday -- detailed how a Michigan bookie allegedly cheated Mickelson out of half-a-million simoleons and went on trial for it back in 2007.

Mickelson (and his attorney) say this was dirty pool, and as a result he'll never-ever-ever play the Detroit tournament again. 

"I'm disappointed they would curiously pick this week to write an article about a bet that was made over 20 years ago and a jury trial that took place in 2007 ..." Mickelson's attorney, Glenn Cohen, told ESPN.

Sigh.

Head shake.

Clearing throat to explain, AGAIN ...

OK, first off: There's nothing curious about the timing of the News piece. At all. It came out this week because, duh, this is the week the PGA Tour comes to Detroit. Also, the News just recently obtained the federal court records from 2007. 

Next?

Oh, yes. The News was just trying to embarrass poor Phil Mickelson. 

For the response to that one, we take you inside the editorial offices of the Detroit News, where the big cheeses are discussing story plans. The Blob has obtained a super-secret recording of that discussion, and here are the relevant parts:

Big Cheese No. 1: OK, so what do we have coming up?

Big Cheese No. 2: Well, the PGA Tour is coming to Detroit. And that 51-year-old guy who just won the PGA, Phil What's-His-Name, will be in the field.

Big Cheese No. 1 (groaning softly): God, I hate that guy. So annoying.

Big Cheese No. 3  (eagerly): Me, too, boss!

Big Cheese No. 4 (even more eagerly): Me, three!

Big Cheese No. 1: So how can we embarrass him? 2?

Big Cheese No. 2: Well, we have this story about him getting slicked on a bet by a Michigan bookie years ago. Even got the court records from the bookie's trial.

Big Cheese No. 1: Perfect! Run that baby!

And now the Blob is compelled to admit, rather obviously, that it totally made all that up. There's no secret recording, no Big Cheese hate for Phil Mickelson, nothing like that. No one at the Detroit News was trying to embarrass Phil Mickelson. Only an idiot or Phil Mickelson's attorney would believe such nonsense.

The surprise here is not that you have to keep explaining to non-media people that this is not how media works, mind you. Folks like me who worked in media for four decades are used to that.

The surprise is that you have to explain it to Mickelson and his people.

Now, deep down, probably, Mickelson knows the Detroit News does not unaccountably have it in for him. And in any case, the story was about him being victimized, not victimizing someone else.

But he's a professional athlete, and more to the point a professional golfer, and a certain amount of entitlement comes with that. Professional golfers, as a whole, may not be the most spoiled rotten of athletes, but they're for sure in the team picture. Hence Mickelson's pouty decision to take his ball and go home from now on.

Which frankly embarrasses him a hell of a lot more than the News piece did, or ever could.