He could have walked in, done his latest dog-and-pony show in a week full of them, and walked out. He could have been irritable or distracted or impatient, ruing the fact that he was spending a cold, windy afternoon in New York rather than lounging by the beach in Cabo San Lucas or St. Kitts. He could have had his entourage run interference, ordering that he wasn't to be bothered, and declaring that he wouldn't be there for very long. In short, he could have acted like so many other professional athletes, whose aloofness and sense of entitlement presage their every step.

Instead, Jimmie Johnson bought everyone a beer.

Attending a champion's luncheon at an Irish bar as part of his Champions Week duties, Johnson bought everyone in the place -- writers, broadcasters, public relations reps, race fans who sneaked in the back, regular patrons who had no idea who he was -- a cold pint of Harp. No, he's not an everyman. An everyman doesn't marry a model, wear a velvet sports coat, and pick up a $7 million check every December. But goodness, the guy tries. When posing for a snapshot with one partygoer after the awards banquet, he asked the photographer to take another. Why? The driver had blinked. He may be rich, famous and successful, but deep down he's still the school bus driver's son.

It's not enough, of course. He's amazingly well-adjusted in a way that few pro athletes seem to be today, but it's not enough. He acts in public in a manner that anyone would want their brother or son to act, but it's not enough. Sure, he could be a little more outspoken sometimes, but for the most part he's a classy champion who understands his sport and his role in it. Still, it's not enough. There are plenty of people out there who haven't adapted easily to change, who hate the fact that Chevrolets don't look like Chevrolets anymore, or that Ken Squier isn't calling the races, or that North Wilkesboro couldn't keep up with the times. Those are the people who grumble loudest about the Chase and the new car and Auto Club Speedway. Those are the people who need a scapegoat, something that to them embodies everything they don't like about modern NASCAR.

And that something is Jimmie Johnson.

Because this all can't possibly be just about Johnson, who on his own merits is quite hard to dislike. Hate Jimmie? How? Unlike some of his contemporaries in the garage area, he's unfailingly polite, he's far from arrogant or conceited, and he drives clean. He knows how to conduct himself in front of a camera, he's held in tremendous respect among his peers, and his one great public embarrassment involves falling off a golf cart. Sure, he has a crew chief with a reputation for working the gray areas, but so did Jeff Gordon. We're talking about a guy who any racing series -- or any sports league, for that matter -- would be proud to have as its representative.

And yet Johnson, the most dominant driver NASCAR has seen in three decades, still struggles for acceptance, an almost embarrassing fact given all he's accomplished and the manner in which he's done it. His one misstep is one of timing, that he happens to be a three-time champion in this era when so many changes have taken effect. Oh sure, it's all "back to basics" now, but the Chase and the new car and schedule realignment and new television packages can't be undone. To many alienated die-hards, and through no fault of his own, Johnson has become the poster child for NASCAR's recent wave of change. Who wins the Chase? Jimmie. Who wins in the new car? Jimmie. Who's good on the new tracks? Jimmie. Who are the new TV partners always showing? Jimmie. Of course, that's bound to happen, given that the guy's won 40 races and three titles since 2002. But it also makes him a target of scorn.

It's reached the point where now they're attacking something that's virtually unassailable, his ability, criticizing him as little more than a product of the Chase, as if all those race victories somehow materialized out of thin air. Yes, if we're going by the traditional points system, Gordon would have won the title by 353 in 2007, and Carl Edwards by 16 this year. But guess what? They don't race under that system anymore. Had Major League Baseball never adopted the wild card, the Boston Red Sox wouldn't have won the World Series in 2004. Does that make their victory any less valid than those won by the Yankees in 1956, or the Mets in 1969, or the Twins in 1987 -- under three different playoff formats, no less? Of course not. Johnson, though, is repeatedly subject to some old-boy litmus test that should have been thrown out long ago.

In every sport, championship formats are occasionally altered. The Green Bay Packers didn't win the NFL title in 1997 (when 12 teams made the playoffs) the same way they did in 1967 (when just four got in), yet those two accomplishments are weighted identically. The NBA playoffs have been revised 15 times since the league was founded in 1950, yet all 17 Boston Celtics championships count the same. Good luck finding a hockey fan who doesn't see Montreal's 1924 Stanley Cup title (when one playoff round was just a two-game series) as equal to the Canadiens' 20-game odyssey to the 1993 crown. Yet in NASCAR, if you didn't follow in the exact tire tracks of men like Yarborough, Allison and Earnhardt, then somehow you're not as worthy? Please. Athletes don't make the rules, they just play by them. Johnson is no different.

But of course, that won't be good enough, either. Somehow, Jimmie Johnson will continue to do wrong by doing everything right. Maybe those die-hards will come around one day, take the blinders off and finally see what they're missing. And maybe Johnson can take comfort in knowing there's another multiple champion who fought a not too dissimilar battle, who for a time was discounted and derided because he had a whiz-bang crew chief and he had sponsor money and he had cars that were better than anyone else's. Yes, even in that era, there were die-hards who thought he had it too easy, didn't deserve all that he had accomplished. Wonder what they think of Richard Petty now?

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Jimmie Johnson: Alienated fans' scapegoat?
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