Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

Wow, what a great time to be a sports fan, huh?

You like professional football? Great – well, except for the fact that three high profile players have been suspended for up to a year for recent and repeated criminal behavior and that another, marquee, player is about to see his career and $100 million slip through his fingers over allegations of sponsoring a dog fighting ring.

Oh, you’re a major league baseball fan. Terrific – well, except for the fact that the most hallowed record in all of sports, the career home run mark, is about to be broken by a man who is widely believed by everyone and his mother (and his grandmother, accountant and mechanic) to have cheated to get it and who is, inarguably, the complete antithesis of the man who presently holds the record.

Wait, you’re a professional basketball fan? That’s nice – well, except for the fact that a recently retired referee, who worked a Western Conference finals a few months ago that cast a black eye on officiating around the league, is being accused of associating with mobsters and fixing the outcomes of NBA games.

Oh, you’re a soccer fan? That’s cool – except for the fact that Serie A in Italy has been embroiled in a widespread match fixing scandal involving referees and team officials; except for the fact that a specific word, “hooliganism,” had to be coined to categorize behavior at English soccer games that often leads to arrests ... if not death; except for the fact that Major League Soccer in the United States, which has essentially lost money since its inception in 1996, has somehow come up with $250 million (over just five years) to pay an aging English soccer star on the downslope of his career.

But you say you’re a hockey fan? That’s great – except for the dearth of American talent and the fact that you have to scour the dial (a euphemism for a time when there actually were dials on a television set) just to find a game.

Wait a second – you’re a college basketball fan? Okay, that’s fine, except for the fact that an overbearing organization sees fit to bring the hammer down on any program that makes an extra phone call to a potential recruit but does nothing about schools encouraging and accepting oral commitments from 14-year-old players who haven’t even played a minute of high school basketball.

Oh, I get it, you’re a professional golf fan. Now that’s alright – except for the fact that one of the sport’s elder statesmen just brought up the ugly specter of STEROIDS on the men’s tour while on the women’s tour massive amounts of hype and attention is being thrust upon a teenage girl who can barely finish in the top 10 of a single tournament, let alone win one.

Come on – you’re a fan of the Tour de France. Well, I feel sorry for you.

Oh, yes, it’s a great time to be a sports fan.

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National Basketball Association (NBA) referee is suspected of fixing games and millions of fans everywhere are shouting, “I knew it!”

 The main problem, from a fan’s perspective, is that officiating basketball seems to be so subjective. Even if the rules (as can be seen below) are fairly specific, there is that sense that every infraction is open to the referee’s interpretation.

I mean, look at the official rules on fouls … taken directly from the rules link at NBA.com.

1 – A player shall not hold, push, charge into, impede the progress of an opponent by extending a hand, forearm, leg or knee or by bending the body into a position that is not normal. Contact that results in the re-routing of an opponent is a foul which must be called immediately.

Now, how many times have we seen Kobe Bryant forced to bounce off a defender to take a 15-foot jumper?

2 – Contact initiated by the defensive player guarding a player with the ball is not legal. This contact includes, but is not limited to, forearm, hands, or body check.

Listen, a hand check was ignored in the NBA for years before the league decided to enforce the rule that was on the books.

And look at the exceptions –

(1) A defender may apply contact with a forearm to an offensive player with the ball who has his back to the basket below the free throw line extended outside the Lower Defensive Box; (2) A defender may apply contact with a forearm and/or one hand with a bent elbow to an offensive player in a post-up position with the ball in the Lower Defensive Box; (3) A defender may apply contact with a forearm to an offensive player with the ball at any time in the Lower Defensive Box. The forearm in the above exceptions is solely for the purpose of maintaining a defensive position; (4) A defender may position his leg between the legs of an offensive player in a post-up position in the Lower Defensive Box for the purpose of maintaining defensive position. If his foot leaves the floor in an attempt to dislodge his opponent, it is a foul immediately; (5) Incidental contact with the hand against an offensive player shall be ignored if it does not affect the player’s speed, quickness, balance and/or rhythm.

All of that isn’t open to interpretation?

What makes a referee’s job even worse is the expectation by players, coaches and fans that the all the incidental foul calls and violations in a game should pretty much be evenly spread among both teams. If one team is assessed 35 fouls and the opponent is assessed only 12, just about everyone in the gym thinks the referee was showing favoritism.

Which lends to the prevailing thought that either referees have been “on the take” for years or the NBA is consciously affecting the outcomes of games in order to get a more desired matchup for its championship series.

But that line of thinking was never more than a popular conspiracy theory. Now that referee Tim Donaghy may be implicated in a game-fixing scandal involving mobsters, the viability of the NBA and every official comes into question.

Listen, even if Donaghy is not convicted of game fixing can anyone really believe any results that comes out of the league. What happens if, say, Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers (a small market team) is inexplicably thrown out of an Eastern Conference Finals contest (like Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs was in a Western Conference game this past spring) and that leads to the New York Knicks (a huge market team) heading to the NBA championship series?

Integrity is everything in sports and the NBA took a serious hit to its integrity. I was already losing interest in the league because of the declining skills league-wide, the low scoring and sloppy play, and the increasingly bad image of the players, and this just makes it worse.

I’m going to hang on, though, only because I don’t believe in my heart that any officials – except one – have been consciously affecting the outcomes of games. But I can’t say that about thousands of other casual fans who are lost forever.

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Even with the cloud hanging over the National Football League right now, I have to say I’m darned excited about training camps opening up.

That means that our fantasy football league draft is less than five weeks away and it’s time to start taking stock in the running backs, wide receivers and quarterbacks (oh, yeah, and kickers) on 32 different teams.

Normally about this time, I’d see my interest in major league baseball take a huge dip. The New York Yankees would be – ho hum – running away with the American League Eastern Division and I’d be putting away my MLB: The Show for my Madden or NCAA Football and smashing the Square, X, Triangle or Circle buttons into oblivion.

But the Yankees aren’t leading the division this year – or the wild card chase – are actually in danger of missing the playoffs altogether.

How great is that?

I mean, I am a New York Yankees fan, but how many years in a row must I eat the same slice of pie? Can’t I have something different? With the Yankees chasing the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians, I may have to ignore the tug of the NFL and pro football and keep my MLB: The Show in the drive for a few more weeks.