The Sports Curmudgeon

The rumor is out there that Tim Donaghy will name up to 20 current NBA referees who are involved in gambling. I said previously that if even one other referee was “ratted out”, this could be horrendous for the league. And I’ll stand by that statement with a minor proviso.

Since the time the Donaghy case broke and David Stern referred to him as a “rogue isolated criminal”, we have learned that NBA officials have to give up their right to gamble [other than on horse races at racetracks in the off-season] or even enter casinos where gambling happens as a part of their employment contract with the NBA. While I think that’s a bit silly and difficult to enforce, the stipulation is there and we now see just how effective that stipulation can be in preventing a referee from betting on “stuff”.

So, now it sort of depends on what kind of gambling activities Tim Donaghy identifies and associates with these putative 20 “other referees.” Some kinds of activities can obviously be disastrous for the integrity of the NBA; others might be violations of the referees’ contracts and not amount to a dram of doggy dooty. Consider:

If an officiating crew plays gin rummy for an hour in the locker room before or after a game and it is only the three of them and a total of $25 changes hands at the end of the day, this might be sufficient to get the officials reprimanded or even fired. But this is unimportant to the integrity of the NBA.

If an official – or even a group of officials – get together and have their own fantasy football league or even an NCAA Tournament Bracket Pool, that is not damaging to the integrity of the league.

Frankly, having referees play blackjack in a casino isn’t that big a deal either. Think about this; if casinos are such dens of iniquity where only horrible things can happen, then maybe David Stern should explain why the NBA allows the owners of the Sacramento Kings also to own a casino/hotel in Las Vegas.

David Stern has to worry about what comes of all this. Suppose Donaghy names 20 referees whose actions do not impugn the integrity of the NBA but whose actions clearly and definitively violate the employment contract with the NBA. What does David Stern do then? Does he fire all 20 referees? If he fires only half of them, how will the Sultan of Smug parse their actions to make such a fine distinction? Frankly, how many quality officials can he find to officiate NBA games next season on short notice? Remember, there will have to be extensive background checks on any new hires the league makes and you just can’t do an extensive background investigation over a weekend. And just how long can David Stern continue to maintain that Donaghy was a rogue isolated criminal if he has to take the axe to 20 of Donaghy’s colleagues?

Think about what Donaghy has admitted that he did. He gave info to gamblers about what officials would be refereeing various future games. Why was that worth thousands of dollars to the gamblers? Here’s why:

The NBA thinks that kind of information has to be kept secret. Shake your head to get the cobwebs out and try to come up with a scenario where that information has to be protected in ways similar to the way the government protects information about military readiness.

The truth is that if the officials for a game were published in the newspapers along with the date, time and location of the game, that information would have zero value to gamblers because it would no longer be “inside information”. The NBA itself has been a great enabler of this whole mess. David Stern won’t tell you that, but it’s a fact. The fact that the NBA was an enabler does not exonerate Donaghy in any way; but we should never lose sight of the fact that the NBA has more than a tad of complicity in this sordid mess.

I read somewhere that the NBA’s advertising slogan for next season will be “Where Amazing Happens”. If 20 referees are actually involved in something bad for the league, that slogan could come back to haunt the league. Imagine what Jay Leno and David Letterman can do with that one…

During my hiatus, Phil Rizzuto passed on. I remember him from the days when I would go over box scores with my father as we followed baseball from April to September. In memory of Rizzuto, many writers came up with humorous comments about him and his career(s) in baseball. Here are two:

“I don’t know if it’s good for baseball, but it sure beats the hell out of rooming with Phil Rizzuto.” [Yogi Berra upon learning that Joe DiMaggio was going to marry Marilyn Monroe.]

“Before he came up with his signature call of ‘Holy Cow,’ Rizzuto must have tried out many other calls. ‘Enlightened yak!’ ‘Sacred wombat!’ ‘Venerated musk-ox!’ [Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle]

Speaking of baseball, the makings of a future biopic are happening in St. Louis. Rick Ankiel has made it back from a position where as a pitcher he could not find home plate with a radar or a GPS device to a right-fielder who has hit with power and has demonstrated a strong and accurate throwing arm. The plot for every biopic is the same: Subject has a dream and a passion for doing something; obstacles that would stop anyone else are in his/her way; subject overcomes them to become a happy and contented individual adored by the masses. If Rick Ankiel makes the All-Star team as a right fielder some day, this is a biopic waiting to be made sometime around 2025.

Finally, since I quoted Scott Ostler above, let me conclude today with another of his observations in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Before you praise Bobby Cox as baseball’s all-time blow-top for having broken John McGraw’s record for career ejections, it’s important to recognize the difference in eras. It’s easier to get thrown out of games today. In McGraw’s time, umps were more tolerant. You could do a Three Stooges nose-tweak and eye-gouge of an umpire without getting run.

Cox said the ejections are embarrassing, but they’ve been worth it because of all the times his childish tirades have caused umpires to see their mistakes and reverse their calls. When he retires, Cox plans to volunteer as a crossing guard for buffalo stampedes.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…