Game-fixing And Dogfighting Rock Pro Sports (and Barry Bonds Marches On)

Sports fans have considerable forbearance. Year after year they endure escalating ticket prices, the abomination known as seat licensing and the implied mandate that taxpayers should foot the bill for the new stadium or arena that will absolutely revive downtown. They watch their favorite players come and go through free agency and trades, and see their managers and coaches get shuffled like playing cards. They cringe as the news crawl on their screen reports a heinous transgression committed by their son's hero, whose replica jersey just lightened their wallet considerably. But they come back, because the games matter to them, and because sports fosters a sense of hope.

Hope seemed in short supply last week, though, as a perfect storm of malfeasance rocked the worlds of baskets, blockers and bats. While pro sports have taken hits before, these were devastating blows, less to their solar plexus than to their very soul. And if you've long ago lost your capacity for outrage--the O.J. Simpson trial, after all, was 12 years ago--then put yourselves in the wingtips of the men who run the Big Three.

> As of Monday night, NBA commissioner David Stern, who preaches nothing so much as the integrity of his game and the excellence of his referees, was expected to step up to a podium in New York City on Tuesday morning and confirm one of his greatest nightmares: The league is cooperating with the FBI in the investigation of referee Tim Donaghy, who over the last two seasons allegedly was coerced by organized crime members into shaving points. Donaghy is also suspected of gambling on games he officiated and supplying inside information to gamblers. The 13-year-vet, who has resigned, will eventually surrender to federal authorities. Stern was also expected to say that no other refs were under investigation and that the NBA did not know the feds were looking at Donaghy until after the Finals in June. Donaghy refereed five postseason games this spring.

> NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, whose first year on the job has brought new meaning to the phrase "baptism by fire," was dealing with the federal indictment of one of the league's marquee players, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, on charges that he was involved in a multistate dogfighting operation run from a house Vick owned in Smithfield, Va. Goodell came under fire for not taking immediate action given the shocking revelations in the July 17 indictment, which alleges, among other transgressions, that Vick and two codefendants killed underperforming dogs by hanging, drowning or slamming them to the ground (page 38). People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals picketed the league office last Friday, and 61% of those who responded to an SI.com poll said they thought Vick should be suspended from the NFL for life if he is convicted. On Monday, Goodell ordered Vick not to report to Falcons training camp pending the NFL's review of the indictment. While the more gruesome allegations have gotten most of the attention, sources say the league also wants to further probe the extent to which Vick was involved in gambling and consorting with known gamblers.

> Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, meanwhile, girded for the final installment of the melodrama When Bud Met Barry. Or, as the case might be, When Bud Did Not Meet Barry. Selig was not in attendance in San Francisco on Monday night when Barry Bonds and the Giants began a three-game set against the Atlanta Braves. After that game Bonds was still two home runs shy of Hank Aaron's alltime record of 755, and Selig wasn't saying if or when he would show up to place the crown of home run king on an ill-tempered, 43-year-old outfielder who allegedly began taking steroids after the 1998 season and is the subject of an ongoing federal probe.

In the grand scheme, Selig's dilemma pales beside the nightmares facing Stern and Goodell. If you're scoring at home--and this might be like ranking the Seven Deadlies--it would be basketball, then football, then baseball. There was even a comic element to the home run saga. Selig, who attended Bonds's homerless weekend games in Milwaukee, spoke with reporters for eight minutes last Friday and never uttered the slugger's name. Imagine George Bush facing the White House media without mentioning Iraq. Yet the issues in the three sports dovetail in this respect: All involve the federal government, meaning they're no joke. Which didn't stop Bonds's lawyer, Michael Rains, from acting positively gleeful last weekend when he learned that a federal grand jury investigating his client for perjury and tax evasion had been extended for six months. "I'll outmaneuver them at every turn," Rains told the New York Daily News. "I've kicked their ass in private, I'll continue to kick their ass in public." Nothing says national pastime like a legal mouthpiece playing mine's-bigger with the feds.

Somewhere last week NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was lounging in his deck chair with a tall cocktail and a photo of Sidney Crosby at his side, saying, "Who cares that the Food Channel gets better ratings than the Stanley Cup finals?"

For the NBA, the hope must be that Donaghy, if found guilty, is a singular case, a lone ref who got himself into financial difficulty because of gambling debts and tried to worm his way out of it. But the violation of public trust will no doubt further damage a game that already suffers from sinking TV ratings--2007 marked the league's lowest-rated Finals series ever--and the perception that the quality of play has diminished over the last decade. Will Corporate America continue to knock down hors d'oeuvres in the luxury suites? Will an international fan base, still in puppy love with the NBA's larger-than-life stars, stop buying jerseys?

Or worse: What if Donaghy was conspiring with players or other refs? What if Donaghy's calls had a direct impact on determining the championship? The NBA, remember, has long been suspected by the conspiratorially minded of rigging the outcome of games and drafts, with Stern as the master manipulator. Never mind the myriad evidence that he has no such control, starting with the fact that the San Antonio Spurs, far from a bright-lights-big-city team that would command max attention, have won two draft lotteries and four NBA titles. The perception exists. And though it is little remembered, Donaghy is not the first NBA ref connected to gamblers. In 1951 the NBA suspended Sol Levy after he was arrested and charged with conspiring to fix three games during the 1950-51 season. (His conviction was later overturned by a higher court.)

The organic connection between basketball refs and the game is closer than it is with officials in any other sport. "Uh-oh, we got so-and-so tonight" is a comment you often hear in NBA locker rooms when the referees are announced. Some are seen as predisposed toward home teams, some are known for having personality conflicts with certain players. Donaghy allegedly alerted gamblers as to which referees were working specific games, information that is not supposed to be public until shortly before tip-off.