SI: Game-fixing and dogfighting rock pro sports

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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jack_mccallum/07/24/sports.crises0730/index.html

Game-Fixing and Dogfighting Rock Pro Sports
As commissioners cope with point-shaving allegations against an NBA ref, the federal indictment of a marquee NFL quarterback and baseball's home run dilemma, it's the fans who are being cheated

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. 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 *** in private, I'll continue to kick their *** 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.)

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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.

No league can know everything about the private lives of its employees, but one league source says, "When I heard that a referee was in trouble with gambling, I knew right away it was Donaghy." The 40-year-old ref, who worked 131 regular-season and 20 playoff games the past two seasons, had been in hot water before. In January 2005 his next-door neighbors in suburban Philadelphia sued him for harassment and invasion of privacy. Peter and Lisa Mansueto claimed that Donaghy vandalized their property and stalked them, even to the point of following Lisa around Radley Run Country Club, where Donaghy and the Mansuetos were members. After an internal investigation Donaghy was suspended from Radley Run for the summer and early fall of 2004. The suit also alleged that Donaghy set fire to the Mansuetos' lawn mower and crashed their golf cart into a ravine. (The suit was dropped when Donaghy moved with his wife and four children to Florida later in 2005.)

Stern may have no choice but to review all of the games Donaghy worked since 2005-06 -- including Game 3 of the '07 Western Conference semifinals, in which All-Star center Amaré Stoudemire of the Phoenix Suns played only 21 minutes because of foul trouble, and the Spurs won 108-101, covering the 4 1/2-point spread. Conventional wisdom holds that crooked refs (and, for that matter, crooked players) normally are not trying to affect wins and losses, but, rather, attempting to subtly influence the point spread. But a dirty ref who makes bogus calls at key moments might do both, even altering the course of the playoffs. "Every player is going to try to remember their games that he worked," says forward Mark Madsen, the player rep for the Minnesota Timberwolves. "If there were any close games or late calls, players are definitely going to think about that. This is bad."

Whatever the ultimate decision is on Vick, Goodell cannot ignore the culture of cruelty that infects his sport. When the Vick story became public, Redskins running back Clinton Portis told a Washington-area TV station, "I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property, it's his dogs." Portis also expressed the learned opinion that if dogfighting is held behind closed doors, then it's O.K. (He eventually apologized for his statements.) And last week former Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, the NFL's alltime rushing leader, opined that authorities are using Vick to get at others. "He's the biggest fish in the whole doggone pond right now," Smith said at his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, "so they're putting the squeeze on him."

As difficult as it is to disbelieve a Dancing with the Stars champion, the portrait of Vick as either a victim or a bit player does not ring true. If the charges in the indictment are valid, Vick was the bankroll behind Bad Newz Kennels, the dogfighting business he formed with three old friends. According to the indictment, Vick was involved in numerous high-stakes dogfights, and as recently as April he and two of his associates executed about eight dogs in ways that stunned John Goodwin, an animal-fighting expert for the Humane Society of the United States. "Why would someone kill a dog this way?" asks Goodwin. "The only reason I can think of is that they took some pleasure in it, which is just sick."

What should Goodell do about the alleged goings-on at 1915 Moonlight Road, an address that now carries a gothic chill? It's certain he will not follow the rhetorical path blazed by Robert Byrd, the canine-loving octogenarian senator from West Virginia, who in a speech on the Senate floor on July 19 thundered, "I am confident that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God's creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt!" But neither would Goodell be wise to ignore the brutality in Vick's alleged participation in this barbarous activity, especially considering the commissioner's new-sheriff-in-town persona. Since April he has suspended Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam (Pacman) Jones (five arrests and 10 police interviews since he entered the league in 2005) for the upcoming season and given Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson and Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry eight-game suspensions for repeated legal malfeasance. (Johnson has since been cut by the Bears.)

For Goodell, Vick poses a more vexing problem. Though Pacman has the video-game nickname, it is the Falcons quarterback whose likeness adorned the cover of the 2004 version of Madden NFL. Vick's broken-field scamper was a can't-miss feature of a Nike commercial that seemed to spool nonstop through the public consciousness a couple of years ago. Peyton Manning may be the face of the league, but Vick is still an important cog in the marketing machinery, even if many of his endorsements -- Coke, EA, Hasbro, Kraft -- have dried up in the last few years.

Selig has been on the defensive ever since BALCO became as familiar to baseball fans as fielder's choice . Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, both of whom embarrassed themselves while testifying to Congress about steroid use, are gone from the game, but Bonds remains.

Even if it is eventually proved in court that he did bulk up because of illegal steroid use -- which Bonds continues to deny despite mountainous evidence that suggests otherwise -- the argument could be made that his behavior pales in comparison to that of a referee who allegedly cheated and an athlete who allegedly executed animals. But the Bonds saga has, to some degree, sucked the lifeblood out of baseball. We can't be sure what impact Donaghy and Vick will have on their respective sports, but in the eyes of much of the public, a cheat will soon possess a record once held by Babe Ruth, the game's first titan, and Hank Aaron, a humble man admired as much for his grace under pressure as for his feats on the field.

What's a commissioner to do? If Selig, like Caesar's wife, pays heed to portents, the decision whether to head to San Francisco must have been made tougher by an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.2 that jolted the Bay Area last Friday (no one was killed), a possible sign that the gods were waiting for Barry's 756th. But whether or not the commissioner would be there to shake Bonds's hand, it's likely that a little voice inside him is saying, Keep hitting home runs, Alex Rodriguez. Your day will come.

That is one of the eternal blessings of sport: Someone always comes along to make it better. And those involved in the game, like the fans who watch them, have a great capacity to play through psychic pain. Nowhere was this more evident than in Las Vegas last weekend as Team USA prepared for the Olympic qualifying tournament in August. Players and coaches were instructed not to talk about Donaghy, and for the most part basketball topics carried the day. At a boisterous dinner at an Italian restaurant, attended by USA Basketball honcho Jerry Colangelo, U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski, assistants Mike D'Antoni of the Phoenix Suns and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, and new Seattle SuperSonics coach P.J. Carlesimo, the talk was mostly of talent and strategy. The dreaded name of Donaghy was seldom spoken.

But an NBA staffer put the evening in perspective. "I'm having a good time on the outside," he said, "but inside my heart hurts." Millions of fans know the feeling.