Conspiracy
theories are the rage in the U.S.A., so I’m glad to report
the demise of one. Debunking is tough because it’s hard to prove a negative,
but I think it’s safe to say that the National Basketball Association no longer
labors under the cloud that its playoffs and other functions are fixed for the
New York Knicks to win. Forty nine years of no championships for the Garden
dwellers, and just one playoffs appearance in the last nine seasons, seem
finally to have put it to rest. Now, I guess, the L.A. Lakers have become the
focus of the whispers, but they also didn’t make the current POs, so even those
have been muted.
The
genre, however, is far from dead. Indeed, it seems to have expanded to make
victims of just about every team in the league, and those in our other major
sports, too. To hear the players, most broadcasters and many fans tell it, the
referees and umpires have it in for everybody, and lay in wait to loose their
venom at the most hurtful times. The cry “We wuz robbed!” reverberates through
the land.
Don’t believe me? Then check out the next NBA
playoff game you see. Every time a foul is called the perpetrator lifts his
eyes to heaven and raises his arms in disbelief, astonished to be so unfairly
accused. If it’s a home-team player the audience responds similarly. It happens
so often you’d think they’d get worn out, but one outrage just seems to fuel
the next.
I hate
to get political here, even in a general sense, but I think what’s happening is
that the ultrapartisanship that affects our politics has gravitated to sports.
Paranoia is up, as are many forms of nastiness. Twice during the just-concluded
NBA playoff between the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks players reported that
their wives, girlfriends or moms had been insulted or worse by opposing fans in
the stands during games, and players and fans in that and in other series have
traded barbs directly. We Americans used to feel superior to the European and
South American soccer fans who experience their loyalties viscerally, but we’re
heading in that direction.
You
might think that sports-media pros would bring cooler heads to the frays, but
many don’t. I see baseball games from around the country by way of the game’s
Extra Innings cable-TV package and must report that homerism is rampant,
affecting every facet of the broadcasts.
Rooting from the baseball TV and radio booths
is old stuff, dating back to my distant youth (Bert Wilson used to say he
didn’t care who won as long as it was the Cubs), but in memory it used to have
a joking aspect. Today it’s expressed by continual complaints about the
umpiring, specifically about how all the close calls are going against whatever
team the broadcaster works for. Even the electronic strike-zone box most games
feature on television, and the microscopic analysis of plays subject to video
review, don’t quiet the bitching; when a call goes against the homies it’s
often explained away as too close to really determine.
It's no wonder that the NBA
playoffs have amplified the bad-call mania. The NBA regular season is too long,
meaning that many contests are desultory, but there’s little of that in the
POs. Players and fans are keyed up, and the
familiarity bred by the best-of-seven format heightens individual animosities.
Making it worse is that in the playoffs the league
and its officials seem to do what the broadcasters call “let the boys play.” Fans seem to like that in principle but in
practice the phrase translates to “let the boys foul.” NBA basketball is played by large, fast and
muscular men who make the courts look small, and there’s so much banging around
in the normal course of things that fouls could be called on just about every
play. Not calling some of the usual fouls leads to greater feelings of
unfairness about the ones that are called. The question then becomes how much
is too much, and the answer varies widely. Where to draw the line on how often or
hard Joel Embiid or Luca Doncic can bang his shoulder into an opponent’s chest
to improve his position? Depends on who you’re rooting for. Booooo!
Do the refs, umps, etc., make mistakes?
Of course they do, as do players, coaches, sportswriters, accountants and
surgeons. But are they intentional and directed toward helping or hurting certain
teams? Zero evidence for that. Only once in the annals of modern big-time
American sports has a game official being found to have used his position to
alter games’ outcomes. That would be the case of NBA ref Tim Donaghy, who spent
15 months in prison for fixing games in 2006 and 2007. As far as is known his
actions were aimed at benefiting only himself, by way of his bets.
I’ve known refs and umps professionally and
socially. My nephew, David Trachtenberg, referees high school basketball and
volleyball games in and around Denver, where he lives. By my own and others’
accounts they’re a fine bunch, dedicated to their sports to the exclusion of
other loyalties. Game officials in the NBA and Major League Baseball do well
financially these days, earning between $150,000 and $500,000 a year depending
on seniority, but they got their starts working high-school or kids’-league
games for, maybe, 50 bucks per, if they were lucky. Without them those games
wouldn’t be possible. Their fraternity should be cheered on that ground alone.