Personally foul
Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy walked the federal plank this past week, pleading to two big gambling counts (conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting wagering information through interstate commerce) that could earn him up to 25 years in a federal pen. (Which he’d better hope is a Supermax facility on the moon, considering how many angry Suns fans are lurking around these days. And don’t think he’ll be blowing whistles in the joint, either.)
Donaghy faces sentencing on November 9. He’s reportedly ready to name up to 20 other refs who have violated league rules by participating in gambling activity — NBA employees are prohibited from all forms of wagering, other than off-season visits to the race track — but as of right now it seems like Donaghy’s the only one who bet on basketball. Even legal casino gambling could get an NBA ref fired, though, and losing 20 officials — a third of the league’s total staff — just a few months before games are scheduled to start could cripple pro hoops.
Give Donaghy 58 points (and he probably bet that we’d give him 85 or more, so now we’re just fucking with him), mainly for being a degenerate gambling-addict tool. Why can’t he just smoke crack like everyone else? What a loser.
Scoring note
We’ve made an adjustment to our leader board for the year. Wife-strangler Julio Mateo had been sitting in 10th place with 80 points while the Mariners buried him in triple-A following his arrest. But now that he has been traded to the Phillies and is being fast-tracked to the big leagues, he gets five points added to his score. Why? Because the Phillies this off-season started a partnership with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, initiating an education program for all its players, in an attempt to overcome the bad PR the team suffered after allowing pitcher Brett Myers to start a game one day after beating his wife up on the streets of Boston. Great, but now they bring in Mateo — whom the Mariners refused to allow to pitch in the big leagues after his crime — to sit in a bullpen with Myers? Two wife-chokers in the same bullpen? Yeah, they must be really committed to their fight against domestic violence. Bad move for the Phils — and bump Mateo up to 85 points.
When he’s not googling “bat attacks” and “hoops incarcerations,” Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone. He can be reached atM_Taibbi@yahoo.com.
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We’ve had some real winners light up the crime blotter this year.
- Jason returns
As next week will feature a Friday the 13th, it’s time to check in on the NBA’s very own Jason, Tim Donaghy.
- Cheating rules!
Maybe we shouldn’t lament the sundry scandals that have made 2007 the Year of the Cheater.
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Remember Willie Williams?
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The Houston Texans are like the soy cheese of the sporting world.
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The Texas Longhorns have been a real gift to the sports-crime-reporting industry of late.
- Skell of the year
Much less funny than usual, was 2007.
- Rocket science
Tough, tough summer for the Houston Rockets, arrest-wise.
- And one
Let’s play a game — it’s called “Celebrity Take-the-Hint.”
- Off point
Lots of class being shown this year by New York–area point guards.
- Can't drive 55
This past week, we snared an early candidate for the next Justin Miller Award, given to the athlete who most bollockses up his professional-draft status with an avoidable pre-draft arrest.
- Less
Topics:
Sports
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, Baseball, Sports, NBA Pacific Division, NBA Western Conference, Pennsylvania State University, Men's Professional Basketball, AFC South Division, Tennessee Titans, Adam "Pacman" Jones, AFC West Division, Less
