RUNNING AMOK: Pacman Jones may finally be suspended for his misdeeds.

Leader of the Pac
The hardest-working man in sports these days has to be Worrick Robinson, lawyer for the 23 year-old wunderkind of sports jurisprudence, Adam “Pacman” Jones. New England sports fans last saw Pacman eviscerating the punt coverage team for our one-minute-too-soon hometown heroes, the Patriots, on the last game of the NFL regular season. But to the rest of the nation, Pacman is known as a rising icon of sports crime, the obvious heir apparent to past superstars like Lawrence Phillips, Isaiah Rider, and Daryl Strawberry.

Pacman has been arrested about a million times before. In college, he was busted after a fight in Morgantown, West Virginia, in which he allegedly beat someone with a pool cue. Two years later, at a Nashville Sports banquet, he had to be counseled by police after he was forced to wait for his vehicle by valet parking. Pacman went berserk and ultimately refused to pay any parking fees. Later, police filed a petition to extend Pacman’s probation after he failed to show up to appointments. Soon after, he was hit with a DisCon/public intoxication charge after allegedly spitting on a woman in a bar in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In October of last year, he was busted again for spitting on a woman in a Tennessee nightclub called Mystic.

Pacman is now embroiled in another nightclub scandal, although this one is far more serious. As has been volubly documented, Pacman went to a strip club called Minxx in Las Vegas, where the Titans corner was partying during NBA all-star weekend festivities. He reportedly brought about $81 grand in cash and at one point starting “making it rain,” as it’s called in strip lingo, showering the stage with dollar bills. When some of the strippers made the mistake of picking up the money without Pacman’s permission — again, according to witnesses at the scene — Pacman allegedly went nuts and starting bashing a stripper’s head against the ground. At that point, security guard Aaron Cudworth tried to break up the fracas, and Pacman allegedly told him, “I’m going to kill you.”

A brawl ensued, and sometime later gunshots rang out in the club. Cudworth, a female customer, and another security guard named Tom Urbanski were hit. Urbanski ended up being paralyzed when a bullet hit his spine.

Pacman has denied that he knows the shooter and police have not yet called him a suspect. But the strip-club manager claims that the shooter was part of Pacman’s entourage. “He denied any knowledge of the shooter, but he was sitting right next to him,” club co-owner Robert Susnar said. “Those guys came in together and left together.”

There are already murmurs that Pacman is going to be suspended for at least a year by the NFL, and it seems likely that he’ll be charged with something at some point. No matter what, Pacman emerges from this incident as the reigning symbol of everything that’s wrong with professional sports. This guy spits in a woman’s face at the beginning of the season, gets busted for it, goes back and does exactly the same thing later in the same season, and he’s still playing in the last game? What does a guy have to do to get a real suspension in this league?

Oh, right — paralyze someone. You gotta have standards.

I’m giving Pacman a 90 for this one. If he ends up getting more charges, that number might go up. Braining a stripper, getting three people shot, and lying about all of it, that puts him pretty near Rae Carruth territory.

World’s lamest theft ring
All you need for this story is the headline: UNLV ATHLETES, CHEERLEADER, ARRESTED IN ABERCROMBIE & FITCH THEFT RING.

The tally is five football players, two members of the women’s track team, and a cheerleader, all of whom were arrested for stealing over $3,400 in Abercrombie merch. Apparently the crew used a cashier to help them sneak bags and bags of crappy youth wear out of Caesar’s Palace.

What’s next — the Florida State d-line jacking an Orange Julius? Once upon a time, football players at least stole cool clothes.

When he’s not googling “criminal wunderkinds” and “illegal Abercrombie duds,” Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone. He can be reached at M_Taibbi@yahoo.com .

The top-ten tally for this year:
LaVon Chisley, Penn State: murder 99
Steve Swindal, Yankees: DUI 98
Pacman Jones, Titans: TBA 90
Murietta jocks, Murietta: Fight Club 75
6 Football Players, Guilford: assault 50 (downgraded)
Kat. Maekawa, Orix Buffaloes: DUI, hit/run 47
Ronnie Fields, Minot Skyrockets: sex assault 40
Ron Artest, Sacramento Kings: starving Socks 35
Lionel Sullivan, BGSU: stealing video games, being a dumbass 31
Mike Tyson, NA: DUI, coke 26