America’s big three blighted by betting, blood sport and boos

Ah, for the sounds of the American summer. Not the sweet crack of a baseball bat launching a home run, or the gasp of admiration of a missile from Tiger Woods as it bisects a fairway 300 yards away - but the whimpers of bloodied and dying dogs, the relentless booing of a suspect superstar, and the thud of criminal indictments dropping onto a lawyer’s desk.

For sports fans in the US, this is the summer of scandal. Baseball, football and basketball: all are in the mire. A steroid-tainted Barry Bonds labours towards the most hallowed record in baseball when half of those who follow the sport wish he would simply disappear into a hole in the ground. Michael Vick, the thrilling quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, is charged with running a dogfighting ring that inflicts unspeakable cruelty on the poor animals bred to take part. And now a top basketball referee is accused of links with the mob and of betting on games in which he took part.

ESPN, the sports cable TV, has even run a poll to determine which of the scandals its viewers find most disturbing. Its findings are instructive.

Bonds’ transgressions come a distant third, at just 15 per cent. Vick, somewhat surprisingly, manages only second place, despite the public outrage and revulsion at the criminal activity with which he is linked. Judged worst of the three, by no less than 45 per cent of respondents, is the gambling of which Tim Donaghy, who has been officiating at NBA games for 13 years, is soon to be charged by the FBI.

On reflection, however, judged through a purely sporting prism, the outcome makes good sense. The allegations against Bonds, as he approaches Hank Aaron’s career home run record of 755, have been around for three years or more. Vick’s extracurricular pursuits, however repulsive, do not affect his on-field performance. But news last week of Donaghy’s betting was not only a bolt from the blue. It calls into question the basic assumption without which competitive sport is meaningless: that the game you are watching is a genuine contest. Instead a terrible suspicion surrounds the sport graced by Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan: has the fix been in all along?

Yes, you could say the same of drugs in baseball, America’s answer to the Tour de France and the scandal that - at least until Vick - had made Bonds America’s most hated sports star. The joyful climate in which the nation awaits his feat may be divined from a recent exchange with the media pack that trails his every step. “You all hate me anyway. I don’t know why you’re here - most of you say whatever nasty things you say about me anyway. And if you really believe all the things you write, why are you talking to me?”

The mood has not been improved by word that the federal grand jury investigating the player for tax evasion and perjury over his steroid denials has just had its mandate extended for six months and a report in at least one US newspaper that prosecutors now believe they have enough evidence to secure an indictment.

Vickhas already been indicted. On Thursday, a Virginia court set a trial date of 26 November, as the player pleaded not guilty to charges that carry a possible six-year jail sentence and a $350,000 (£171,500) fine.

The 18-page indictment sets out in nauseating detail how Vick was present as dogs that didn’t measure up were dealt with - drowned, smashed into the ground, or in one case doused with water and electrocuted. Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, has told Vick to stay away from pre-season training with the Atlanta Falcons, while a former deputy US Attorney General is helping the League decide how to deal with the case. Whatever happens, however, the career of one of the NFL’s most glittering stars - think Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard for a Premiership comparison - is in jeopardy.

But basketball potentially faces the most damage. NFL players, alas, have long been no strangers to police charge sheets, while a cloud has hung over Bonds ever since the Balco drugs scandal broke in 2003. And not only that: the fans may dislike Bonds the man, but they are ambivalent about steroids.

The home run slugger, even with chemical assistance, is still the sport’s biggest draw. The crisis casts doubt on baseball’s most sacred records - but not on its competitive credibility.

Its most enduring disgrace is not drug use, but the Chicago “Black Sox” and the thrown World Series of 1919, when its showcase event was rigged by the gamblers. Baseball will countenance anything, except the merest whiff of betting. It is why Pete Rose has been banned from the sport for life and barred from the Hall of Fame, even though he is the all-time leader in hits. Rose’s sin was to bet on the Cincinnati Reds while he first played for and then managed them in the 1970s and 1980s, even though there is no evidence he manipulated results to line his, or anyone else’s pocket.

Now a similar nightmare faces the NBA. Sports betting in the US - whether in its legal form in Las Vegas and Atlantic City or illegally elsewhere (including, since 2006, the Internet) - is a multibillion dollar business.

Some sports, like boxing, have long been tainted by ties with gambling and organised crime. But since 1919, the “big three” have been clean. Or have they? Every sign is that, as it has struggled to recapture the glories (and the TV ratings) of the Jordan era, basketball has been looking in the wrong direction. Its focus has been on improving the on- and off-court conduct of its players. The NBA might have been better running a rule on the people who run its games.

Donaghy, according to David Stern, the NBA’s commissioner, is a one-off, “an isolated case”. But the normally sublimely self-confident Stern cut a chastened and sombre figure at a press conference this week. It was, he confessed “the most serious situation and the worst situation” in his 23 years in charge of the league. “I can’t believe this is happening to us.” No charges have yet been filed. But matters may get worse when the former referee turns himself in to the federal authorities, probably early next week, and if, as seems likely, he agrees to cooperate with FBI investigators.

As for motive, one can only speculate. Envy perhaps? Though Donaghy was paid $260,000 (£127,000) last year, that sum is barely a week’s wages for some of the petulant stars he manages on court. Or was he simply a compulsive gambler - who had in fact been seen placing bets at an Atlantic City casino back in 2005, in violation of NBA rules?

The real question, though, is not so much whether he gambled. Did he actually fix games, for the benefit of himself or gambling syndicates? A referee certainly has plenty of scope to do so. The most common basketball bet is for or against a “line” set by bookmakers for a game - that one team will win by a certain number of points. “Bulls -5″, for instance, means that the Chicago Bulls (Jordan’s old team) are favoured by five points. Bet on the Bulls and they have to win by more than that for you to win as well. If a flood of bets comes in on one side, the line will be adjusted accordingly.

Another frequent wager is an “over-under” bet; that the combined points total for a quarter, a half, or a whole game will be above or below a predetermined figure. Again, a tide of bets either over or under will cause oddsmakers to shift that figure.

A referee can easily manipulate scores by calling dubious fouls, forcing a team to bench its best players, and allowing the other team extra free-throw scoring opportunities. At least a dozen Donaghy games are under scrutiny, and some possible anomalies have already been noted. Over the past two seasons, he awarded more free throws than any other NBA referee.

According to the sports betting website Pregame.com, the first 15 games of the 2006-2007 season refereed by Donaghy that drew enough bets to move the line 1.5 points or more “were perfect against Las Vegas - meaning the big-money gamblers won 15 times out of 15 on his games”. Although there is no suggestion of wrongdoing, the odds against that happening, claims Pregame.com, are 32,768-1.

For others however, the evidence is less conclusive. Had the discrepancies been that glaring and that frequent, someone would surely have raised a red flag. After all, the NBA monitors every game minutely to make sure fouls have been called correctly. Ultimately, without details only Donaghy and/or any accomplices can provide, nothing is provable in law.

But in terms of faith dented, suspicions aroused and reputations unjustly tarred, Stern is right to talk of “a betrayal of the most sacred trust in professional sports.” After Donaghy, basketball fans will wonder darkly about every referee and every questionable foul call. As for the players, Shaquille O’Neal - center for the Miami Heat and one of the most dominant players of his era - summed up their feelings to the Washington Post last weekend. “How many games did he throw that I played in?” Even if Donaghy is a single rotten apple, and no game-fixing is proved, the damage to basketball will not be quickly undone.

But Stern is not the only major league sports boss who must do some soul-searching. As he wonders whether and how enthusiastically to attend the games at which Bonds might equal and break Aaron’s record (he is two behind on 753 at the time of writing), the baseball commissioner Bud Selig should ask himself how his sport for so long turned a blind eye to steroids. Bond’s late-career power surge was only the culmination of the freakish home run explosion of the late 1990s, which won back fans disgusted by the players’ strike of 1994-1995. The suspicions were glaring. But until Balco left it no choice, baseball’s high command did nothing.

And what of Roger Goodell at the NFL? There had been talk for years that some players were linked to dogfighting, a felony in 48 of the 50 states. How come this was missed amid the disciplinary clampdown on errant NFL players that has already seen one suspended for the entire 2007 season?

But that is just one question unanswered in this amazing summer of sporting scandal.