Inmates Really Do Run the Asylum

layers have been getting managers and/or coaches fired for years. Magic Johnson handed Paul Westhead his own ax; Michael Jordan precipitated Doug Collins’ pink slip (Remember? In Chicago.). As underhanded and despicable as those situations were, at least most of the players involved were superstars.

A couple weeks ago, a little-known journeyman pitcher, Dan Miceli of the Florida Marlins, cried his John Boles right out the door. Although the company line by Marlins’ GM Dave Dombrowski (that’s pronounced "Dum"browski if you’re keeping score) was that the firing was a mutual decision, the timing was just too coincidental.

Just one day prior, Miceli chastised Boles and his staff for not having enough "major league experience." Who is Miceli to talk? Check out these numbers during Miceli’s so-called major league experience:

2001 0-5 7.23 ERA

Career 31-31 4.71 ERA

Certainly stellar-enough stats to earn him the right to determine his manager’s fate. On the day Boles was canned, Miceli gave up a game-tying, three-run homer to Pirates secondbaseman Pat Meares, leading to a Marlins 8-5 loss in Pittsburgh. I guess he was too pre-occupied with rendering his field general an ex-manager.

This sad trend has become more and more rampant in sports today, a player blabbing to the media with self-serving complaints. I wonder what would happen to you and I if we took our work complaints to the local press. Think we would still be employed the next day?

During the latter stages of the Bucks-Sixers Eastern conference donnybrook, a few Bucks players (namely Ray Allen) and their head coach, George Karl, raised suspicions of a so-called conspiracy against small-market teams. They cited unbalanced officiating as proof that the NBA preferred an Iverson-Lakers NBA Finals matchup over a Big Three-Lakers contest. As some of you know, I am a Milwaukee native and longtime Bucks fan. So my sentiments aren’t devoid of bias.

That being said, I do not believe there is this vast, grassy knoll conspiracy. Stern doesn’t call referees, Bill Walton and Ahmad Rashad into the dark, remote room to devise a strategy to add one last numeric to the Bucks’ loss column. That doesn’t mean there isn’t bias, or that the referees, David Stern, and NBC don’t play favorites. What did the Bucks comments earn them? $85,000 in fines levied by Stu Jackson. Ray Allen himself put it as succinctly as anybody, when he said:

"I think there's no question. The league, as a marketing machine, the bottom line is about making money. It behooves everybody for the league to make more money, and the league knows that Philadelphia is going to make more money with L.A. than we would with L.A. Nine times out of 10, when you have a referee you know there's no biases. But in the back of everybody's minds, it's like Philadelphia and the MVP Allen Iverson needs to play in the finals."

For those comments, Allen was fined $10,000. Nothing in that statement was false. Stern wouldn’t look at it that way. Not the most marketing-minded commissioner in sports history. Several media pundits laughed and ridiculed Allen’s comments. This is the same media entrusted to nurture players into being the NBA’s poster boys for the next generation of fandom. Not to mention all the sympathy and hero worship when the so-called injured Iverson fought his way past the Bucks for a date with Kobe and Shaq (also known as Lakers).

We all know there are biases, and the rope between bias and conspiracy is a long one. But none of these league puppets even ventured to question that maybe the rope isn’t all that infinite. Dan Patrick, Mike Greenberg, Tony Kornheiser – too many to mention – Mike Lupica, Jeffrey Denberg, etc. etc .. didn’t even insinuate that maybe, just maybe, something was amiss. Instead of using what little intellect they have to address specific issues aired by Bucks players (namely unbalanced officiating on the court), these pompous, over-paid mouths and scribes chose to blow off the comments as whining.

The words they had trouble distinguishing were conspiracy and bias. It was one of their own who ushered in the term conspiracy during a post-game interview. Ray Allen et al merely ceased the opportunity to voice some legitimate concerns over the way the referees tilted their calls towards the team that holds the latest NBA darling, Allen Iverson.

When you combine Stern, the media, and yes, some referees, there’s ample reason to suspect a smoking gun. The second-thought, game-seven suspension of Bucks forward Scott Williams should be satisfactory enough to launch a query. The dilemma is that the mediums most trusted to investigate and scrutinize are part of the problem.

You think that one of them would ask the following: "If that would have been Mutombo who delivered that forearm (as Williams did to Iverson), would he have been kicked out of game 7?" They won’t because it would lend credence to what the Bucks chipped out of the NBA woodwork. Remember, this is the same media that didn’t question how injured Iverson really was after that remarkable recovery following game three. Instead, they clamored about how gutsy and competitive he was.

Again, I am a Bucks fan through and through. I believe that, for most of the series, the referees did a decent job. Some particulars, however, cannot be ignored. First off, Ervin Johnson of the Bucks was whistled for almost as many fouls in one game (6) as Mutombo received for the entire series (7). Seven fouls in seven games for an elbow-swinging shot blocker? I doubt Mutombo scores that much higher than Johnson on the finesse meter.

At the end of game five (a game the Bucks should have won anyway), Jason Caffey of the Bucks was called for an offensive foul while setting a hard pick – with just over a minute to play and a slim Sixers’ one-point lead. That type of call was not made throughout the contest, and you and I both know that several players get away with hard picks on screens. So why blow the whistle at that juncture? Again, it was Jason Caffey. Would they have cited Mutombo for the same type of play? There’s no denying that the Bucks played sub-par down the stretch. In other words, the Sixers needed no help.

Let’s address the Scott Williams incident. I’m not 100% sure that I disagree with the NBA’s next-day ruling. The problem is that if that would have been Mutombo nailing Lindsay Hunter, would Dikembe have watched game seven from his hotel room? I think not. You see, the problem isn’t only whether or not a call should be made. It’s that the same call isn’t being made on both ends of the court.

Several more subtle instruments of bias and bents lurk beneath the murky surface. I only wish that the 76ers triumph over the Bucks was 100% pure and honest. Then again, with the declining product on the floor, Stern has to do something to save his superstar-centered league.

During Stern’s tenure as commish, nothing has mattered but marketing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But when the media catalyzes Stern’s plan and the refs continue to play favorites, we begin to see that maybe that rope isn’t that long after all. We’ll see if anybody in the mainstream media has the guts to climb it before Stern and his posse laden it with more grease.

Be careful! The rope can get mighty slick this time of year.