Commentary : What’s Coming Next . . . NFL Game-Fixing?

My first reaction was, “Danny White? Right. And he’s selling the cocaine to Tom Landry, who snorts it with Roger Staubach over at Ross Perot’s mansion Sunday mornings before Cowboy games.”

The latest fun-and-games allegation sounds that ludicrous. Three Cowboys, including quarterback White, and two ex-Cowboys have been accused of throwing games for cocaine. They had to deny “the third-hand hearsay of a convicted criminal,” says Larry Wansley, the team’s security chief.

So tell us, Danny, when did you stop beating your wife? That’s how unfair these questions can be. Especially for America’s Teamers, who are neon targets for scandalous rumors. “You get everybody’s attention when you say Dallas Cowboys,” Wansley said.

And that’s just what The Miami News got last Wednesday when it neoned a story others wouldn’t run or air for lack of sufficient evidence. By afternoon-drive time, radio stations across America urgently aired the story’s first couple of bombshell paragraphs. Many stations just don’t have time for the essential details.

I’ll bet lots of Americans suspected the allegations are true.

And that’s just the point.

These days of our lives, nothing would surprise dedicated sports fans. They hear “cocaine . . . point-shaving . . . Cowboys,” and they sigh and say, “Why not?” Didn’t Tulane basketball players just stand trial for over point-shaving for drugs? Didn’t baseball just stand trial for over widespread cocaine use? Isn’t Chuck Muncie the latest NFL player who can’t keep his nose clean?

These days, it isn’t safe to pick up the sports page. Or, as a sportswriter, to answer your phone. We hear more rumors than ESPN has scores. For five years, we heard rumors about SMU and TCU recruiting. Some proved ludicrous.

Many didn’t. Many people desperately want to believe in TCU Coach Jim Wacker, who hours before firing six Horned Frogs employees said he’d be “the most shocked person in the world” if any Frog was being paid.

Now I’ll believe anything. I wouldn’t need a paramedic if it were proved that pro football players had fixed games so they could get their fix. Ex-Cowboy Pat Toomay has written a novel, “Any Given Sunday,” in which owners, via refs, control point spreads. Fiction based on fact? Dan Jenkins’ latest, “Life Its Own Self,” deals with refs and players shaving points. Pure fiction?

Don’t be shocked if NFL game-fixing is the next sports scandal. Isn’t pro football really a billion-dollar gambling industry? Did CBS hire Jimmy the Greek for his looks? Are “Monday Night” ratings up because America desperately wants to know whether Pittsburgh can beat Cincinnati? For millions, the real question is whether Pittsburgh can win by more than six.

For sure, America needs its sports, its great escape, more than ever, which means more and more money to be won or made. What if you found out some of your sacred Sunday games are no more than pro wrestling?

This isn’t to say there’s an ounce of truth to the latest “Miami Vice” story. The Cowboys and their coaches laughed it off. But maybe it should serve as a league-wide warning.

At least President Tex Schramm said: “If there’s this much attention given to a situation where there’s no basis of truth, the players I’m sure are aware of what kind of attention will be given if there ever is any basis.”

And: “It’s always been a fear of the league’s that a player would get involved in drugs and do something like this.”

And: “I’ve been around long enough to never say something couldn’t happen.”

Landry and White chuckled that it occasionally may look as if they’re throwing games. Well, occasionally it does. After the Cowboys have been blown out by some underdog, bookmakers have called to say that the word from Vegas is that Landry was at it again. Landry! What of White’s four inexplicable turnovers in Detroit’s 26-21 upset? Don’t lots of NFL holding calls seem to come on scoring plays?

Weren’t three of the five Cowboys once linked to a federal drug investigation? Hasn’t Tony Dorsett suffered devastating financial setbacks?

You see, the image-based NFL may have an image problem. Schramm and White strongly advocate drug testing. So do I. No matter how accurate the tests, or what the league legally could do with the results, at least testing would help preserve the NFL’s image, if not integrity.

In the Cowboys’ case, the story sounds even stranger than fiction. Next time, who knows?

The Miami News story sounds wilder than a Pete Gent novel. Again, I’m not trying to give it any credence. But these days, would an NFL point-shaving story shock you?