‘GAMBLING: AMERICA’S NATIONAL PASTIME? / CHARGES, REACTIONS : Welcome to Reality, Sports Fans

Welcome to the Toy Department, as we sportswriters like to refer to the world of sports.

Come on in. Lock the door behind you, please. Throw the dead bolts. Wedge that chair against the knob, if you don’t mind. We’re under siege here.

I read all about it in Sports Illustrated, a rival publication that I wouldn’t normally tout, but I’m going to after reading the current issue, a special report on gambling. You might say they made a mountain out of a mountain.

Too bad. Just when you think all the dirt that can be dug up has been dug up, someone digs up some more, you dig?

Once upon a time, the Toy Department was where you came to get away from reality, to escape from the ugliness of the outside world. Now it seems that it’s getting to be the other way around.

It’s enough to make a person cynical, or at least disillusioned.

Still, this is one article that should be required reading by anyone who plays a sport or is one. Every fan should read it, because it’s probably about you.

It starts off with the rather ambitious allegation that “nothing has done more to despoil the games Americans play and watch than widespread gambling on them.”

How widespread? Don’t ask. Let’s just say millions and millions of gamblers, billions and billions of dollars.

As Heywood Hale Broun once said, “The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.”

It must be, considering that a sizable chunk of the nation’s sports gambling money winds up in the hands of organized crime. Support your neighborhood pusher and prostitute.

It must be evil, considering that gamblers often try to fix games, and more often than any of us know, succeed. It’s easier than you think to buy off a player, or a team, or so the SI article indicates. Pro ballplayers have more money now, sure, but they also are more likely than ever to have a strong appetite for drugs. And when you’re a gambler trying to buy games or points, drugs are legal tender.

This is the kind of news that can take the fun out of reading about Larry Bird’s latest triple double, or Pedro Guerrero’s latest double triple.

It’s beginning to seem the stuff that happens on the stage, under the lights, is inconsequential to what happens backstage, under the table. It’s getting harder and harder to watch the show without wondering how the performance is being affected or altered by what’s going on behind the curtains. It’s like the grammatically incorrect title of the old Johnny Carson TV show: “Who Do You Trust?”

One obvious method of finding relief from all this grief is for the media to stop reporting all the bad stuff, or for you to stop reading it. After a while, the news of drugs, thugs, mobs, cheaters, liars and assorted refuse of sportlife reaches out of your morning newspaper and wraps around you like the tentacles of an octopus.

But the truth is, all that bad news you get from the magazines and newspapers and 11 o’clock news is only the tip of the sleazeberg.

The truth is, also, that the media supports the gambling industry. For every NFL game on television, there is a pregame gambler’s-aid corner, hosted by charming fellows like Pete Axthelm and Jimmy the Greek. Their message is that gambling is fun, socially acceptable and endorsed by the tire, razor-blade and beer manufacturers of America.

Most newspapers are only too happy to feed the habit. You readers want gambling odds, latest lines, point spreads--hey, you got ‘em. At the risk of sounding a little smug, the newspaper I work for is an exception. We print only the bare minimum when it comes to gambling information--the football point spreads once a week--because the people in charge of making such decisions don’t see gambling as an activity to be actively encouraged.

Among major newspapers, the New York Times is about the only other holdout against considerable pressure from the bettors to publish spreads, odds and tips. If given a vote, the majority of readers of both papers would certainly vote in favor of gambling info.

But as John Stuart Mill said, “Beware the tyranny of the majority.”

The problem is that gambling, or betting--a nicer word--has a good image. It’s sanctioned by TV and newspapers, everyone does it, it’s fun, it adds a little excitement to your life, nobody gets hurt, right?

Tobacco used to have the same image. So did cocaine. The truth is that gambling hurts, that most gamblers lose, that a lot of them lose big, and that the house always wins.

Damon Runyon noted that when he wrote, “One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to come to you and show you a nice, brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you stand there, you are going to wind up with an earful of cider.”

Who’s involved in sports gambling?

Who isn’t?

The SI article threw dirt at Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, for “hobnobbing openly” with a man reputed to have ties with gamblers and the mob; and at John Shaw, Ram vice president of finance, for reportedly gambling heavily on sports, and for reportedly gambling on the Rams.

So what’s the big deal? Well, with Lasorda, the big deal is that this pal of his might be involved in a very slimy business, and Lasorda might inadvertently be offering aid and comfort to the enemy. A gambler could pick up a lot of valuable information hanging around Lasorda’s office.

As for Shaw, what he is accused of doing is something that could compromise the integrity of the entire organization. Like Lasorda, Shaw could be supplying useful information to bad guys, accidentally or otherwise. And a man in Shaw’s position can exert subtle influence over players and coaches.

It’s a fairy-tale wish, but it would be nice to be able to believe that the adults in any given sports organization are above the muck. Lord knows, the athletes themselves are far too vulnerable.

In college sports, for instance, many of the big stars are so undereducated and overexploited that they can be fat targets for the gamblers. Shoot, the kids know that they’re being exploited anyway, that they’re breaking rules. Why not hire out to the highest-bidding exploiter?

These doggone kids should learn ethics. But from whom? From the recruiters who break the rules? From the administration and coaching staffs that make their own rules? From the alumni who buy their own rules?

We can try to ignore all of this bad news, but sooner or later, the truth seeps through. Every game has a point spread, every event has its odds, everyone gambles, it’s a heck of a lot of fun. And nothing is above suspicion anymore.

On second thought, don’t bother closing and bolting that Toy Department door. It wasn’t built to stand up against an avalanche of reality.

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