The Crime-Time Players Turn Sports Into Drama

My 4-year-old son isn’t into spectator sports, unless they involve monster trucks flying through the air and crushing rows of helpless cars. So he hasn’t formed any strong team allegiances or developed any sports-hero-worshipping tendencies.

The day is coming, though, when he’ll be peppering me with those cute questions, such as:

“Why do horses snort cocaine, Daddy?”

He’ll want to know the meaning of sports terms such as “steroids,” “rape,” “mail fraud” and “parole.”

He is missing a hell of a year so far. We’re not even two months into 1989 and the old sports/police blotter is SRO with reverse role models.

It’s so hard to keep up with it all, so as a public service, or as a one-day late Valentine’s present, I hereby offer a 1989 Sports Crime Digest and Top Ten List. My research staff had the day off, so I apologize if I missed any deserving alleged felons or misdemeanorites.

In reverse order of heinousness of allegations:

10. Slam dunk of the year.

The staff of the Seattle SuperSonics gets Dale Ellis a starting berth in the All-Star game by mass ballot-box stuffing.

Kids, can you say “electoral process?”

Another lesson here for the kiddies is that it’s OK to do anything, because--repeat after me--”Everybody else is doing it.”

9. Tale o’ the Tape.

A University of Missouri assistant coach is fingered for an alleged recruiting violation when a recruit’s mother produces a tape recording of the coach offering to buy the recruit an airline ticket.

This isn’t exactly original sin, but it’s a unique new way to get busted. Times are tough for cheating recruiters.

8. Kissing Bandit.

It’s no crime for Morganna to lumber across a court or field and kiss a ballplayer, but gee, can’t we make it a crime? Misdemeanor bad taste?

I don’t want to trivialize this crime list by including a publicity-crazed woman, but will someone please check to see if there is a mandatory retirement age for these kind of people? Maybe I should shut up and be thankful she hasn’t hired on to pose for the annual Sports Illustrated sex-o-rama issue.

7. Stanley Wilson goes AWOL.

The Cincinnati Bengals’ running back had a choice: Play in the Super Bowl or get Super High.

Tough choice. Stanley took the pipe.

Could it be that the Bengals weren’t as diligent as they should’ve been in watching over this obviously troubled young man?

Hey, it’s like they say: Winning isn’t everything, but losing is.

6. An entry: Tony Dorsett and Jose Canseco.

Maybe it’s not fair to lump these guys together, but who said this column was fair? And why lump them apart?

Dorsett got 90 days in jail, sentence suspended, along with a fine and public service, for driving drunk.

Canseco was tagged by a cop for driving his new Jaguar in excess of 120 m.p.h. Must have been racing a PSA commuter jet, or Ben Johnson.

5. Up the river, without paddle.

Dana Kirk, former Memphis State basketball coach, is sentenced to one year in jail and $20,000 fine for income tax evasion and obstruction of justice (trying to intimidate a grand jury witness).

Dana blames it all on his wife and her well-meaning, but badly bungled, bookkeeping.

Hey, she’s probably a great cook.

The good news: Dana won’t have to file a 1040 Form for 1989.

4. Whom Do You Trust?

In an upcoming book, Jim Valvano, North Carolina State basketball coach, is accused of gross abuse of National Collegiate Athletic Assn. rules, general ethics and power. Valvano pleads innocent, and is until proven otherwise.

Well, friends, somebody is lying--the coach or the author--and when we find out who, somebody is going to be in doop dee-dee, or deep doo-doo.

3. Supersnorts.

Post-race testing turns up traces of cocaine in horses trained by Wayne Lukas and Laz Barrera, among others.

Since most of these thoroughbreds don’t hang out on the streets, you have to assume someone slipped a little surprise into the old feedbag. This gives new meaning to common phrases such as “That ain’t hay,” “Winning by a nose” and “Get off your high horse.”

And it goes to show what can happen if you run with a fast crowd.

2. Whooooooah, Okla-homa!

Some people say the Oklahoma football program is basically honest, but I say it’s not fair to label an entire program based on the actions of a few good apples.

In recent months, Sooner players have been accused of shooting guns at one another, of rape, of selling cocaine to an undercover agent, of assault and of vandalism. At least 15 players have allegedly been involved in these lowjinks.

You’ve heard of the Crimson Tide. Meet the Red-and-White Crime Wave.

The good news: Not a single Oklahoma player has been accused of espionage against the government, or of breaking curfew.

The man I feel sorry for is the Oklahoma stadium public address announcer next season.

“Ball carried by No. 42; tackle by No. 4739692387324.”

1. Pumping iron, and more.

A former assistant coach of the Canadian Olympic weightlifting team admits to giving his “clean” urine to lifters. The weightlifters then allegedly injected the clean urine into their own bladders, by means of a catheter, in an attempt to beat a pre-Olympics drug test, because they had been doing steroids. They failed the test anyway.

Comment: Ouch.

This item tops (or bottoms) my crime list, because I score heavily for originality.

I’ve heard of cramming for a test, but this is ridiculous.

The year is young. As I write this, I hear news of a big-league baseball pitcher busted in a prostitution sweep, and a former college football player who gets six years in the slammer on cocaine charges. It’s coming off the sports wire faster than I can shovel it.

At the end of the year, the final Top Ten will be dishonored at a lavish awards banquet held at Jovan, the suburban Michigan tavern where Leon Spinks tends bar and Denny McLain plays the organ.

I hope my son watches cartoons until he’s 50.