Game Four of the Finals will rank in history as among the great all-time chokes in sports annals. How did it happen? How could it happen? I was embarrassed to be a Laker fan, and that’s never happened before.

If the Celtics don’t win Game Six, they won’t win it at all. Provided the Lakers don’t place their hands near their throats again.

Now that I think about it, if the longshot proves to be true, and it turns out that the Lakers-Celtics Final was engineered by the NBA, well, so what? Both the league and ABC need ratings, and a San Antonio-Detroit Final wasn’t going to do it. Could you imagine a final between Sacramento and Charlotte? Geesh!

The NBA Finals of both 1978 & 1979 had Seattle vs. Washington. Ratings were in the proverbial toilet. They were both “Who Cares” editions of the Finals. The Lakers and Celtics were able to renew their fierce post season rivalry in the 80s. If the league “arranged” for that to happen, well, it was for the overall good. The NBA might not have survived otherwise.

I don’t have a prediction for Game Six, except that I expect both teams to be intense to the point of being wound up tightly. I’m only slightly surprised that a fight or even a shoving match hasn’t taken place as yet.

A friend of mine here in L.A. is from Boston, and is a Boston College grad. Sunday, he was already at a local tavern, celebrating the inevitable Game Five victory and World Title that didn’t arrive. Before the game started, I called him on his cell, and he was already out of it. I wonder how he reacted when he woke up?

In the midst of what should be the NBA’s finest hour, The Finals, allegations have surfaced, albeit from a dubious source, that basically say that the NBA is dirty, and that the fish stinks from the head.

Disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy has stated that the pins were set up as far as the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the L.A. Lakers and Sacramento Kings were concerned. The Kings had a sno-cone’s chance in a microwave oven.

Donaghy has hinted strongly that the league wanted this. It needed a series to go seven games. This series was the only one that went the distance that year. That meant more ticket and television revenue. And, it’s so alleged that Shaquille O’Neal was a bigger TV attraction than the Kings’ Vlade Divac.

Before Game 3 of the Finals in Los Angeles, NBA Commissioner David Stern dismissed Donaghy’s assertions as being from a desparate man trying to get a lesser prison sentence.

If one surfs the Internet, the thinking might be different.

Even before the playoffs, bloggers and journalists both have stated that the league and ABC badly wanted a Celtics-Lakers Final. Well Go-LLeeee, lookie what happened in the playoffs.

In Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, the San Antonio Spurs sure appeared to get screwed by a horrible non-call at the end of the game that potentially could have tied the game and sent it into overtime.

Allegations like these have surfaced before. I had always dismissed them as being from disgruntled, malcontented fans who didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Now I wonder.

It’s bad enough that most of the fun we used to have with sports has been taken away from us. Expensive ticket prices, outrageous salaries, drugs, sleazebag behavior, relocation anxieties, and erratic ownerships have taken a heavy psychological toll on fans, causing many to give up on sports as they get older.

One of the few things we seemed to have leftover from the good earlier days was the officiating. It always appeared to be solid and on the up-and-up. Now there are stains on it. Dark, grimy, slimy, dirty stains.

Officiating is supposed to be above reproach. With these allegations, it now appears to be barely above a roach. The fact that these alleagations were even mentioned in the first place has to make fans wonder. Officiating, especially in the NBA, is obviously NOT above reproach.

Ralph Nader himself, who is not a sports fan, questioned the officiating after the 2002 Western Confernce Final, and wanted a federal investigation into the matter. He was scorned and laughed at. I was one of the laughers. I’m not laughing now.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have Mr. Nader head an independent committee to investigate these allegations. And to have said committee make recommendations on needed changes and adjustments.

For all of its’ gloss, the NBA is still looking good. But there sure seems to be a peculiar odor coming from it’s direction.

Picking up from where we left off….

This next character was a guy I went from grade school thru high school with. And not one of those days did we ever get along. Even in sixth grade, he thought he was God’s gift to sports. He was incredibly arrogant. He was also one of those guys who got to do anything he wanted, take part in any school function, even have him and his buddies form a surf band, and have the school center an entire assembly around their one and only performance. At the junior high, he took part in several sports. In high school, he concentrated on basketball. He figured that his height, about 6-2, would help him to athletic fame and fortune. He had all his games filmed by a friend. He sent 8mm films of himself, and newspaper clippings to major college coaches all over, but was especially hoping to hear from John Wooden at UCLA. All he got was a form letter that began “Thank you for your interest in playing for UCLA, but at this time…”.

He must have gotten a lot of those form letters. He “starred” on three losing teams. Most major college coaches want to know what a player’s team record was while he compiled his stellar numbers. The league the team played in was not considered a strong league. He didn’t even make the junior college team.

I guess he found out the hard way that he wasn’t so special. I saw him at the 15-year reunion, and for the first time ever, he was civil to me. He was even cordial, and had something I had never seen in him before: humility. I sat down with him & his wife for a while at their table, and we caught up with each other. He told me that he had heard me on the radio and that he was glad that I made my goal. I was tempted to ask him “And your goal was….??” but I didn’t. I guess I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his wife. But I was sure tempted. I have a long memory.

Next is this football player who was beyond arrogant. He was so unpleasant to be around that I’ll try not to stay on this too long. He was a large lineman, made every all-this-and-that team, and was the type to push smaller guys around. He had previously gone to Catholic schools, and he was certain that he was Notre Dame-bound. Unless you were a teacher, a pretty girl, or one of his pals, you couldn’t get any word out of him other than “F–K You!” or “F–K Off!” What a swell guy he was.

After I had graduated from Coronado High, I came back to San Bernardino that summer to both visit and attend my first broadcasting classes at the junior college there. In the summer, it is not uncommon for temperatures in San Bernardino to top 100. One day, I went to a neighborhood pizza parlor, and when I came out, guess who was coming in? Yep, our football hero. It was sweltering, and there he was – in his letterman’s jacket. I guess I wouldn’t have recognized him without it. He always had it on. Maybe he still wears it.

One person I hadn’t planned on mentioning, but I think I will, was the young lady who eventually became the school’s head cheerleader. She was also someone I had known since grade school, and even then her ego was out of control. That was because her mother was the head of both the local PTA and the local Republican Party. That, of course made her better than everyone else. Even back then, she was a polarizing figure, intolerant of different views to the point of calling the Democratic Party “unpatriotic” and “Communistic” in an assignment that had to be read in front of class. Remember, I have a long memory. At assemblies, she would get indignant if people didn’t put their hands in front of their hearts for the flag.

It was long suspected by other students that the school had strict orders to just give her good grades no matter what, because of who her mother was. We all know that school districts wouldn’t do that, don’t we? Right. At any rate, she who thought war protesters should be deported to the USSR became Homecoming Queen her senior year. When I heard about it from friends via letters to Coronado, I couldn’t believe it. She was NOT a raving beauty by any stretch of the imagination. It had to be who her mother was. I just shook my head and went on with my coastal life in San Diego County.

Later on, I also heard something else regarding Our Queen. It turns out that she had ditched school, something she supposedly did a lot of, and was caught with one of the school’s younger and more popular teachers, who was very married. And worse, she got pregnant from that fine day. She wound up being an embarrassment to the school and her mother. She was kicked out of school, and the teacher was fired. I imagine he lost his marriage also. She has not turned up at any reunion I’ve been to, and no former classmates I’ve talked to, even her friends, had any knowledge of her whereabouts.

Ah, the sweet bird of youth…

If I could turn back time, I would NOT want to go back to my teenage years. Too many embarrassing people to deal with.

I am facing the prospects of not one, but two 40-year high school reunions this year. I attended two high schools, one in San Bernardino up to the end of my junior year, and my senior year was spent at Coronado, in San Diego County. It was a night-and-day difference.

The truth is I probably won’t be attending either gathering. Not this time around, anyway. I have plans to be out of the area when these respective events take place. Plans have been in place for some time, so juggling schedules isn’t even an option. I’ll try to catch the 45th or 50th. I try to be optimistic.

Without taxing my memory too hard, I was able to come up with a few characters that I think are worth writing about. They’re all from San Bernardino, and they’re all sports-related. Maybe someone reading this knew similar-type people. I just wish I could use their names. All are still living, and boy, would they be embarrassed….

In those halcyon days, high school was 3 years, starting with 10th grade. This first guy I met in 9th grade, our last year of junior high. He had moved from Texas, and he was hell-bent on not only playing football, but starring in it. Back then, the 8 junior highs of San Bernardino played tackle football against each other. It helped the high schools in lieu of a freshman football program. Well, this guy starred all right. He was a pretty good running back. In fact, he wound up being the star of both the junior high AND the high school team. Trouble was, he knew it. His head became about the size of Texas. He was telling everybody that he would one day be an NFL star. I still have a copy of the junior high newspaper where he said it. When asked what he wanted to be when he got older, he would tell people “an All-Pro running back in the NFL.”

Needless to say, he didn’t quite get there. After high school, nary a hide nor hair was heard about the guy. He collected a lot of splinters on the bench at the area junior college for one year, then that was it. I don’t know what he wound up doing for a living. I do know that the Sunday following the 10-year reunion dinner/dance, he hosted classmates at his home for a barbecue. Very gracious of him. At 28 however, he was morbidly obese, bald, and hardly recognizable. You would have sworn it was two different people. I wonder if he even still watches the game.

Next up, a coach from that same junior high who had visions of grandeur. He was a social studies teacher, and quite unpopular. We all suffered through his eternal classes. He was a coach for some of the school’s sports teams. Not football, though. He did do public-address announcing for the home football games though, and when a game got lopsided, and they started emptying the benches, he would joke about some of the less-athletically-inclined students on his school’s team right over the PA system in front of everybody. I guess this made him feel better about himself. This teacher also would call on certain students in his class to step out front and center, bend over, and he would swat them for no given reasons. He would also isolate students by making them sit by themselves at a table meant to hold boxes and supplies, and they’d have to sit backwards to be able to see the chalkboard.

Later on, when the complexion of the neighborhood changed, he apparently started having problems with African-American students. Several parents complained about him, but thanks probably to his union, he was always able to keep his job. And speaking of his job, he always wanted to be transferred to a high school and coach at that level. It always frustrated him that the district would not grant him a high school coaching job. And he seemed to find creative ways to channel his anger. A few years ago, he retired as a career-long junior high teacher. One of his last acts was defending himself against a parent’s complaint about the treatment of her son. An African-American parent. He had been accused of grabbing her son by the collar and throwing him through a door. Corporal punishment had been banned in California public schools for many years by the time of this incident.

To be continued. Stay tuned….

The following is an open letter addressed to Rollen Stewart, the so-called “Rainbow Man” who used to appear at sporting events all over the nation. He would wear a stupid rainbow wig and flash JOHN 3:16 signs at TV cameras. Stewart is now serving three life sentences for a hostage taking incident near Los Angeles International airport in 1992.

To: Rollen Stewart, you pathetic piece of crap;

I see that Jerry Crowe of the Los Angeles Times fed your legendary attention addiction in his column this past Monday. Everything known about you was rehashed: the wigs, the TV attention, the Budweiser commercial, your marijuana farming, your numerous ex-wives, the stink bombs you threw at media outlets, your “residency” on Skid Row, the “incident”, the numerous rejections for parole, I could go on and on, but I won’t.

Frankly, with all the problems you caused, you were downright boring.

You had opportunities, gifts, and privileges handed to you that most people would have killed for. You were able to go to Super Bowls. In over 30 years in the media, I could never beg, borrow, or buy my way into a Super Bowl. I know. I tried. A lot of people would have loved to have just been in the parking lot.

You appeared in a Budweiser commercial. I know a lot of out of work actors here in L.A. who would have loved the tiniest part in a commercial. They need the money. And they would have been grateful. That seems to be the last thing you were.

You went to countless sporting events across the country, and rarely had to pay for entering any of them. Athletes and media-types who didn’t know better would leave you tickets so that you could annoy people with your goddam religious signs. In yesterday’s article, Brent Musberger was quoted as saying that there were TV directors who would have loved to have killed you for ruining their dramatic shots. Because of you, anything remotely resembling a religious sign is banned at most sporting events.

Four women were stupid enough to call themselves your wife. One of them accused you of choking her for not holding a sign in the right place. I believe her. You told Crowe in Monday’s article that “No one can meet my standards”. Perhaps you can find someone in prison more to your high moral standards.

You set off a bunch of stink bombs at churches, religious broadcasters and at newspaper offices as your way of spreading your “message” that the world was about to end. That was sixteen years ago. Just when was that supposed to have happened?

I really don’t blame you though, for my venting against you today. I blame the Times’ Jerry Crowe. Why? Because until Monday, you were in a good spot for an attention whore like yourself: Forgotten.

I’m going to tell you something that I would not say to 99.999999999% of people: I’m better than you. The slimiest drug dealer in a ghetto or barrio is better than you. Winos and addicts on Skid Row are better than you. You are one of THE worst things to ever happen to sports. Even worse, you admitted to not being a sports fan. You just used sports to gain attention for yourself. Well, you succeeded at that. Millions of parents now know not to raise their sons to be like you.

You’ve been turned down for parole three times in the last six years. You’re serving a LIFE sentence, and have been deemed a danger to society. Why are you even getting a parole hearing? You are in your rightful place in the world: Prison.

It’s appropriate that you’re incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, Ca. You are a lifelong ass.

Now, back to forgetting about you. In the meantime Rollen, have fun making all your nowhere plans for nobody. In your case, the world is NOT at your command.

You were warned. Come to think of it, sports entertainment is sports of some kind of sort.

My beef (no pun intended) is not with wrestling as a whole. Seeing as how World Wrestling Entertainment alone is a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise, and how smaller, independent promotions consistently draw sellout crowds at smaller venues, the business of wrestling, or sports entertainment, is worthy of some well-earned respect.

My beef is with TNA, the closest thing the WWE has to serious competition. TNA, which stands for Total Non-Stop Action, has done some things recently that I have to wonder about.

For starters, TNA has not one, not two, but three different wrestlers who come to the ring bringing something to drink with them. I don’t mean bottled water. One of them, a woman wrestler named ODB, brings a flask with her, and she takes swigs during a match. With the other two grapplers, it’s usually beer, and one of them has used a bottle as a weapon.

Am I missing something here, or is TNA trying to promote alcoholism?

Another recent TNA storyline had one wrestler under indentured servitude (READ: slavery) to another. He had to do what the other said, no matter how distasteful. It was all legal under TNA “rules”, even though slavery itself has been illegal in this country for well over a hundred years.

There are two things in TNA that I find incredibly distasteful:

First, a current storyline involves a Hispanic tag team called LAX, or the Latin American Exchange. It’s not the team itself that I have issues with, but their non-wrestling manager, or assistant, or whatever that accompanies them to the ring. His name is Hector Guerrero, who is apparently related to the legendary Guerrero family of wrestling.

The family and the wrestling industry suffered a tragic loss by the untimely death of Eddie Guerrero, already a legend before his passing. His nephew Chavo and his widow Vickie are currently employed by the WWE. Three generations of Guerreros have entertained millions of fans worldwide. The Guerrero name is synonymous with wrestling excellence.

So why is TNA sullying the Guerrero name by having Hector made up to look EXACTLY like Eddie? How, you have to wonder, does Vickie and her kids feel when they see Hector Guerrero interfering in an LAX match looking just like their late husband and father?

The other item I find distasteful was the recent employment by TNA of one Adam (Pac Man) Jones, recently suspended by the NFL, and still not reinstated as of this writing. Jones, you may recall, was tossed from the league following a series of arrests for knucklehead behavior, topped by a shooting at a Las Vegas strip club where Jones threw money from a plastic bag at dancers, and a man was left paralyzed from the shooting. As the cherry on top, Jones had his “posse” collect the thrown money and put it back in the bag. What a guy.

The man in Jones’ group accused of doing the shooting now says that he’s taking the rap for Jones. Pac Man was recently traded to the Dallas Cowboys. Why? I thought the Cowboys liked to think of themselves as one of the NFL’s class acts. Why bring this thug in? If I was NFL Commissioner, I would never re-instate Jones. He’s an embarrassment. To the league, to the players, and to manhood in general.

Yet TNA not only gave him a job, in a non-wrestling role, but they made him a “good guy”, or a “face”, as the industry calls its’ hero performers. I can think of fewer worse people to push as a role model.

The WWE has made its’ mistakes over the years. There was the Katie Vick storyline that involved Kane, Triple HHH, and necrophilia. As soon as they saw the very negative reaction to the plot, the WWE got out of it as soon as humanly possible.

There was the botched WCW-ECW takeover plot. It should have been so much better than it actually was.

And lately, a planned incest storyline between current WWE stars Paul Burchill and Katie Lea has been scrapped. The pair, who are not real-life siblings, will also no longer be billed as brother and sister.

The WWE isn’t perfect, but when they see a potential problem, they try to get their act together.

Too bad TNA can’t say the same thing.

News item: Announcer Jonathan Coachman to leave World Wrestling Entertainment to become an anchor at ESPN.

Comment: This could be a great hire for ESPN. While working for the WWE, Coachman also moonlighted as a play-by-play caller for CSTV, and has a great onscreen presence. Sooner or later, they’ll use him on a game broadcast, and they’ll be glad they did.

News item: Lakers take 2-0 lead in series with Utah.

Comment: Yawn. Was there ever any doubt about the Lakers in the first two rounds? Meanwhile, the NBA and ABC keep their collective fingers crossed in the hopes of a Celtics-Lakers final. Should that happen, KA-CHING!!!

News item: PETA protests horse racing in Kentucky.

Comment: PETA doesn’t have the most sterling reputation, and I haven’t liked everything they’ve done, but I do think that their hearts are in the right place on this one. I’ve often wondered how race horses are really treated outside the public view. It’s bad enough that they’re injected with Lasix and other drugs (Lasix IS a steroid, btw), made to run in all kinds of weather, and on all kinds of surfaces that must adversely affect their legs. In last Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, Eight Belles was whipped to the finish line with two damaged ankles. Why do jockeys need a whip in the first place? Horse racing is a sport that needs to be looked at and examined closely.

News item: Two defensive players from Div. II Central Washington’s softball team carry an opposing player around the bases after she twists her knee rounding first.

Comment: The injured player’s home run would have been counted as a single if a pinch-runner had been inserted. It was also her first home run ever, in college or high school ball. The two Central Washington players picked her up, and carried her around the basepaths, gently putting her on each base along the way. Their names are Mallory Holtman (1B) and Liz Wallace (SS). One of the greatest acts of sportsmanship I’ve ever known about.

My name is Dave Gaytan, and just as soon as I figure out how to get my name up in the masthead just below the title, I’ll put a permanent byline up there.

My first goal in life was to be a rock n’ roll disc jockey on the radio, but I have a lengthy love affair with sports. As my radio career turned out, I did much more with sports than with rock n’ roll.

Instead of making long stories short here, I’ll just save them for future posts. I wasn’t much of an athlete myself, but I tried. The best I managed was a JV letter on my high school’s tennis team in 1966. I think the coach was trying to be nice. Bob Uecker had a glorious athletic career compared to me.

I loved it when Ball Four by Jim Bouton came out in 1970. It opened up a whole new dimension to sports writing and over the long run, affected sports journalism and sports media itself. Do you think that we would have heard about Roger Clemens and that young country singer without Ball Four setting the early standard in 1970? I don’t think so. Before Jim Bouton’s book, something like this would have been covered up tighter than a CIA secret. Plenty of stories about Babe Ruth came out many years after his death. And the New York media knew damn well all about them. In some cases, they were part of the stories.

I always wanted to write like Jim Bouton, but few people are that good, and I’m not one of them. But I do feel that I have an esoteric, if not unique perspective on sports, and I hope that it’s worthy enough to share.

Let’s see what happens.