boomboomsroom

Jerry Tarkanian had a full-time job from 1973 through 1992.  He was the head coach of the Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels college basketball team.

Tark the Shark, as he was widely known, also had a part-time job back then.  He liked to poke the bear, the NCAA bear that is.

Tarkanian actually coached basketball at three universities — Long Beach State, Nevada Las Vegas, and Fresno State.  Each of them suffered penalties for breaking NCAA rules. But the coach never claimed he was a saint, only that he was surrounded by other sinners.

He also was a quote machine.  His most famous may have been, “The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky they’re going to give Cleveland State another year of probation.”

His simple point was that the NCAA wasn’t going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.  Rather, they were going to actively pretend to be concerned with the various rules violations by investigating wrongdoing, but only to the extent that it needed to care for public perception.   They reacted when the public demanded, but never really acted if they didn’t.

Take Paterno and Penn St., please.

Like his up-tempo Rebels (is there a better nickname for a school that he thrived at in a better city than Vegas to do it in?) the callout of his sport and sports, in general, was early but as accurate as his team’s shooting.   They won 509 times against only 108 losses, had several Final Four runs, and won it all in 1990 in convincing fashion.

That season the team was heavily monitored by the NCAA, which visited their campus 11 times, and suspended 10 players at various times. The “blue bloods” didn’t like the “green” moving to the brash upstarts.

This brings us to Major League Baseball that needs a win in the court of public opinion in a convincing fashion as well.  There are no Cleveland State’s in MLB, but there are the Cleveland Indians and 29 other teams who have over time, and time again, bent every rule in the book possible.

If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin.’

The credit for that old saying generally goes to NASCAR legend Richard Petty, though it just as easily could have come from Gaylord Perry or pretty much any of the tens of thousands who have thrown, pitched, or hit a ball since people started playing sports.

Blurring the line between legal and illegal, then figuring out how to get away with it, is as old as keeping score. You might not like it, but as long as you are spending your money watching it, MLB soldiers on.  And, on.

One hundred and two years ago there was the Chicago Black Sox scandal.

The spitball gave way to the neighborhood play at second base.  The strike zone has been different for different umps and umps have called pitches differently for various pitchers through the course of time.  Don’t believe that?  Ask Greg Maddux.

The steroids era only became so when the public (and congressional “leaders”) demanded it.  Prior, we all loved watching Sammy Sosa chase Mark McGuire and vice versa for the single-season home run record.  Ah, and there was this swellhead named Barry Bonds too.

Enter the electronic sign-stealing era a decade later.  The Astros were dumb enough to get caught, but they weren’t the only ones trying to catch the catcher’s signs. But, they did make for a fine example to other teams.

And, now, as the 2021 season to date MLB cumulative batting average was flatlining at an all-time low of .235, MLB decided to enforce the ban of foreign substances that they have had on the books forever.  The mere thought of it all left Gerrit Cole speechless.

Need more hitting? Voila!   In one week pitcher’s spin rates plummeted across the lower 48 and Canada as MLB decided to check for the substances when you’re watching the commercials that pay for MLB salaries. And, batting averages have gone up.

So the league that has games that many feel move too slowly, and was slow to adopt technology to better the umps’ in-game calls, was slow to enforce yet another rule on its books until less hitting meant lower ratings.

It’s still America’s pastime until it’s past time to act.

And maybe old Tark the Shark was ahead of his time in seeing through all of this.

Ball four is still a walk and money still talks.