Summer of Scandal Rocks Sports World

July 25, 2007 — -- A clear sign of trouble in professional sports is when the league commissioners are getting more airtime than the athletes.

When times are good, there is no need to see the guys in suits. Commissioners can generally can stay off-radar until a Super Bowl, World Series or NBA Finals. Then they swagger in to talk about the booming prosperity in their respective leagues.

Clearly, given the Commish Cam coverage of the past week, we're in a three-ring crisis in North American sports.

NFL head Roger Goodell is erecting training-camp barricades for one of his most visible players. MLB boss Bud Selig has showed up in Frisco as a witness to the further desecration of his sport's record book. And the NBA's David Stern is grappling with the fact that one man with a whistle and an alleged gambling problem has shredded the credibility of his game.

(Which pretty much makes NHL head Gary Bettman the summer's big winner. Except nobody in America is watching his sport, and he's been freshly accused of interfering in the sale of the Nashville Predators in order to keep them from moving to Canada -- accusations Bettman denies. Hockey can't even walk through an open door without tripping over its skates.)

Given the backdrop, it's time to examine the current commissioner gut checks, and to assess who has the guts to get his sport back on task.

Toughest spot

1. Stern: Corrupt refs using their power to fix games are definitely on the short list of worst case scenarios in any sport. For a guy with a long track record of having all the answers, Stern didn't have many when he discussed the Tim Donaghy debacle Tuesday. Shows you how vulnerable the sport is to gambling-related corruption. Any sport.

2. Selig: He's the one commissioner getting no help (so far) from any investigative agencies in formalizing a solution to his problem. Lacking a legal hammer (and a positive drug test), Selig must sit back and watch Barry Bonds move past Henry Aaron on the all-time home run list. If Selig is to keep a joyless vigil waiting for the inevitable in San Francisco (does he stand and applaud when No. 756 clears the fence?) at least he's doing it in a great restaurant city.