2004: The Year in Sports

— -- The outrage over Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl now seems somehow quaint, with all that's followed, both on and off the fields and hardwood.

Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest and some unruly Detroit fans, and Jason Giambi took care of that.

It hasn't all been bad, of course. The Detroit Pistons, without a marquee name on the roster, knocked off the star-laden Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Championships, providing new heroes for fans of teamwork and the image of the overachieving "blue-collar" players.

And the Boston Red Sox ended their "curse of the Bambino" by winning the World Series for the first time in 86 years. The victory helped keep the game tied to its storied past, emphasizing the strains of tradition and superstition that for many fans are part of what is best about baseball.

But those and the other highlights of the year seem to pale in comparison with the rape case against Bryant, the brawl between Indiana Pacers players and Detroit Piston fans during a game at Auburn Hills, Mich., that resulted in criminal charges, and alleged steroid use in baseball and track and field.

Bryant, the Lakers star, had a sexual assault charge hanging over his head for an encounter with a 19-year-old woman in a Colorado spa that the married six-time All-Star said was consensual. The incident occurred on June 30, 2003, when Bryant was in Colorado to have knee surgery.

Bryant said he was guilty only of the "sin of adultery, but not the crime of rape."

Prosecutors said they didn't agree, but they dropped the case on Sept. 1, saying the alleged victim didn't feel able to go through a trial following a series of leaks of court documents that were supposedly sealed. The documents revealed the woman's identity and provided details on her personal history.

"This prosecution team wants to try this case. I want to try this case and have the evidence heard by 12 citizens of this community," Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said, announcing the decision. "However, the victim has informed us, after much of her own labored deliberation, that she does not want to proceed with this trial. For this reason, and this reason only, the case is being dismissed."

Afterward, Bryant made a statement in which he apologized to his family and to the woman and her family.

"Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did," said Bryant. "After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter."

Though the prosecutors dropped the criminal charges against him, Bryant's troubles aren't over. The woman filed a civil suit against him in Colorado, and has said she plans to file another against him in Los Angeles.

Though the charges tarnished Bryant's image as one of the league's good guys, it barely seemed to affect his play. In fact, he had some of his best games of the season on days when he had to attend hearings in the case.

But it deepened the long-simmering feud between him and Shaquille O'Neal, the other linchpin of a Lakers team that won three straight championships from 2000 to 2002. The Lakers center was infuriated that Bryant told police, when they first questioned him about the incident, that O'Neal allegedly paid women to keep quiet about extramarital liaisons Bryant said his teammate had.

Bryant's ego is now widely blamed for the breakup of the Lakers -- with coach Phil Jackson retiring and O'Neal being traded to the Miami Heat for a handful of players in what looked like a fire sale for one of the league's most dominant stars. And the team seems to have suffered, falling back into the pack after years of being one of the league's powerhouses.

For all that the case may have tarnished Bryant's reputation, it didn't raise as many questions about the NBA or the state of sports in general as the ugly scene at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Nov. 19.

That night, a hard foul and a retaliatory shove that normally would have passed with little more than some booing and perhaps a pair of technical fouls, led to a brawl that resulted in 11 people -- six Indiana Pacers players and five fans from Detroit -- facing criminal charges.

There have always been incidents of fans and players connecting in ugly ways in all sports, but the close proximity of fans and players in basketball arenas has led to some of the most troubling -- whether it was Charles Barkley attempting to spit on a man who had been heckling him and instead hitting a little girl; Boston Celtics fans taunting New Jersey Nets guard Jason Kidd and his wife, who was sitting in the stands, after reports of allegations of domestic abuse against Kidd; or Milwaukee Bucks guard Latrell Sprewell answering a woman heckling him with an obscene suggestion and gesture.

The brawl at the Palace went beyond all of those, though.

The Pistons were trailing by 15 points with less than a minute left when Artest committed a cheap foul off Detroit center Ben Wallace as he put up a layup. Wallace turned and shoved Artest, sending him sprawling backwards, and stalked after him, shouting at him.

As Wallace's teammates held him back, Artest lay down on his back on the scorer's table. With players and coaches from both teams arguing on the court and people in the stands shouting and throwing popcorn, someone threw a plastic cup that hit Artest in the chest. He leapt up, charged into the stands and began punching one of the fans.

Things just got worse from there, with other Pacers rushing into the stands as more fans piled on to Artest. Even when Artest's teammates were able to get him out of the stands, fans spilled out onto the court. The melee lasted some 10 minutes before police and security guards were able to restore some order.

"I felt like I was fighting for my life out there," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

"That was the ugliest thing I've seen as a coach or a player," Detroit coach Larry Brown said. "I'm embarrassed for our league."

NBA officials clearly shared his feelings. Artest took the brunt of the league's anger, hit with a suspension for the rest of the season -- 73 games, the longest non-drug-related punishment the league has ever handed out.

Eight other players were also suspended, including Pacers guard Stephen Jackson, who was suspended for 30 games, and Indiana forward Jermaine O'Neal, the team's leading scorer and rebounder, who was ordered out for 25 games.

In a statement announcing the penalties, NBA Commissioner David Stern acknowledged there were other issues that could not addressed by punishing players.

"The penalties issued today deal only with one aspect of this incident -- that of player misconduct," Stern said. "There are other issues that the NBA must urgently focus on at this time. First, we must redefine the bounds of acceptable conduct for fans attending our games and resolve to permanently exclude those who overstep those bounds. ... Second, we must re-examine the adequacy of our current security procedures in Detroit and our other 28 arenas. ... Third, we must develop and implement new NBA rules to assure that the unavoidable confrontations likely to occur in the heat of competition are not allowed to escalate to the level we witnessed [Nov. 19] even prior to the egregious behavior by individuals in the stands."

Like the basketball brawl, the steroid scandal -- fueled by revelations from grand jury testimony that were leaked to The San Francisco Chronicle in November -- has led to handwringing by Major League Baseball officials and could result in criminal charges.

Beyond that, though, there is little comparison.

It's one thing to have players slugging fans, something else altogether when they are slugging home runs. It's one thing to ask what's wrong with players that they cannot act professionally and fans that they can't root for their team in a civilized manner, something else again to ask what's wrong with athletes risking their health to perform at the highest level possible.

And could any fan honestly claim to be surprised by the new evidence of widespread steroid use in baseball?

After all, in June 2002 both Jose Canseco, a former American League MVP, and former National League MVP Ken Caminiti admitted they had used steroids. Canseco said he believed 85 percent of the players in the major leagues used steroids.

The long-simmering scandal broke again this fall, as a federal investigation into a San Francisco Bay-area drug lab led to a flurry of reports of players admitting they had taken steroids, either with or without their knowledge.

The report that had the most resonance was the Chronicle's that according to a transcript of a federal grand investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative it had obtained, Giambi, the New York Yankee first baseman and five-time All Star who missed half this season with mysterious or unexplained ailments, admitted using several different kinds of steroids. The newspaper reported he said he got the steroids from Greg Anderson, the personal trainer for San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds.

The Chronicle report followed an article in Sports Illustrated in October in which Yankee outfielder Gary Sheffield said he'd unknowingly taken steroids Anderson had given him before and during the 2002 season. In November, the Chronicle reported that it obtained a tape recording, on which Anderson was said to have claimed Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.

Anderson, along with Victor Conte, who owned BALCO, which was based in Burlingame, Calif., former Olympic track coach Remi Korchemny and BALCO Vice President James Valente were all indicted by the federal government in February.

The indictments came as a result of secret hearings during which stars from baseball, football and track testified that they had allegedly received steroids and other performance enhancing drugs from BALCO. Some of the athletes denied taking steroids, but others, like Giambi, admitted doing so, according to the Chronicle's report.

BALCO had allegedly developed steroids that were undetectable by current drug testing procedures. Many of the athletes referred to the substances allegedly given them as "the cream" and "the clear."

While Giambi reportedly admitted knowingly using steroids, Bonds -- a seven-time MVP who holds the current record for most home runs in a season and is closing in on Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755 -- said he used "the cream" and "the clear," but believed they were nutritional supplements or pain relief balms, the Chronicle reported.

After the leaked testimony was reported by the Chronicle, Conte, who has pleaded not guilty to 35 charges including conspiring to deliver steroids, fraud, possession of steroids and money laundering, said in an interview on ABC News' "20/20" that he gave steroids to track star Marion Jones.

"After I instructed her how to do it and dialed it up, she did the injection with me sitting right there next to her, right in front of me," Conte said. "Marion didn't like to inject in the stomach area. She would do it in her quad. The front part of her leg."

Jones won five Olympic medals at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Rumors of performance-enhancing drug use have dogged her, but she has never failed a drug test and maintains she has never used illegal drugs. This summer in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, she failed to win a single medal.

After Conte's appearance on "20/20," Jones announced that she has filed a $25 million defamation suit against Conte, and denied again ever using steroids or any other banned substance.

The revelations about alleged use of steroids in baseball has led to discussions by both Major League Baseball and the baseball players union about what to do about steroid use, and has raised debate about how Bond's records should be considered.

Even Congress has gotten into the act, with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., among others, calling for legislation to address the issue.

"The important aspect of this issue is that high school kids all over America believe that this is the only way they can make it," McCain said. "This is the tragedy of steroids. And we all know that it will destroy a young person's body. And that's why we've got to bring this to a halt."