To the surprise of nobody, the FBI announced last week that the NBA and poker games run by the New York mafia are rigged. I can only imagine how deep undercover the g-men would have to go to dig up the dirt on that stuff. Has anyone seen a guy with big bug eyes who looks like he stole Merril Hodge’s ties sitting courtside at Wizard games taking notes? Who am I kidding, nobody’s taking any action on the Wizards besides the under. But here we are, our tax dollars hard at work to tell us the NBA is fixed. Maybe next week they’ll spend a few hundred million to arrest the people at Gorton’s Fish Sticks for making food that’s not as good when you microwave it.
To take some of the spotlight off Chauncy Billups and Terry Rozier getting perp-walked, here’s some real sports scandals that actually took investigative reporting to break. Who needs g-men when you’ve got n-p-men on the case? That’s newspaper men if you weren’t paying attention in grade school, dummy. I can’t wait until AI takes this job from me and then kills me with a computer somehow.
1. Snooker Secrets
When you ask most people about “the state of professional ethics in the World Snooker Tour,” they look at you like you’re trying to use Gen-Alpha slang words and get embarrassed for you. But if you live in the UK, you already feel embarrassed for yourself, and you already know what Pro Snooker is. Snooker is like pool, except the table is huge and the balls are tiny and everything is stupid – and for some reason, it’s big in the Commonwealth countries.
You’d think a genteel “sport” like Snooker would be free from scandal, but if you can bet on it, you can cheat to bet more on it. That’s how “Black Jack” Davey MacLeish – number twelve Snooker player in the world – caught the eye of SpooksCenter over the past year and a half.
I was assigned to follow these Snooker matches for the Register, so I’d get up before sunrise on Sunday mornings and hump down to the English pub. Even with my sleep deprivation, my reporter’s instinct kicked in right away. I started noticing a pattern, and it broke the whole story wide open.
Instead of trying to pot a colored ball after the break, “Black Jack” would step to the side and start pounding ciders instead. Everyone in the pub was doing the same thing and weren’t paying attention to the world’s most boring sport. If they had they would have seen a mystery: the balls mysteriously sinking on their own, untouched by human hands.
SpooksCenter broke the story of this Real Sports Scandal in September. It turns out MacLeish’s sister-in-law, a halfway famous medium named Maud Smelts, would routinely use her gifts to contact the spirit of Snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan. She and “Black Jack” somehow convinced him to teach a primer in break-building from across the great beyond, week after week. Sometimes you’d see his ghostly form potting the coloreds, sometimes they’d use some other equally disturbing British lingo. The details of MacLeish’s conjured chicanery were both confusing and concerning to the Snooker community, since Ronnie O’Sullivan is both alive and actively playing on Tour.
2. Boules Buster
If you never left Southern France, you’d think that the three biggest sports in the world were soccer, bocce, and driving compact Renaults. Well, if you call it bocce they’ll think you’re Italian – or worse, an American lawn games enthusiast. But the version of boules played from Nice to Marseille (called pétanque) is essentially the same game as bocce and you can find matches going in every park en Provence. As long as there’s daylight and a pack of Gauloises to share, those boules will be clinking.
Pétanque in Marseille is more than just a leisure activity, though – it’s a cutthroat competitive sport, with rankings, leaderboards, and an annual tournament. With thousands of Euros and a Tony Sirico pour Homme clothing sponsorship on the line, everyone in Marseille gets involved in the tournament – participant or spectator, from the slightly elderly to the aggressively elderly.
Last year’s defending team, La Vie en Throws, was squared off for a rematch with the challenger and three time winner of the Pétanque Prize, Les Greatest Hits…de Serge Gainsboulles. All the sharp money was on Gainsboulles to take back the Cochonnet d’Or, but – after eleven dropped matches down the stretch – they missed the finals and most of their medication.
But was there some French funny business afoot? The rumors on the street were all in French, so no help to me, but I watched the tapes. This reporter can tell you there looked to be mucho funny business going on.
Boules moved strangely after the throw, as if pulled by a tractor beam, or stopped dead in their tracks. In one match against Aix-en-Provence rival Les Boules du Fromage Non-Pasteurisé, a Gainsboulles ball rapidly oxidized into a pile of green rust moments before knocking the opponent’s ball out of play. Despite allegations of foul play, nothing could be proven.
With Les Greatest Hits…de Serge Gainsboulles eliminated, La Vie en Throws faced a newcomer in the finals, a team of lanky, grey-skinned, black-eyed ball tossers calling themselves Appellation d’Origine Boulistique Contrôlée. They claimed to be from “France.” So congrats, Marseille, you have a new champion to raise the Cochonnet d’Or. Keep your eyes on the skies and your real sports scandals on the clay.
3. Sumo Showdown
There hasn’t been an American yokozuna in the insular world of Sumo wrestling since 1999, when Hawaiian-born Musashimaru Kōyō took the title from another Adamant American, the Bellyslammer himself, Jackie Harris. Since then, a series of Mongolian and Japanese champs have worn the shimenawa – but I’ll be honest: if you’re talking about combat sports and there’s not an American or a Mexican in the ring, I tune out.
That’s why this summer, SpooksCenter launched a letter writing campaign to get another great American a shot at the shōdan. To try to make it sound authentic, I had Mark translate my letter into Japanese and then back into English. I think it gave it the the punch I was looking for:
To the Esteemed Japan Sumo Association,
Respectful greetings.
My name is David Lavender, an American sports journalist. The name of the organization I belong to is not of great importance, but I will mention only that it possesses its own website. You may be acquainted with Syracuse University, known as the place where American sports reporters are educated. I, too, studied there for several years. But enough about myself! I take up my pen today to humbly present your distinguished association with a special opportunity.
American people love sports, yet sumo has never properly taken root in our culture. I believe the absence of a high-profile American rikishi is the main reason. Although martial arts and combat sports are currently at record levels of popularity, twenty-five years have passed since an American has challenged the top of the sumo world. However, with the right person, this situation may change.
Therefore, I would like to introduce “The Dreamboy.” I met this young man at a rave party in the state of Maine – one of the United States. I was attending with my grandson, under the impression that it was a horse race. This misunderstanding, I am told, is not rare. I believe that Dreamboy may hold the key to reviving sumo’s declining ratings. He is handsome by conventional standards, has a fine jawline, a proper haircut (a Men’s Regular), and dresses elegantly. My grandson Mark could learn from his techniques.
Most noteworthy, however, is his enormous buttocks, or as you might say, kyodaina ketsu. I have never in my life seen a rear-view of such magnificence. I suspect he would have difficulty fitting into the compact automobiles so beloved in your great nation. May I inquire, what kind of vehicles do sumo wrestlers drive? When Dreamboy comes to Japan for his interview, perhaps such a vehicle could be arranged for him at the airport.
As for his pedigree: I do not know if he has ever wrestled before, but with such a back portion, I am confident he must have at least done some high school wrestling – perhaps even at the collegiate level. I will ask him if I can find him. I haven’t been able to position the Dreamboy since our single, wonderful night in Maine. But this is all a D.L. (David Lavender) problem. I am certain, however, that with the vast resources of the Japan Sumo Association, you will have no difficulty discovering him.
If you do, could you have him send me an email? [email protected].
Thank you for your kind attention.
Sayonara,
David Lavender
Your Sports Reporter
SpooksCenter
The Reality Register
I had Mark include his Japanese translation, too. It seems a lot shorter than mine. I guess the language is just efficient.
こんにちは日本、
こちらは DJマーク・テストステロン です。
twitch.tv からお届けしています。ここでは、レトロゲームをプレイしながら、最強にイカしたビートを回しています。
来週の火曜日は ボンバーマン64マラソン をチェックしてください！
カウントダウンはすでに始まっています！
DJマーク・テストステロン は、栄光あるニッポン全土に アトミック・プッシー・ボム を投下中です！
女性は防空壕に隠れることを許されません。
誤解なきように；
DJマーク・テストステロン は、日本が「座ってダンスしないままでいる力」を完全に破壊します。
私は 24時間 やります。
あるいはアデロールが切れるまで。
DJマーク・テストステロン on twitch.tv!
So, that’s the real sports scandal right there. Never heard anything back from those bums at the Sumo league, and I still haven’t heard from my best friend the Dreamboy. I miss you, Dreamy. Makes the idea of some NBA coaches fixing games seem stupid when you put them side by side! This is real life here. This is a man’s heart. Maybe I’ll get a letter back. I bet they use nice paper in Japan. I’m going to microwave some fish sticks.
David Lavender
