Sports

Media ignores game-fixing scandal

Soccer game-fixing stories from overseas last week made far more news and noise here than did the conviction in Detroit of a man for fixing horse races and NCAA Division I football and basketball games.

To think that such stories used to make big, big news, followed by solemn, nationwide cautionary sermons.

To think that a game-fixing scandal simultaneously involved the same college’s football and basketball teams is being publicly adjudicated in obscurity. If a scandal falls in the forest …

Regardless, in Detroit on Monday, Ed Karam pleaded guilty to fixing races at Tampa Bay Downs and Delaware Downs — and to facilitating point-shaving schemes with key members of the University of Toledo football and basketball teams.

Though deemed only marginally newsworthy, seven Toledo student-athletes in 2008 and 2009 were indicted for point-shaving. All would plead guilty, and, with Karam’s plea, all soon will be sentenced.

No big news deal, but according to Karam’s plea agreement, Karam and another Detroit “businessman,” Ghazi Manni, over three years — three years! — allegedly paid Toledo basketball players Anton Currie, Kashif Payne, Keith Triplett and Sammy Villegas, to ensure the Rockets did not cover the spread.

Prosecutors, with phone taps in evidence, claim Karam and Manni wagered at least $331,000 on 17 basketball games they fixed.

In 2011, three ex-Toledo running backs pleaded guilty to participating in the game-fixing. One, senior tailback Quinton Broussard, admitted to intentionally fumbling — in exchange for $500 — in the 2005 GMAC Bowl, against Texas-El Paso.

Nevertheless, Toledo, led by Bruce Gradkowski’s five TD passes — he now is with the Bengals — won that game, 45-13. Intentional fumble included, Broussard ran five times for eight yards.

But perhaps that fumble — the first play of the second quarter with Toledo only up 7-3 — convinced Toledo to avoid Broussard, creating a colossal backfire on the fixers. Broussard didn’t get the ball again until the fourth quarter, when, at 38-13, he was tackled for a one-yard loss, ran for one yard, then finished his day with a two-yard loss.

Anyway, next up for Karam is his sentencing. That, too, is bound to make very little news or noise, and few solemn, cautionary sermons.

FOX sends Gus to school for soccer coverage

Sense, common sense, pretense, nonsense. Follow (follow, follow, follow, follow) the yellow brick road.

It now is clear that FOX’s plan is to exploit Gus Johnson’s shallow bombast for every minute and decibel it can, to shove him down our throats and into our ears until the gastro and central nervous systems unite in revolt or surrender.

With Johnson having mastered basketball, boxing, football and MMA (to the point that he can identify one from the others), FOX has determined that he serve as its lead play-by-play man on U.S. telecasts of the world’s biggest soccer matches.

Hey, if ESPN sees fit to place Chris Berman on (and all over) golf’s U.S. Open …

FOX has announced Johnson has completed an intensive, 18-month study of soccer, and he now knows enough to call his first game: Wednesday’s UEFA Round of 16 heavyweight match, Manchester United at Real Madrid (2 p.m., EST).

“Well, hello, there. I’m Dr. Mushnick. Well, I’m not really a doctor, but I’ve been reading up on it. Anyway, before I get started on your triple bypass, I want you to know that we have something in common: This is a first for both of us!”

Naturally, FOX could have chosen a worked-his-way-up voice, someone who grew up with the game and understands its strategies, nuances and subtleties — someone who would not place Johnson, FOX and the knowledgeable in FOX’s audience at immediate risk.

But FOX is intent on making Johnson a network “brand” — the easily over-excitable, hype-headed Voice of FOX Sports — thus he also is scheduled to call FOX’s live telecasts in May of the FA Cup and UEFA finals.

“Dr. Mushnick, please report to the morgue. Dr. Mushnick to the morgue.”

What? Not again.

* Folks who would know such things have told me the three-fingers-to-the-head sign flashed by some Knicks — Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith, to name two — after hitting a 3-point shot, is taken from the meanest mean streets.

These readers claim it’s a symbol for an expression for an execution, as in one, two or three bullets shot into the victim’s skull. It’s a symbol and an expression for murder, readers say, but Anthony has denied it’s a gun reference.

Duke ‘Crazies’ go off rocker

Our Sports Culture At Work, Play: N.C. State guard Tyler Lewis’ grandmother had died six days earlier, so Thursday, as he shot free throws in the second half with Duke up 18 at home, some students were heard chanting, “How’s your grandma?”

ESPN, among other media, has identified Duke’s “Cameron Crazies” as the best darned fans in college basketball.

* Quote of the Week: Favoring 21-year-old age restrictions and strict enforcement of them at local casinos, Queens Assemblyman Philip Goldfeder said, “I don’t want to see students gambling away their money.”

Agreed. Adults, on the other hand — including the parents of students — should be encouraged to gamble away their money.

After all, there never has been a casino predicated on customers doing anything except losing their money. The bigger the loser, the better the customer.

After all, if it were only about adults, as they say, “having some fun, killing a day and losing a few bucks,” casinos couldn’t afford the electricity to light the slot machines.

* Not that we should feel for Lance Armstrong, but that Texas event-insurance company that is suing him for the $12 million it paid him in 2002-04 Tour de France bonuses is full of it.

By 1995, anyone who did minimal research on — or business with — world-class cycling knew it was lousy with drugs and juicers.

* Happy 85th, Jim Noon. Semper Fi, Do or Die!

* You would think after sagely dismissing the approach of Hurricane Sandy as nothing much to worry about, that Mike Francesa would cut it out. But nope. He was back to his authoritative “no-big-deal” forecasting for this weekend. He’s amazing.

For such an exceptionally brilliant guy, he sure works hard to ensure that the only folks left who take him seriously are complete dopes.

* Reader Tom Clancy, The Bronx: “I see Jim Dolan, with an eye patch, petting a cat in a James Bond film, soon.”