Afternoon Baseball

ESPN.com Marc Stein column
Not going to see much NBA coverage here, but it looks like the NBA is getting touchy about the constant (20+ year) speculation that the league encourages the refs to call games in a manner slanted towards one team or another.
But it's true. Not that the NBA fixes games, but that they have horrible referees, and that these refs (some, at least) do view it as their job to try to advance certain agendas. Van Gundy just said what people have been saying and thinking for years, except he happens to be a coach, which means he should have kept his mouth shut.
Unless he really does have a source among the refs and his story is true. In that case, maybe David Stern really is as vicious and ruthless a dictator as has always been rumored.