Cricket controversy

If you've been reading the British, Pakistani and Australian papers lately then you know all about Darrell Bruce Hair. Mr. Hair, 53, is one of the top cricket match umpires in the world. He has received quite a lot of attention since he awarded England a victory over Pakistan via forfeit eight days ago in a test match.

Mr. Hair accused the visiting Pakistani team of ball tampering. The visiting Pakistani team took umbrage at Mr. Hair's call, but play continued until the tea break. Afterward, the visitors refused to take the field, and 25 minutes later, the forfeit was called.

The fallout for Mr. Hair, an Australian, has been predictable. There were calls for him to step down or to be prohibited from umpiring future matches involving Pakistan. He even was called a "mini-Hitler" by Pakistani cricket legend Imran Khan.

Like most people these days who find themselves mired in controversy, Mr. Hair blames the media.

He told London's The Independent: "There's a lot of things under threat and you people [the media] are probably responsible for a lot of them, so take a good hard look and maybe you might understand that a lot of the problems in the world are caused by the media and not the people who are actually doing a job."

Howzat?

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Mr. Hair notwithstanding, officiating is unofficially one of the world's most difficult jobs, along with marriage counseling and proctology. The trouble is not split-second decisions ["bang-bang plays," Second Amendment supporters call them], unruly crowds or even the hideous style of clothes most must wear. The real difficulty is the schizophrenic nature of the job. Officials strive, on the one hand, to be transparent observers of a game's ebb and flow, a constant presence in the midst of the competition who must avoid balls, players and sometimes, drunken fans, all with apparent equanimity. On the other hand, they are the enforcers of rules, dictatorial forces of order who with a single decisive monosyllabic command can send players, coaches and fans into paroxysms of indignation and loathing.

Disgruntled spectators used to yell, "Kill the ump!" and those nearby would nudge one another and nod knowingly, secure that the only violence likely to result would be arguing over whose turn it was to buy beer.

Today, however, parents think nothing of physically attacking referees at pee-wee league games. It has reached the point that the National Association of Sports Officials, which represents as many as 20,000 amateur and professional umpires and referees, offers its members assault insurance.

The association points to a fall 1998 incident when Baltimore Orioles baseball player Roberto Alomar spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck as the point when assaults against officials began mushrooming.

"Today, the health of our games is being attacked by a cancer of bad behavior, much of it occurring in full view of our young people who participate in organized sports," NASO's 2002 report, "Officials Under Assault," concludes.

"As a society, we need to act on the belief that respect for authority, whether you agree with it or not, is critical to living, working and playing together."

We are the world

It's not just Americans indulging in such boorish behavior. NASO's 2002 report details attacks against professional and amateur officials in Uruguay, Scotland, Japan, Canada and Australia.

What compels seemingly sane people into atavistic behavior?

It's not only losing. Research reported in Injury Prevention in March 2005 found that winning can be a trigger for violence. But the research also showed that winning is associated with "the celebratory downing of alcohol, a factor that is well known to increase the risk of violence."

Could it be sponsorship? More than $11 billion was spent on sports sponsorship in 2004. Sports permeate virtually all aspects of society, with the reputation of communities hinging on a team's performance. Not to get personal but if a team suffers through 14 consecutive losing seasons, does that make the city a "loser?"

The Web site www.AskMen.com takes a different tack, dispensing with any pretense of fairness to officials (or the media) and compiling a Top 10 list of "Bad Referee Calls."

"Every so often," the introduction reads, "an umpire will make an erroneous, game-altering determination by either hallucination or disregard -- and in pours the bad press."

No. 10 on the site's list involved the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thanksgiving 1998. At the overtime coin toss, a national TV audience clearly heard Jerome Bettis through the field audio system call "tails," and the coin landed tails. Referee Phil Luckett, however, awarded the ball to the Detroit Lions, who went down the field and won the game on a 42-yard field goal.

The No. 1 worst call in American sports? The Web site says it was the 1985 World Series between Kansas City and St. Louis. In game six, first base umpire Don Denkinger called the Royals' Jorge Orta safe at first when he was obviously out. The Royals, trailing the Series 3-2 at the time and down 1-0 in that game, rallied to win the game. The next night, with Mr. Denkinger the home plate umpire, Cardinals' manager Whitey Herzog was ejected after telling him: "We should not have had to play this game without your ... call last night!"

For years afterward, Mr. Denkinger received hate mail, especially after his home address was announced on the air by two disc jockeys.

Time has a way, though, of healing even a blown World Series call. At a 2005 20th anniversary charity bash recognizing the 1985 Cardinals, the guest of honor was Mr. Denkinger.

Parting shots

An assault on a sports official in Pennsylvania can result in a first-degree misdemeanor, according to the state code.

In Iraq, when the late Uday Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti ran the country's Olympic Committee, he routinely tortured soccer players for poor performances.