College football: LSU won a national championship that loads of people don't accept as legit. Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy and Southern California's national titles are on the line, with a book claiming he was paid while he played. Nick Saban compared his team's upset losses to Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor. Arkansas grabbed Bobby Petrino from the Atlanta Falcons 13 games into his first NFL season. Rich Rodriguez vs. West Virginia.
Auto racing: Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch fought in a trailer during Speedweek at Daytona, continuing post-race fisticuffs among drivers that is now routine. After the 500, NASCAR issued 11 fines involving drivers, owners, crew chiefs and others totaling more than $100,000 for various examples of cheating.
NHL: Chris Simon returned last week from a 30-game suspension levied for stomping on a player's leg, the eighth time in his 15-season career he has been suspended. He was the latest in a string of players suspended for some sort of cheap shot.
College basketball: Bob Knight quit on his team with a third of the season left. Kelvin Sampson is this year's pre-March Madness scandal, now an annual tradition.
Golf: Pretty clean year, if you exclude Kelly Tilghman joking that in order to slow Tiger Woods' dominance, tour players should "lynch him in a back alley."
Then there were Marion Jones, tennis matches possibly being fixed, and Hope Solo publicly blasting her coach and teammate after being benched before the women's World Cup semifinal. Their sports ranked lower than the NBA in the Harris poll. But not far behind.
It's easy to see why, in the ESPN poll, more fans say about the NBA than about any other sport: "It's a shame what is happening to this league."
No kidding. Why can't they just imitate what makes all those other sports so easy to love?
david.steele@baltsun.com
Listen to David Steele on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. on WNST (1570 AM).
David Steele -- Points after
That does it. Debbie Clemens definitely isn't getting into the Baseball Wives' Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
Yes, Andy Pettitte said, he used human growth hormone to speed a return from injury, and he knew it was illegal, but that doesn't mean he was cheating. Meanwhile, in Bloomington, Ind., Kelvin Sampson was nodding his head and scribbling furiously.
Matt Walsh just found another New England Patriots secret video of another team's practice, but he taped over the last hour of it with the season finale of Lost.
I had all these clever comments about Superman and cupcakes and stocking feet saved up, but everybody hates the NBA, so probably nobody watched last weekend's dunk contest.
Next time Roger Clemens pitches, I'm bringing a banner: "Marilyn Monroe and Halle Berry Did It Naturally."
