A decent article on conspiracies by Rosenberg...

I was coming across Sports Illustrated and SI.com after Jimmie Johnson's fifth straight NASCAR title (is there another relevant team in the sport right now? No, thanks to Mr. France and Co.).

And I happened upon this two-pager from SI's Michael Rosenberg which examines some sports conspiracies, in light of the possible Brett Favre suspension for SextGate.

He dismisses most of them out of hand, but at least examines some of them. So I'll do the same, and add some comments as to why I disagree on most of them...

Babe Ruth missed the first few weeks of the 1925 season with VD: Huge for 1925? Yeah. But let's face it, Babe Ruth, as Rosenberg relates, had a reputation for women. I'd say it's pretty much a mortal lock he caught something from somebody, and is probably very fortunate, given the medicine of the day, that he only missed a few weeks. 1-10: 10.

Liston took a dive in the "Phantom Punch" second fight with Ali: This, too, was almost a given. We still don't know, to this day, who Sonny Liston was beholden to for his championship, and, given that day, God knows what else. Sonny Liston was a very dark character, and that had little to do with his skin color. 1-10: Oh, about a 20.

Tyson took a dive in Tokyo vs. Buster Douglas: Hmmm... First I've heard of this one, and I think it falls into the column of "no other logical explanation" rather than "denial of reality".

The problem with this one is: WHY? Tyson was the baddest man on the planet at this point, so why lose that position to a literal nobody? He had all the money he wanted, probably -- Hell, he was due a lucrative payday just a couple weeks after the fight to referee a WWE Main Event for national television (Douglas did so instead.). -- so the question is, why?

I think it was right as Rosenberg said: Tyson felt he could beat anybody at 20%, and Douglas showed he couldn't, starting the descent into madness. 1-10: 0.

The NBA and the 1985 Lottery: 1-10: About a 30.

This is what Rosenberg has to say about it, starting with his 1-10:

Two. If you watch the video, you'll notice that Stern intentionally looks away as he reaches into the globe thingie, and that he picks an envelope in the middle of the pile. How could he know which envelope was bent? What is he, David Copperfield? Besides, when the globe thingie spins around, the envelopes hit the side at least as hard as that first envelope did when it was thrown in there.

If Stern had known that he'd still be answering questions about this 25 years later, he would have gone the ping-pong ball route and nobody would have suspected anything. Oh, who are we kidding? Of course they would. It's the NBA!

Watch from about the 5:15 mark onward.

He looks at the case the entire time he's heading into the case, and goes straight for the envelope with the bent corner. If this had been any kind of a random draw, the accountants would've opened the hatch for him, the case would not be clear plastic, and he wouldn't look in.

On top of that, if it came out that one of the envelopes was different in any way than the others, the lottery would've been stopped and the envelope replaced.

Sorry, $tern wanted Ewing on the Knicks. Watch the evidence for yourself.

UNLV took a dive against Duke in the 1991 Final Four: There's only one real reason one can come up with this theory, and it would basically invalidate the integrity of the last 20 years of college basketball -- that Duke and Coach K were being orchestrated into a mega-dynasty. Again, as with the Tyson thing, UNLV stands to gain a lot more by winning than by losing.

We will never have another undefeated DI college basketball team go through the tournament. It's just not going to happen again. Can you imagine the fame that the UNLV team would've had by doing so, even in 1991? In fact, it's probably more likely THAT was the fix, than anything else. 0-10: 0.

Jordan's first retirement was due to an under-the-table suspension for gambling: The charges were known and admitted. Remember: By this time, it was estimated that 70% of all NBA fans were Bulls/Jordan fans, so one can see the argument against this.

Consider, however: If Jordan was in big-time gambling trouble, this all-but-certainly meant he was beholden to interests other than the NBA. It's clear that the NBA was making Jordan the God Among Basketball Gods. If things got much worse than they did, chances are that someone might've found out the ties between Jordan, $tern, and probably the Mafia. At that point, since 70% of the fans were Jordan fans, that blows up your entire league.

I understand how much his father's death hurt him, but he was in too deep with too many probable problems for even $tern to deal with.

Yeah, I think he was told to lie low and hush down. 0-10: 10.

2002 Western Conference Finals: Probably one of the grandest conspiracies in all of sports history. Previously discussed. A mortal lock that one was dirty.

Wayne Gretzky's wife took the fall for Gretzky in the Phoenix Coyotes gambling scandal: Consider in how bad of shape the NHL has been the last half-dozen years or so. When this went down, I was pretty certain they were going to have to fold the Coyotes and throw the franchise out of the league.

The problem, even if Gretzky was gambling on another sport, is that it put him in league with types who COULD fix NHL games, and HAVE fixed games in pretty much every other professional league imaginable. If Wayne Gretzky had to take that kind of a fall, the NHL would be finished.

Done.

Kaput.

I agree with the 8 Rosenberg put. It's almost a lock.

The 2008 Chinese Gymnasts had underage performers, and it was covered up: Duh. Consider the weight of the 2008 Games, across the board, here. This was China's coming-out party as the New Greatest Nation on Earth, and they not only lived up to it in medal count, but in presentation.

One of the biggest known controversies of those Games were the female gymnasts from China. There is a minimum age (I believe 14) that you have to be to legally compete in the Olympics. If you put a young girl through the Communist grinder and basically groom her from birth to be a Chinese Hero in the Chinese Olympic Games, it would not be a stretch to use every known advantage, including illegal youth. 0-10: As I said, DUH!

And if you think I believe Michael Phelps was clean when he won those eight golds, you're mad.

LeBron tanked the playoffs because he was already known to bolt Cleveland for Miami: The evidence is all there. The three had discussed this for two years. $tern needs his new mega-team. Cleveland was not going to be LeBron's home for much longer anyway. I'm just shocked no one has jumped the sonofabitch yet. 0-10: 25.

And then Favre's streak ending in an under the table suspension: No. If a suspension was going to end the streak for SextGate, especially with who it appears Goodell and Co. are marketing the NFL to, they'd have done that above the table.

Oh, and Brett: How'd that ass-job today in the Metrodome taste? 0-10: 0.