2012 in Super Fraud, a year of farce in review

So we finally have achieved the end of this God-forsaken year (Good Riddance!!!), and what have we found?

• January

* Tebow Time in full effect, until the Patriots are given the script to end it and make the Super Bowl.
* Possible shenanigans to keep the 49ers from facing them.
* A 2011 football riot in Georgia leads to exactly zero indictments, since the incident occurred in the jurisdiction of the team which locked the other team out of their locker room (after getting their asses kicked on the field) and almost killed their coach.

• February

* Giants win a Super Bowl marred with questionable play (and decision-making afterward, according to Tom Brady's wife) by New England wide-receivers.
* The NFL gets what it really wanted, a game with the ball in the air at the gun to decide it.
* Brian Tuohy begins to reveal some of the FBI files he was able to obtain on sporting events going back decades, in a lead-up to his 2013 book Larceny Games.

• March

* Bounty-Gate explodes, as the Saints are revealed to have a standing bounty program the year they won the Super Bowl, eventually leading to the fading of Brett Favre, Kurt Warner, and (so we thought!) Peyton Manning.  Penalties announced later in the month -- were a joke in the first place and most of them were rejected by Paul Tagliabue in a decision which basically says the players are complete serfs to their coaches on the field.  (*snork*)
* Syracuse's basketball program, and Jim Boeheim, continued to be protected from any real consequences, as rumors of rampant drug use in the program go nowhere, as did a sexual incident on tape that even ESPN stonewalled a few months before!
* The first week of the NCAA tournament sees unthinkable comebacks (BYU goes down 25 to Iona with El Presidente Brackets watching, wins by six) and even more unthinkable officiating (North Carolina-Asheville openly screwed against Syracuse, Ohio University screwed against North Carolina.)

• April

* The NHL and NBA playoffs spiral out of control, Metta World Peace getting another toss for a flagrant elbow, and the NHL's entire first round or two falling victim to fighting and dirty hits all over the place.
* The NCAA's new darling school, Baylor, gets a 4-year investigation revealed against it by the NCAA.

• May

* In another black eye for boxing, Floyd "Money" Mayerweather is allowed to fight Miguel Cotto, despite the laws of the state of Nevada effectively requiring the Nevada State Athletic Commission to review to revoke Mayerweather's license to fight for his domestic violence conviction, for which he served jail time after the Cotto fight? Why?  Anyone on the road that weekend to Vegas could've told you, as could the record $32,000,000 guarantee Mayerweather got for the fight!
* Junior Seau dies, and a pattern of criminality consistent with too many football blows to the head surfaces.
* An interesting series of events on the final Sunday of the English Premier League season leads to a bizarre sending-off of malcontent Joey Barton (for which he has been shipped out of English soccer completely!) and a late double to give Manchester City an unthinkable (ha ha) Hollywood ending, and a Premier League title.

• June

* In probably the Rig Job of the Year, Manny Pacquiao is "defeated" by Timothy Bradley, noted to take place in the same building in which Mayerweather was "Home" against Cotto a month beforehand.  Pacquiao appeared to win many of the rounds through control of the ring, but the judges came back with bizarre totals, with two judges giving the fight to Bradley by seven rounds to five!  A WBO panel of judges puts the result at more to what I thought it was:  Pacquiao by the same margin, if not further.
* Racism and hooliganism mar the Euro 2012 soccer championships, almost across the board, as the BBC predicted weeks beforehand.
* A testy exchange between NBA Mafia Don David Stern and Jim Rome surfaces, just before Stern gets his wish, a title for the talents taken down to South Beach.  As the year would go on, the Lakers would also assemble a super-team (but with, to this point, much lesser results!).

• July

* Austin Dillon, in the old-school Dale Sr. colors of the #3, fails a pair of inspections within a week on the Nationwide Series.  This probably had a serious hand in him only finishing third in the season series, 24 points behind Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
* The Penn State situation goes before the NCAA after Louis Freeh details, in a report to the public, a systematic culture of allowance of pedophilia, child rape, and coverups of same at the University.  The NCAA mulls what penalties it can impose.  The NCAA (farcically) attempts to impose penalties worse than the simple removal of the team from the field, in an effort President Mark Emmert calls an effort to change the culture at the university.  It fails uncategorically.  Penn State had the second-best football team in the Big Ten (ironically, the best team in the conference was also ineligible this year (Ohio State)), and then word comes out that a party with inside access to the negotiations which changed the original penalties (which would've been a four-year death penalty) to what they became was none other than The Owners of College Football themselves, ESPN.

• The 2012 Summer Olympics

* An athlete was banned from the Games for betting on a pre-Olympic event he was participating in.
* The efforts to bring social media into the Games lead to the disqualifications of multiple athletes, and a controversy among the US track team (and others) about the promotion of non-Olympic-authorized sponsors.
* Ryan Lochte is more interested in his custom diamond-encrusted tooth grill than actually shutting up and winning gold medals.
* Officiating incidents abounded in the tournament.
* The American professionals in the basketball competition roll up the score mercilessly on Nigeria, winning a game by 83 points.
* Badminton competition implodes when two Chinese teams are part of a match-fixing scandal which eventually fells four teams from the competition.
* Boxing is a complete farce, and I'm not talking the shutout of the US men.  A scandal showing medals-for-cash plans explodes when bizarre decisions appear to indicate that the boxing federation was fully intent on rigging the entire tournament in London.
* The hosts, in one of their premier events, concoct a plan to intentionally crash their cycling bike to force a restart if the start did not go to Great Britain's liking.

• August

*A bizarre plot to kidnap the mother of Hall of Fame baseball player Cal Ripken Jr. surfaces.  Ripken Jr. _was_ an honorary member of Second Mile, Jerry Sandusky front company for pedophilia.
* Buried in the Olympic coverage was a controversy surrounding George Will and an article he wrote about the dangers of football and why no one was interested in seeing them dealt with.
* The state of New Jersey is in court with the major sports leagues over wishing to open sportsbooks legally in their own state.
* A boy in Texas is disqualified from a Pee-Wee football league for being more than twice the 135-pound weight limit for the league.  The mom doesn't like it.
* Lance Armstrong stripped of his seven Tour de Farce ...  err, France... titles.
* A Notre Dame announcer is suspended for comments which indicate he'd like to see more criminals and thugs under the Golden Dome.

• September

* One constant of the 2012 NFL season:  The NFL bettors get fleeced.  Vegas appears to win many games under the replacement referees.
* A close second to Pacquiao-Bradley for Rig Job of the Year, and one which will impact who plays in the Super Bowl:  The Call.  The Fail Mary by the Seattle Seahags against the Green Bay Packers which sent a stadium into hysterics, with the announcers calling an immediate touchdown on the final play of the game, giving the Hags the victory over the Packers.  This, ignoring three facts:  The receiver shoves a Packer defender to the ground openly while the ball is in the air, the officials can't make up their mind on joint possession (or anything else), and anyone who saw the replay knows the situation was NOT joint possession.  No matter:  Controversy creates cash, and the real refs are brought back within 72 hours.  As a result of that call, the San Francisco 49ers get the #2 seed in the NFC.
* You want your team to win in the NFL in 2012?  Hope for a tragedy in the team.  Wins of this ilk benefitted the Ravens, Colts, Cowboys, and Chiefs, at barest of minimum.

• October

* Controversies abound in the Wild Card Game in baseball in the National League, leading to the Saint Louis Cardinals advancing after two questionable calls send Atlanta home.
* A 45 year-old Utah youth football coach decides he's man enough to KO a 13 year-old opponent on the sideline.
* A lawsuit by a Saints fan against the NFL contends that the league has an obligation to allow the "finest players and coaches" to be on the Saints.
* A massive gambling sting in Florida blows the doors off of massive drug, gang, and gambling cultures surrounding youth football in the state -- as ESPN (and this blog) reported a year and a half beforehand.

• November

* Notre Dame is gift-wrapped it's second victory by the refereeing this year, leading to ESPN's Dream Match for the BCS National Championship vs. Alabama.  Pittsburgh is openly denied a win it won on the field with several questionable calls, including an ignored penalty on a missed field goal in overtime which would've given Pittsburgh a first down and effectively certain victory.
* Jeff Gordon wrecks Clint Bowyer out of the Sprint Cup championship, and a fight ensues.  No one is banned.  "Have at it boys!", until someone dies...
* Jeffrey Loria is trying to kill Major League Baseball in yet another city.  It's not enough he killed it in Montreal, now Miami is about to become effectively a minor-league farm team for the rest of the major leagues.
* Ed Reed, in a disturbing precedent which has led to many more incidents since the reversal (including another by Reed himself!) is spared a suspension when an arbitrator reverses a suspension against the Baltimore Ravens' thug.
* Speaking of thugs, Ndokamung Suh of the Lions was at it again THIS Thanksgiving!
* A Division III player scores 138 points in a game, and the entire mechanism of basketball at that university is fairly quickly exposed as an over-produced sham.
* An NFL player claims that one of the performance-enhancing drugs in the NFL is...  erectile-dysfunction drugs, to increase bloodflow during games.
* David Stern throws a fit when Greg Popavich sends most of the starters home for the San Antonio Spurs against the Miami Heat.  Never mind the length of the road trip or the schedule -- this game was on NATIONAL TELEVISION!!!  Roar!!

• December

* In addition to a great many continuances of previous bullet points, an ESPN reporter is suspended for a month for saying that the league's new Great Black Hope, Robert Griffin III, isn't black enough for the ghetto, inner-city culture the league is attempting to promote.

Any idea why I'm glad this year is over???