Summertime Riffs at 3:05 AM: Homemade Ice Cream, The Flying Tongue, Tim Donaghy, and More Bitching about Congress

You can believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, but Summer is here.

That means a lot of things: half-days wasted [and spent wasted] on the deck, nights indulging in ridiculous nocturnal tendencies. It means constant consumption of various grilled red meats, homemade ice cream, and lots of beer. Not that the latter is much of a developing trend around here, I suppose. The stunner shades get a hell of a lot more mileage these days, as does the old Honda -- sunroof open, of course, and windows all the way down.

Who doesn't love Summer? Find us that asshole, so we can knock some sense into him.

One of my favorite parts of Summer is, and always has been, the NBA Playoffs. 40 Games in 40 Nights, or so the slogan goes. And that's just on good old TNT. These days, ESPN even gets a cut since the first round was inexplicably extended to seven games. But, I digress.

See, I was raised in Jordan's heyday, and the Bulls were the closest team to KC in geographical terms. I've also been told that I spent the first year and a half or so of my existence living in the Windy City, though I have no recollections to confirm my parents' claims. Let's just say I'm skeptical.

Anyway, I had a tailor made excuse to root for the greatest basketball team to put shoe-marks on hardwood. And lordy, did I. At my house, we spent summer nights laid out on the basement carpet, screaming at the refs from hundreds of miles away [unfortunately, it's a family malady -- I once got thrown out of a high school ball game for mouthing off from the stands, but that's another post entirely] and patiently awaiting His Airness' next feat of legend. We shot baskets at halftime and everything. It was fairytale stuff, and I miss those days dearly.

Yet again, I digress. The NBA floundered in the years following Jordan's second retirement, and during his blasphemous time with the Wizards, which Bulls fans have selectively deleted from their memories.

But as I sit here, and the Summer night rolls by outside, I'm watching ESPN's replay of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals [Thank you, Worldwide Leader -- at least someone understands my sleep schedule]. Boston v. Detroit is looking like a potentially great series, and it's nice to see the League back on the upswing. Aside from the absence of The Flying Tongue, the NBA suffered from publicized character deficits among its players, and the media's overplay of the whole "thuggishness" notion, but most of all, the popularity of the League dipped at the hands of the San Antonio Snores, who won four championships featuring the World's Most Boring Brand of Basketball.

The Spurs/Cavs Finals last year featured more pick and rolls than a bitty-ball tournament, and fewer fast breaks than a game of wheelchair basketball.

I'm not too worried about this year, though, 'cause Kobe and his ridiculously stacked Lakers squad are going to handle the aging Spurs in six, and Lakers/Celts is a dream final for the League.

All is not dreamy in the land of roundball, however, and recent developments in this whole Tim Donaghy mess may spoil the NBA's Summer in the Sun. Donaghy, a former NBA ref now facing felony gambling charges and up to 25 years in prison, recently admitted to betting on over 100 games he called from 2003 to 2007 -- 14 in that final season before he was caught. Surely I need not explain to you, faithful readers of 65TPT, how much influence a basketball official can have on the outcome of a game if he so chooses [that blind bastard who called the district finals my senior year proved the case singlehandedly], and 100 games over four seasons is one hell of a resume.

My question is, where's Congress and its high and mighty ass now? Where the hell is Arlen Specter? Mr. Waxman, to the floor? If our most trusted legislative body is truly interested in investigating cheating in American pro sports, this is the conspiracy to be nosing around in. This isn't the marginal advantages of stealing signals (SpyGate) or using steroids (MLB). And this isn't a situaton where our elected officials are baiting athletes into purjuring themselves, seemingly just for the fun of it. We're talking about one man deciding games here, in order to profit from betting on the outcome. We're talking about actual felonies, too, not some cockamamie perjury charge about whether or not Roger Clemens attended a party in 1976.

Truth is, commish David Stern and the NBA have done such an unbelievable job of downplaying the Donaghy situation that there's no headlines in it for our leeches in office to slurp up. Some of you have probably never heard of this story, but it had far more impact on pro sports in our country than SpyGate and steroids combined. Personally, I'm shocked no suspicious coaches have come out to demand reviews of playoff games they thought might have been decided by Donaghy -- perhaps its just an indication of how tightly Stern runs his ship.

Call me crazy for expecting consistency from Congress, but its sudden interest in the sports world sort of demands an investigation, doesn't it? At least a press conference. Maybe just a shameless pork-barrel amendment to a completely unrelated piece of legislation. They seem to be pretty damned good at that.