Summer Games

By RICHARD CORLISS

Midsummer is supposed to be a quiet time in sports--the lazy hammock suspended between the end of basketball and the start of football. In baseball the pennant races are still at a gentle trot, supporting the fans' antique dream of sport as a refuge from front-page reality.

Not this year. Big stars wear the stink of scandal, and the commissioners of the major sports leagues are fuming or squirming in public. These gray men in suits are a sorry stand-in for the boys of summer.

One controversy has been long brewing. Barry Bonds will surely overtake Hank Aaron's cherished record of 755 career home runs, but he can't shake the suspicion that he's used anabolic steroids to juice up his game. Commissioner Bud Selig, a close friend of Aaron's, has glumly agreed to sit in the stands at Bonds' games. Selig's secret wish: that Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees star with a clean rep and 498 homers, could miraculously hit 258 more before Bonds gets his three.

Bonds, 43, will probably be around for another season or two. But Michael Vick, star quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, may have thrown his last NFL pass. A federal grand jury has indicted him for owning a property that held dog fights in which the animals fought to the death (some dogs, the feds allege, were put to death by drowning, gunshot or electrocution). The league is pursuing its own inquiry into the case.

Athletes who misbehave are a shame but not a surprise. But referees? Commish David Stern curtly confirmed that the NBA is cooperating with the FBI in sifting evidence that ref Tim Donaghy had bet on games, including some he officiated. Insisting that all other refs are clean, Stern denounced this "act of betrayal of what we know in sports as a sacred trust."

Where is that trust? Who can restore a fan's faith in the glory of sport? Why, the Iraqi national soccer team. Stocked with Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds, the Iraqis defeated Vietnam and then South Korea to advance to the finals of the Asian Cup. Iraqis crowded Baghdad streets after the semifinal win, firing celebratory gunshots (which killed one person) and being targeted by car bombs (which killed at least 50). It was, at least, a moment of passion for sport, a feeling that the corporate commissioners in the U.S. will be hard-pressed to safeguard.