After watching sports for so long, I'm becoming frustrated with some of them (basketball) and fond of others (baseball). The reason for my frustrations is that some of these sports (basketball) leave me feeling cheated at the end of their seasons, while others don't. Here's why:
Sports are, at their core, irrational. It's why I love them. My love for a team isn't founded in rational arguments, it's based on the various experiences I have while watching any given team play. I love failure, so watching teams like the Lions and the Nets makes me happy. Sure I'm often hoping they lose, but I'm still extremely fond of them. Your hometown team is beloved because when you watch these games with friends you form a unit of people all rooting for something out of their control (really, how people behave around sports is exactly like we do about everything else, but I'm not ready to go there yet).
This irrationality at the core of sports makes being fair a difficult thing to do. We pretend to argue fairly about sports, but if you watch any NFL halftime show, you know that people who played for a team (i.e. Shannon Sharpe and the Broncos) will often create arguments as to why their team will win, even though it's improbable that they will. I often find myself over exaggerating the strength of a team because I want them to be good, and usually I don't even notice I am doing so.
I suspect referees are just as susceptible to this bias, but for them, they might not always be rooting for a team or a player, they might be rooting for themselves as well. The only reason I can fathom why there is such a disparity of records between home and road basketball games is that the refs get swept up in the noise and tend to make close calls in favor of the team that doesn't have 30,000 screaming fans within a square kilometer. If I put myself in their shoes I wouldn't even hesitate to favor the home team. I couldn't resist the cheer of the crowd for my suspect foul call. I'm not, however, a professional referee, and I don't think that they mean to favor the home team, it's a natural reaction. Everybody wants people to like them.
The bias of a referee changing games hurts sports, because it's one thing to get beat by a team, but another to lose a game to officiating. This year in Denver sports, we've seen both the nuggets and rockies make the post season, and my experiences watching each team play revealed to me how badly basketball needs to be fixed before I can truly respect it. After the Rockies lost to the Phillies in the first round I was saddened, but it was such a good season for them that I carried no residual anger towards the Phillies or the league. I felt like we lost to a better team and that's part of being a fan. When watching basketball, however, in nearly every playoff game it seemed like the winners were determined by the referees. A bad call during a crucial moment is all it takes to completely alter the game. There are always countless penalties that are miscalled, some more important than others, and this aspect of the game may never be fixed. Too many calls are made too quickly and the rules are too vaguely worded.
In baseball there are definite rules, and they are adhered to strictly and easily. The strike zone is an exception, but one that is fairly consistent and rarely seems biased. When baseball institutes instant replay, it will be as fair a sport as there is, and that's a good thing. It means that the winning team does so by their own merits, which leaves fans feeling disappointed rather than disenfranchised. I'll probably still watch basketball, but even though I love the Nuggets, I'm increasingly hating the sport.
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