Out of the Shadows

September 20, 2021 Michael Olesker

(File photo)

My late friend Bob Blatchley had two kinds of jobs: those he did for a living, and the one he did for love.

For a living, Blatch worked as a reporter — first, for WBAL radio, then for the Baltimore News-American. Then, he took a wrong turn and became an attorney.

For love, Blatch was a football referee. He refereed hundreds of high school and college games over the years.

And he always insisted, “We could call a penalty on every single play in every single game.”

Notice the careful use of language: they “could” call penalties.

That’s the nature of football, in which 22 players are looking for an edge through sheer strength, or guile, or any means possible, including surreptitious breaking of the rules.

And a handful of referees have to eyeball every move and make split-second decisions out of each melee.

I think of that every time I see one of those now-ubiquitous commercials for legalized gambling during every ballgame. I thought of it last week when the Ravens played the Raiders — in Las Vegas, the very heart of American gambling.

I think of it as sports fans wonder about gambling’s increasing financial shadow over those who play the games, as well as those who referee those games and have their own power to influence who wins and who loses.

And I thought of it during Baltimore’s thrilling 36-35 win over Kansas City Sunday night, when one of the Ravens’ linemen was hit with an absurd penalty for being too far downfield — a distance of a yard or so, which had absolutely no effect on what would have been a successful two-point conversion.

As organized, legal gambling weaves its way ever more insidiously into America’s big-time sports, and gains a kind of cultural legitimacy it never had before. Maybe you noticed a couple of related newspaper stories over the weekend.

The Sun’s Jeff Barker had a front-page story headlined, “As sports betting goes live, regulators fret ‘insider’ leaks.” It’s about University of Maryland athletes getting explicit warnings from school officials about “impermissible gambling, which includes fantasy leagues and March Madness and Super Bowl Pools.”

This, as Barker notes, at a time when “Maryland regulators [are] drafting ground rules for a newly approved sports betting industry in the state.”

Meanwhile, in a New York Times op-ed column by Jane Coaston headlined, “The NFL Bets on Betting,” she notes that pro football now has an official casino sponsor (Caesars) and partnerships with seven major sports gambling operations.

“Nearly 60 million football bets were processed online in the United States last year,” Coaston writes, “and the NFL was probably thrilled about every single one of them.”

College and pro sports insiders used to worry about the hidden influence of big-time gambling. Now it’s no longer hidden. They used to worry about gambling affecting the outcomes of games, and thereby calling into question the legitimacy of every team’s victories and defeats.

They worried about the very thing they’re now fervently embracing.

This, at a time when college players are openly questioning why everybody connected with their games makes big-money profits, except the players themselves.

This, at a time when professional players make enormous money per game, and referees make a tiny percentage of such sums.

And I think of the late Blatchley, who said penalties “could” be called on every single play.

How long until we start wondering about gambling’s “legitimacy” marking a new illegitimacy on the playing field?

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.