ORLANDO, Fla. — This is where we are now. This is where we’ve arrived. There was a time when an umpire named Don Denkinger could blow a call as badly as a call could possibly be blown, a miss that only cost the Cardinals a chance at winning the World Series, and the worst that could happen is that Denkinger would spend the rest of his life being booed in St. Louis, occasionally forced to dodge especially venomous slings and arrows.
There was a time when a veteran basketball official named John Clougherty could be the only person in the entirety of Seattle’s Kingdome — maybe the only person in the country — who saw Gerald Greene foul Rumeal Robinson with three seconds left in the NCAA Tournament final and Clougherty’s only lasting consequence was the eternal enmity of Seton Hall, captured in miniature by the agonized expression on P.J. Carlesimo’s face in the moments after Robinson went to the line to give Michigan the title.
Now, understand: that is the only thing that should happen to Jacyn Goble going forward. Goble made the unconscionable decision to call a foul on Jalen Brunson as he ran out to contest Aaron Holiday’s desperation 30-footer at the close of a tie game Monday night, a call so egregious that within 90 minutes of the Rockets’ 105-103 victory, his own boss, Ed Malloy, admitted it was the wrong call. Goble should expect a good booing (and much more) whenever he encounters the long memories of Knicks fans at Madison Square Garden the rest of his career. He should expect to be the target of deep derision on social media for years to come.
It might get ugly. It might get vicious. It might not exactly be the kind of Christian charity the nuns taught you in Catholic school. But umpires and referee and officials have always had to deal with this. It’s part of the unspoken contract they sign when they slide the whistle around their necks or the chest protector over their torso.
But this is 2024.
And that innocent Rubicon has long ago been crossed.
Look, unless in addition to being a substandard referee Goble is also inveterately stupid, he didn’t have money on the Rockets Monday night, and it would be absurd to think he did. But we are living in a time of unbridled conspiracy theories. We live in a time when a not-insignificant portion of America believed — truly believed — that a woman cheering for her boyfriend might actually swing the scales of justice in the Super Bowl in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs.
And when there’s money possibly in the mix?
That’s something else entirely. That’s a different animal altogether. And the fact the NBA — along with every other sports league — is now fully engaged with the gambling sites makes it certain that this kind of call will always be accompanied by this kind of snickering, sniggering commentary.
As it turns out, there happened to be an extra twist Monday night, because as far as gambling is concerned there is always an extra twist. Within minutes of the call most of my gambling friends had clobbered me with text messages, and their point was similar to the one that MSG Network gambling maven Alex Monaco made shortly thereafter on X:
“One of the worst officiated games I’ve seen in YEARS,” Monaco said. “[And it] didn’t help that the betting line reflected Rockets had big money come in late. Line went from +4 to a pick ’em in the last hour.”
Again: Are we saying Jacyn Goble is Tim Donaghy 2.0? We are not. But, then: Donaghy did break bad at a time when it was a lot more complicated to do so, and he has spent the intervening years explaining just how easy it would be for another ref to copycat him, crafting blueprints that are impossible to ignore unless you’re in a complete see-no-evil mode — which is exactly how these things go from crazy conspiracy theories to something far more sinister.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Jim Joyce could cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game with a blown call and the worst he’d suffer is a string of sleepless nights, when the worst Bill Vinovich and his crew that cost the Saints a Super Bowl appearance with a horrific no-call on an obvious DPI could expect was a salty Twitter picture of Vinovich and Jared Goff exchanging jersey tops. That was then.
Now? This is the cost of a world where every game features a dozen gambling ads, where everyone is always looking for grassy knolls, where forgetting point-spread shenanigans, just the common universal knowledge of what a “money-line” now is is plenty to get tongues wagging and gums flapping. Time was, the worst Goble could expect was maybe turning up on James Dolan facial recognition no-fly list and never be allowed to see a concert at the Garden again. What a quaint time that was.