Baseball fans in Taiwan aren’t too happy about games being fixed, so they’ve taken their gripes to the streets:
TAIPEI – HUNDREDS of Taiwanese baseball fans took to the streets here on Sunday demanding the government crack down on gangs behind the island’s latest match-fixing scandal.
Demonstrators chanted ‘Save the national sport!’ as they marched through the capital and demanded severe punishment against the gangs who have coerced professional baseballers into allegedly fixing games.
Four bookies have been detained and more than 13 players questioned in the latest in a string of scandals to hit the sport in Taiwan.
The Brother Elephants, Taiwan’s most popular professional baseball team, last month sacked two players after they confessed to prosecutors to taking money from a gambling ring.
So in Taiwan, if a professional sport is fixed, the fans of the sport demand punishment for those involved. In the United States, in the face of blatant game-fixing in professional sports, a single official is singled out and life goes on. Where was the outrage over fixed NBA games? I suppose it was largely subdued due to the fact that anyone with a half a brain could have seen that the NBA was fixing games for years.
This, admittedly, is way worse, due to the fact that it’s not just officials, but players who are involved, too. Not that I’d put it past some of the guys in the NBA to point-shave.
What I’m trying to say is that the NBA has about as much credibility as the WWE and I am shocked that people still support the league the way they do. Maybe it’ll take something like Chris Paul murdering his family and killing himself for people to wake up. In the meantime, slam dunks > actual athletic competition.
