A referee's weekend

This weekend was all about the referees. The two biggest stories this weekend (unless you like golf or hockey, and I don't cater to 60-year-olds and Canadians) were the U.S. soccer team and game 6 of the NBA Finals---or, more accurately, the guys calling the fouls.

Meet Jorge Larrionda. He's a rather nondescript 38-year-old Uruguayan referee chosen by FIFA to work this year's World Cup. He was chosen four years ago but was then suspended for "irregularities" and forced to miss his sport's biggest event. Later, he presided over a controversial Cup qualifier in which he essentially took a win away from Brazil by disallowing two goals. And now, in his biggest feat, he's managed to make a bunch of Americans emotional about soccer.

Specifically, we want to rip his player-ejecting, handball-missing, goal-disallowing head off. American fans threw things at any officails they could reach, and Deadspin proclaimed that they now understood what drove people to hooliganism. The man reached the pinnacle of his profession (not even his main job, mind you) and promptly vomitted red cards all over it.

Now meet Joey Crawford. He and his crew just refereed (yet another) controversial NBA playoff game. But this one was in the finals, was decided by one point, and ultimately came down to a foul call that was, shall we say, totally nonexistant.

Crawford's performance wasn't as bad as Larrionda's--he didn't eject Dirk Nowtizki for having his shirt untucked, for one thing--but it was another example of how arbitrary these stupid sports are. In any close NBA game (and there sure have been a lot of them this postseason), you can probably find two or three instances where maybe tripping over one's own feet doesn't deserve a foul. Or where that ball probably hit off the offensive guy's shoe before it went out of bounds. Or where, just possibly, Michael Jordan shoved Byron Russell out of the way before he hit his jumper.

Essentially, a few arbitrary referee's decisions decide whether we sit around and flagellate ourselves all night or run outside and joyously flip over some cars. And soccer is even worse: it seems like every single game is decided by one goal, and that one goal either came (or didn't come) on a controversial takedown in the penalty box.

So why do we watch the games, knowing that, as often as not, the schlub with the whistle has all the power (and probably a cool grand riding on the game)? I don't know. Maybe we like the indignation of knowing we got jobbed. Or maybe we like the feeling that our lousy, underachieving team could actually win if the guy in the striped shirt feels like giving them the game.

Of course, not every referee is Jorge Larrionda--sometimes you get that game where Brazil wins 3-1 or Lebron scores 53 and there's no doubt in anybody's mind who deserved to win. But most of the time, we like to watch because even when our boys lose (or tie 1-1, in the U.S.'s case), we can say "Goddammit, they would have won if that Uruguayan fink knew what he was doing!"

...And they would have won, too. Goddammit.