Holy face mask, batman!. It seems the quality of NFL officiating has taken a nose dive as steep as a cluster bomb over Baghdad. Now, with increasing regularity, officials are making "calls" that are so atrocious that the game announcers need a belt of whisky and a sedative to cope with the embarassment. Runners who are clearly in the end zone are called down on the one-yard line; obversely, runners who are down on the one yard line are awarded a game ball and a touchdown. And fumbles? Forget about it. Although the close up clearly shows the ball coming loose decades before the knee hits the ground, the ump rules the ground caused the ball to come loose.

Medical School - four years; law school - three years; NFL ump school - a coupon from the back of a Wheaties box. NFL ump trainee - a box top from Flutie Flakes™.

I mean, it's gotten to the point where the officials are ruining the game for the spectator. There is no continuity. Take college basketball, for example. There are so many fouls that it's a wonder the game ever gets played. There are now more TV commercials than play time. Never mind there is a minor gang rumble and kidney-punching going on under the basket; someone moved a hand on defense - foul! Forget the chop block and eye-gouging that took place on the last possession; someone sneezed - foul! And forget the habitual palming and travelling with the ball ; someone goes up for an aggressive rebound - foul!

The horrendous officiating is not, of course, limited to fall and winter sports. Take Major League Baseball. You might as well flip a coin on a play at the plate. And then there is that "strike zone:" it reaches from the ankles to the head vertically and the baselines horizontally.

Now, you say: "OK, wiseguy, I suppose you could do better yourself!" You bet I could!! I would make the game interesting. After all, this is the age of electronics. I would institute the first "consensus officiating" system. The fans would vote electronically by inputting a number on a keypad at their seats and the alleged infraction would be subjected to a simple majority vote. Only in the event of a tie (very unlikely with 92,000 people in the stadium) would the officials on the field (whose sole function would be to blow the whistle and mark position) make a call.

This would be perfect. As we all know, there are no better officials then the sports fan. We have been in training for years, indeed decades, in the intricacies of the rules of the game. We have been watching replays and analyzing those calls since - well, before we were old enough to walk!! And with a beer in hand and nachos in our stomachs we would be infallible. And the neat thing about it is that we wouldn't even have to be impartial! We could vote any way our hearts or our pocketbooks desired, confident in the fact that, like anything else in nature, the more chaos there seems to be, the more predictable is the outcome. Indeed, and I have checked with some statisticians on this, once the sample exceeds 1,000 (and what major sports contest doesn't have more than that in attendance), the odds of a completely random event influencing the outcome is almost infinitesimally small. In other words, our votes would be meaningful and significant all the time. Now, when does that ever happen today?

Once the electronic referee system has been in place for a while, a whole genre of game strategies would spring up, to be mercillessly exploited by the sports community. Season ticket holders at a Redskins game, for example, might receive a flyer as they enter the stadium, instructing them to press "26" (illegal procedure) on all opponent's whistles in the first quarter and "47" (unsportsmanlike conduct) in the second. On all Redskin's whistles they would press "99" (no foul - inadvertent flag). Home team supporters at a Maryland basketball game, as another example, might be instructed to press "69" (*4#@5 you Duke) on all whistles, even if they are not playing Duke. And Yankee stadium faithful, as a final example, would receive a secret code in their wieners, calling for them to press "88" (fan interference) on all long balls off their opponent's bats.

What is really great about this system is that it would infuse much-needed fan enthusiasm at games. Why, fans might even show up just to press the buttons. We wouldn't even need an NBA season! And the extra money the fans would make would offset the ridiculous prices of tickets and refreshments. The home team would be guaranteed a victory every time and people would be happy again all over America. Road rage would disappear on our roads, crime would decline and there would be a New Year's Eve atmosphere every day. The capricious, arbitrary era of sports officiating would come to an ignominious end, replaced by a fair and equitable fan-driven system. After all, history has shown over and over again that when power is restored to the people harmony and prosperity rule. It sure beats the striped shirts.