Open Court: Fixing a hole

For the past five years, the best show on television hasn’t involved a charismatic mob boss or a plane crash on a mysterious island.

While I admit that I was hopelessly addicted to “The Sopranos” and continue to be fascinated with “Lost,” both shows pale in comparison to “The Wire,” HBO’s impossibly detailed and impeccably written series about involving every aspect of the seemingly hopeless war on drugs.

Set in Baltimore, David Simon has assembled a phenomenal cast to illuminate how the drug culture is not only destroying the inner city, but also how it has poisoned politics, law enforcement and the education infastructure.

The fifth and final season of this critically acclaimed show premieres tonight, with Simon’s crew planning to take the media to task.

The unifying theme throughout “The Wire” has been to show viewers how shortsighted greed and a blind reliance on easily manipulated statistics will always inhibit progressive thought.

In Simon’s world, nobody will be able to come up with solutions to any of Baltimore’s problems until those in positions of power stop looking exclusively at short-term benefits in order to get a clearer look at the big picture.

If I had one wish for 2008, it would be to find a way to force every sports executive and commissioner to watch every episode of “The Wire” and absorb Simon’s message.

No professional sports league needs this seminar more than the NHL.

What was once considered America’s fourth major sport has vanished into relative obscurity after one of the most damaging labor disputes in sports history.

Everyone involved failed to grasp how these squabbles over shortsighted gains would destroy the product as a whole.

As a result, phenomenal athletes like Sidney Crosby and Vincent Lecavalier operate in anonymity, thanks to Gary Bettman’s horrendous business model and former players’ union represenative Bob Goodenow’s refusal to acknowledge the realities of the NHL’s dwindling finances.

The NHL can be saved, simply because hockey is a remarkable sport. However, it won’t happen without strong leadership and patience—two traits that haven’t existed in the NHL lexicon since the Gretzky and Lemiux eras.

Of course, the NHL seems like a utopia compared to the chaos and greed that permeates professional boxing.

For years, people have been eager to hammer the final nail into boxing’s coffin, but the sweet science rebounded in a big way, with 2007 quickly becoming one of the sport’s banner years.

But in order to capitalize on that momentum, boxing would need some sort of centralized leadership with the sport’s best interests at heart.

Instead, boxing is run by hopelessly corrupt sanctioning bodies who have one goal in mind: Rip off as many fans and fighters as possible in order to make a quick buck.

Imagine if there were dozens of NFL champions every season, but none of these teams ever played each other on free television. It would be a total disaster, right?

In a related story, one of the most emotionally involving plot lines in “The Wire” last season involved Michael, a young boxing prodigy with a troubled background who tragically falls into the drug world.

The lessons of Simon’s brilliant series seem to indicate that one selfish step forward will always equal three steps backward.

Let’s hope the NHL and boxing figure this out before it’s too late.

nprevenas@gvnews.com | 547-9747