Dick Jerardi: Biggest Donaghy question remains: Which games?

AS HIS LIFE has spiraled out of control, Tim Donaghy has fiercely held on to one precious piece of dignity. He has repeatedly insisted he never made any calls that would have influenced the result of an NBA game or impacted whether he won or lost a bet on any game he officiated. That is also the one thing that kept his father, Gerry, a now retired college official, from being even angrier at what his son did.

Sean Griffin, an associate professor in criminal justice at Penn State Abington and a former Philadelphia police officer, is less than sure Tim Donaghy has been telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Griffin, who has written two books, including one on Philadelphia's Black Mafia, has been researching the Donaghy betting scandal for 2 years. He is finishing a book on the case. Its working title is "Not Sharp Enough."

Griffin bought the life rights to Donaghy co-conspirator James Battista. He has been piecing together the details through interviews with Battista, police, FBI and others associated with the case. He has pored through all the court filings.

"I have this crazy idea you don't write something that you can't back up," Griffin said.

When he told Battista about the title, Battista thought it was "hysterical."

"He said, if you're writing a book about me and I'm sitting in the joint, I'm not sharp enough."

There is so much misinformation out there now, Griffin said, that it is becoming very difficult to separate fact from fiction. The recent spate of Donaghy interviews, he said, are not really helping.

Griffin doesn't think the right questions are being asked.

You would think from some of the interviews that Donaghy was right 80 percent of the time on his bets. Well, Griffin wants to know, which bets?

Battista told Griffin that Donaghy was right 80 percent of the time on the games he officiated, but was so bad on the games he did not officiate that Battista stopped betting on them.

Donaghy has said he made picks based on inside information, such as the fact that Dick Bavetta liked to keep games close and Steve Javie disliked Allen Iverson.

So, the inference was clear. Donaghy would recommend taking the points in games Bavetta officiated when there was a big favorite. He would also recommend betting against the Sixers when Javie was one of the officials.

Well, ESPN.com did the research on those specific kinds of games and found out there was no correlation at all. In fact, it would have been a losing proposition.