Three sports commissioners are envying the NHL's Gary Bettman.

Major League Baseball, defined by its records, came closer to passing its most prestigious one from a class act to a suspected cheater and confirmed grump, with Bud Selig powerless to decide anything but whether to watch.

The NFL learned of the indictment of a marquee player, Michael Vick, creating the ultimate test for law-and-order Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Then there's the most serious scandal, strictly from a sports perspective.

The scandal facing David Stern.

The scandal that has made Tim Donaghy, No. 21 in his official's uniform, the No. 1 threat in NBA history — ranking above drug use, on-court brawls, the short-lived new ball and players' attire, all issues Stern has tackled.

The one that can destroy more than a reputation or history, but a sport's very reason for being.

The dogfighting allegations against Vick, so vile and disturbing, resonate most in the real world. Yet fans don't generally punish a league for a single athlete's transgressions, no matter how horrific. And they usually forgive the athlete too, if his performance pleases.

Baseball's steroid controversy, embodied by Barry Bonds, has called two decades' worth of individual and team results into question. Yet the preponderance of performing-enhancing drugs, whether known or assumed, hasn't stopped baseball fans from attending games in record numbers.

The NBA scandal is more dangerous.

Fans merely ask that what they're watching is real.

A baseball player using steroids or human growth hormone might tilt the playing field by perhaps gaining an unfair advantage. An NBA official artificially adjusting calls, for gambling reasons, is more directly and definitively influential, even with two other officials on the crew and those crews changing night to night.

If it is discovered that Donaghy merely toyed with point differences or totals, rather than winners and losers, that doesn't soften the scandal. One point corruptly achieved can corrupt every point that follows, and accidents can occur; a call to get under a point spread could lead to a comeback victory. Also, who says an official can only influence a game in the closing minutes? What about a star's second foul in the first quarter?

This is Stern's worst-case scenario.

Protecting officials has been his primary platform, as every challenger from Mark Cuban to Jeff Van Gundy has discovered. Players and coaches are fined for the slightest criticism. Officials' fines aren't publicly revealed. Officials never face the media, and keep getting more authority to assess quick technical fouls.

Aura of accountability? Hardly.

Stern's stance has inflated officials' egos while inadvertently fueling, rather than quashing, conspiracy theories.

Nor has Stern ever adequately explained two discrepancies that are more than conspiracies, each supported by significant empirical evidence. Statistics show that officials favor home teams and star players, entities that would seem to need the assistance least, but whose success benefits the league most. Saying that stars attack the basket or that the home crowd inspires offensive aggressiveness fails to sufficiently explain the numbers.

Fans can accept some institutional unfairness, or some occasional incompetence. They can't accept blatant corruption.

So, after the Donaghy revelation, every official suffers by association. Every call, every outcome is in dispute.

Stern must put transparency first, finally, investigating all officials thoroughly and revealing the results. With authorities' approval, he should share every detail about every game Donaghy worked.

That Donaghy could work 131 games without raising the NBA's suspicion suggests Stern was negligent.

It likely means little that the Heat was 1-7 in Donaghy's games, 43-31 in others. Six games were blowouts. The others? A Feb. 26 loss to the host Knicks, who shot 31 more free throws and covered a 4.5 point spread with a six-point victory. And a April 8 home overtime loss to Charlotte. Dwyane Wade, in his unexpected and line-inflating return from a six-week absence, drew a foul by Ray Felton with two seconds left and made one of two free throws to send the game to overtime.

Fixed? Any of it? For a total? Spread? Winner?

Who knows?