The Denver Nuggets' Chris Andersen, right, is one of many NBA players who covers his body in tattoos. (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO — I believe it was Robert De Niro, playing ex-convict Max Cady in 1991’s “Cape Fear,” glaring at the wife of Cady’s lawyer-victim as she looked disgustedly at his ink-stained body, who said, “I understand, I’m not your type ... too many tattoos.
Thing is, there isn’t much to do in prison except desecrate your flesh.”

Makes sense. And it certainly explains why such a high percentage of the prison population is covered with enough ink to re-coat the Golden Gate Bridge. What I can’t figure out, however, is why such a large percentage of the NBA population is so bound and determined to emulate the prison population.

For the record, I love the NBA. Well, let’s just say I love basketball. And for most of my four-plus decades on this Earth, I have enjoyed watching basketball played at its highest levels by some of the finest athletes in the world. I grew up watching with awe and admiration as guys like Dr. J, George Gervin, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and, of course, Michael Jordan used the hardwood as their own personal canvas on which to create basketball artistry.

Today’s NBA player uses his skin.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that Dennis Rodman was ridiculed as some sort of a freak for parading around NBA arenas covered in more graffiti than a brick wall in East Oakland. The head-to-toe body art coupled with the dye-blonde hair and the body piercings made Rodman stand out like Rosie O’Donnell at a beauty pageant. Today, Rodman would go virtually unnoticed. And I can’t stand it.

Maybe it’s just age catching up with me, bringing with it a diminishing ability to appreciate the fashion statements of a younger generation. Perhaps if I were 19 again, I'd be headed to my local needle factory asking the guy with the ring in his eyebrow and the spike through his cheek to turn my left arm and shoulder into some sort of Magic Eye painting like my favorite NBA player. It's hard to say. This much I know: I’m getting increasingly disgusted by having to read or decode the colorful pictures, quotations, maps, scriptures and landscapes that fill my television screen every time one of these guys steps to the free-throw line.

Oh, and before anyone tries to bring the race card into this debate, let me be clear: The single worst offender in the entire league is the Denver Nuggets’ Chris Andersen, who makes Rodman in his prime look downright Amish. Andersen looks like something my 6-year-old son would create if I gave him three cups of coffee and a 96-count box of Crayolas. Ridiculous.

Now I’m not calling for a ban on tattoos or self-expression in professional sports. I don’t think a person’s employer should have a right to tell him how to look, short of reasonable dress codes which are enforced in nearly all facets of decent society.

Rather, I’m hoping that future NBA stars will voluntarily choose to present themselves with class and respect for themselves, just as their NBA ancestors did, because it’s getting too difficult to tell an NBA arena from a state prison recreation yard.

Sports personality Bob Frantz is a regular contributor to The Examiner. E-mail him at bfrantz@sfexaminer.com.

Referees have been in the center spotlight in major sporting events this year, including many college football games. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

SAN FRANCISCO — If Darrius Heyward-Bey drops a pass, he gets criticized for it. And rightfully so. If Monta Ellis goes 4-for-21 from the floor with six turnovers, he’s going to be blasted. It goes with the territory. And if Brian Wilson blows a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, he’s going to hear about it. All part of the game.

So why is it that when guys like Phil Cuzzi or Marc Curles perform poorly, they’re considered to be off limits — the sacred cows of competitive sports?

In virtually every major sport, game officials have been living inside their protective bubbles for far too long, guarded closely by threats of financial and game punishments against players and coaches who would dare question their judgment or performance.

These guys enjoy more immunity from public criticism, regardless of public incompetence, than President Barack Obama. Well, almost.

In college football, the Southeastern Conference took the overprotection of referees’ feelings to a new level last month, skipping right past verbal reprimands of coaches and moving directly to mandatory fines and suspensions.

The decision came in the wake of numerous missed calls and poor decisions by conference officials this season, which led to critical comments made by several league coaches.

Ironically, it was Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators who benefited from most of the blown calls, yet it was Meyer who took the first $30,000 hit for publicly disagreeing with a non-call on a late hit on his star quarterback.

It was Curles who, one week earlier, threw an unnecessary roughness flag on an Arkansas defensive lineman that kept a crucial Florida drive alive. Upon reviewing the play a few days later, the SEC later conceded that Curles made the wrong call, but nonetheless reprimanded Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino for complaining about it!

Cuzzi was the umpire, working the left-field line in Game 2 of the American League Division Series between the N.Y. Yankees and Minnesota Twins, who stared directly at Joe Mauer’s crucial 11th-inning fly ball, which was fair by a foot, and called it foul.

Crew chief Tim Tschida begged for mercy on Cuzzi’s behalf, telling the media, “Nobody feels worse than the umpire.”

Guess what, Tim: Nobody feels worse than a closer who gives up a game-winning home run, or a field-goal kicker who misses wide right with two seconds left, but their hurt feelings won’t stop people from calling them bums. What makes your guys so different?

It’s high time (not for you, Tim Lincecum) to take officials and umpires off their pedestals. If players and coaches have to face the music when they fail, officials should be no different.

And yes, I know they are graded and sometimes reprimanded for their work behind closed doors, but the punishment of game participants who criticize blatant officiating errors has to end.

Should players be permitted to harass, disrespect or intimidate officials they disagree with during the course of a game? No. But let’s at least give them their constitutional right to free speech when it’s over.

Sports personality Bob Frantz is a regular contributor to The Examiner. E-mail him at bfrantz@sfexaminer.com.

Rush Limbaugh was dropped from the group trying to buy the Rams. (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO — Boy, that was a close one! Thank goodness for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, whose strong leadership and high moral standards were instrumental at keeping an unsavory character like Rush Limbaugh from weaseling his way into the league and tarnishing the NFL’s much-celebrated, well-branded and perfectly wholesome image!

Likewise, hearty thank yous are in order to fine, upstanding, morally superior men such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and DeMaurice Smith, who did yeomen’s work in blocking Limbaugh’s membership in a potential ownership group vying for the moribund St. Louis Rams’ franchise. It’s very comforting to know that we’ve got such honest, ethical men defending the league’s integrity.

After all, Limbaugh once had an addiction to prescription painkillers, so how could he honestly expect a league that parades drunk drivers, drug addicts, steroid addicts, womanizers, woman beaters, animal abusers, alcoholics and college dropouts in front of millions of fans every Sunday to possibly tolerate a limited partner of his ilk?

And let’s not forget, Limbaugh in 2003 accused the national sports media of overstating the ability of Eagles’ QB Donovan McNabb because they wanted a black quarterback to succeed, for the sake of political correctness. That clearly makes him a racist! And thank goodness we had Sharpton there to point it out.

After all, who knows more about racism than the good reverend, who once led a racially driven media assault on a group of white cops accused of raping a black girl named Tawana Brawley in New York, and who publicly condemned and convicted a bunch of white Duke lacrosse players of raping a black stripper — and refused to apologize or recant when both cases proved to be complete fabrications?

Perhaps Jackson does, since he is the man who coined the term “Hymie” and “Hymie Town” as he slurred New York City Jews in the 1980s. It was very helpful to have him passing judgment on Limbaugh.  

And of course DeMaurice Smith, the NFLPA’s executive director, did an outstanding job of encouraging players to speak out against Rush, which had everything to do with protecting his union members, and certainly nothing at all to do with politics. Who cares if he made maximum campaign contributions to President Barack Obama and was appointed to the Obama transition team last December? A left-wing lawyer deeply engaged with a left-wing president, fighting to keep a right-wing commentator out of the NFL?

Sheer coincidence.

But no one carried the NFL banner more proudly than commissioner Goodell, who defended his opposition to Limbaugh in declaring, “We’re all held to a higher standard here.”

Somewhere in St. Louis, convicted killer and drunken driver Leonard Little must have offered quiet applause as he walked with his higher standards to cash last week’s NFL paycheck.

In Philadelphia, convicted felon and dog-torturer Michael Vick likely thumped his chest between practice snaps. In weight rooms around the league, steroid abusers slapped one another’s acne-riddled backs, and in night clubs, prime-time NFL partiers shifted the glocks in their waistbands as they pushed the strippers aside and stood as one to cheer the joyous news: We did it. We kept that scumbag Rush Limbaugh out.

Sports personality Bob Frantz is a regular contributor to The Examiner. E-mail him at bfrantz@sfexaminer.com.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell spoke on Capitol Hill last week about head injuries. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

SAN FRANCISCO — “Football’s bloodiest secret” screamed one headline. “How different are dogfighting and football?” demanded another. The real bombshell question came from the Web site of a weekly news magazine: “Ban the NFL?”

As evidence linking violent football collisions to long-term dementia mounts, the NFL is now being forced to re-evaluate the safety measures it takes when it comes to protecting players’ brains. League commissioner Roger Goodell was called on the carpet at a congressional committee hearing last week, which revealed the serious possibility that the federal government may revoke the league’s antitrust exemption unless it radically changes the way it handles player safety and care. This, in turn, has led to widespread speculation as to whether or not the most popular sport in America can continue to exist in its current form, particularly at the professional level.

While it is clear that action needs to be taken to reduce the number of head injuries that result from high-impact collisions, radical suggestions like banning the sport are ludicrous.

To eliminate an entire industry like the NFL on the basis of dangers inherent to the job would necessitate an end to coal mining because of black lung disease and collapsed mine shafts. There are thousands of occupations in this nation that may be considered too dangerous to undertake, but those who choose them understand they are taking calculated risks with their short and long-term health.

That is not to say that we should allow grown men to run full-speed into one another with no regard to their safety simply because they choose to do so, but some semblance of personal responsibility must remain in play.

The question should not be about eliminating the occupation, nor should it be one of radically changing the rules. Some have suggested replacing the current hard-shell helmets with updated versions of the old leather helmets worn in the early 1900s, believing that players would no longer block and tackle with their heads if they were encased only in leather or foam. This ignorant argument fails to account for a player simply falling down after a perfect shoulder tackle and striking his head on the ground, or taking an incidental knee to the temple in a pileup.

Yet, a redesign of the helmet is likely the best solution to the ongoing problem of concussions, brain injuries and long-term memory impairment. Rather than weakening the protection of the head as a deterrent to using it for contact, however, the focus should be on increasing it.

There are companies currently designing and testing helmets with soft exteriors, providing players with padding on the inside and the outside of the hard plastic shell. One such company has produced a helmet called the “Gladiator” and it features the same sort of hard rubber polyurethane substance of which car bumpers are made.

Regardless of the advances that may be made in protective equipment, players are still going to be injured playing football, just as assuredly as NASCAR drivers are going to crash. But the key is to minimize the damage to the driver by making the vehicles as safe as possible — not to shut down the track.

Sports personality Bob Frantz is a regular contributor to The Examiner. E-mail him at bfrantz@sfexaminer.com.