So Deadspin got a copy of ousted NBA ref Tim Donaghy’s tell-all about the league and its willingness to fix games.The excerpts are pretty magical.

Certainly there are reasons to doubt a guy writing from jail, and a guy already judged to have compromised his integrity for money. But the excerpts from Donaghy’s book mostly just corroborate something fans of the sport have been suggesting for years: That the league and its officials favor stars and work to manipulate playoff series.

And if that’s true, it’s pretty damning.

I remember hearing from someone who worked for the league that Major League Baseball was still more concerned with keeping gambling out of the game than steroids, even when it was clear that steroids had become a major problem. I thought it was weird and dumb at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I realize otherwise.

Steroids are against the rules, and so steroid users are cheaters, for sure. And that’s bad, no doubt. But they’re still trying to win, and that’s what matters most.

In fact, as far as we know, everyone on the baseball field — the players, the coaches, the umpires — is always trying his hardest. Sure, the umps blow calls, but they usually express remorse afterwards, and there’s really little evidence to show they’re consistently blowing calls to favor specific teams or players. Even when players cheat, they cheat to gain a competitive advantage, and so the overarching integrity of the game remains intact.

If the NBA is really fixing outcomes, though, the league is on a slippery slope toward becoming the WWE. Sports are predicated on the idea that everyone is trying to win, and that officials are working to make sure the team that plays best wins.

Once it’s clear that’s not the case — especially when it’s done at the league’s discretion — it becomes pageantry, a dog-and-pony show. And hey, maybe that would work for the NBA; it certainly hasn’t hurt the WWE. But those of us who actually enjoy the sport of basketball, not just the show, will have to continue focusing on the college game.

What I wonder, especially, is if stars like Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson — two of the names Donaghy mentions — even want the league working on their behalf? They’re competitive guys, I assume, and I would guess they’d want to play to the same rules as everyone else on the court lest it become clear that they’re being handed points on a silver platter. Isn’t the desire to be the best a big part of what makes someone become a professional athlete? And how could anyone really be called the best if he’s not held to the same standards as his peers?

And in this case, that actually means what it sounds like.

In a column for the Daily News today, Joanna Molloy details Alex Rodriguez’s new habit of dropping in on Little League games and stickball games around Washington Heights and the Bronx.

Molloy wonders if that has something to do with A-Rod’s playoff efforts. I seriously doubt it, and would much prefer to chalk his success up to randomness and the fact that he’s one of the best players in baseball.

But that doesn’t make it any less cool that he’s jumping in on area stickball games.

I love stickball. My friends and I played it all the time in high school, so much so that it made me something of a Luis Castillo-style wrist hitter, since it’s useless to take monstrous cuts with a stickball bat.

Part of what’s cool about stickball is that every single group of stickball players has their own set of rules, usually customized for wherever there are open spaces to play.

I know some people play with a Spaldeen and hit lobbed pitches off a bounce, but we played the variety that features a spray-painted strike zone against a wall, and where different distances are assigned different values.

One of my best friends was a stud pitcher in high school who could throw in the high 80s. Batting against him in stickball can be downright terrifying.

That’s all I’ve got. I just wanted to point out that stickball is really fun. I’ve got some meetings today so there won’t be much here for the next few hours.

Enjoy thoughts of Pedro tonight.

That Cliff Lee guy is good, huh? It feels like Lee is now pretty good all the time, but for whatever reason has the capacity for ridiculous runs of dominance like the one in this postseason and his first seven starts of last season, when he went 6-0 with a 0.67 ERA.

Lost in the Yankees playing poorly last night was the Knicks playing poorly last night. Danilo Gallinari shot the crap out of the ball in the second half, though, so that’s a positive. I’m not convinced he’ll suck just because Knicks draft picks usually suck.

Stephen Colbert weighed in on the Higgs Boson and many the same things I discussed here.

Colbert gets a lot of respect, but probably not enough. What a stud.

Alex Nelson continues his amazing rundown of the Mets’ 2009 draftees.