Cricket Scandal Stirs Memories of Baseball's Dark Moments

The bans for spot-fixing imposed last weekend on the Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir are far from the end of the matter. It is much likelier that, as Winston Churchill said of the Battle of El Alamein in World War II, they are the end of the beginning.

There now is a judgment, beyond that of the newspaper investigation that first made the accusations, that the players are indeed guilty of modifying their play to guarantee spot bets during a tour of England last summer. Each player has received a ban of at least five years. 

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