Top 10 sports scams - cheating and great sport scandals
To be sure, the winner-take-all aspects of our economy and culture inspire great striving and the pursuit of excellence. But they also bring out the worst in people, producing envy, cheating and cutthroat behavior. These problems — the moral downsides of Worlds current brand of extreme capitalism — deserve more attention in the national debate about “values.”
One big reason for more cheating today is that we live in an age of vast income gaps, where the carrots for winners are bigger than ever. Look in any field, and you’ll find bigger paychecks for the stars these days. Given how big these carrots have become, it shouldn’t be surprising that more people will cut corners to grasp them.
1. Hand of God - Maradona goal
The Hand of God goal (Spanish: Mano de Dios) was scored as the result of an illegal (but unpenalised) handball by Diego Maradona in the quarter-final match of the 1986 FIFA World Cup between England and Argentina, played on 22 June 1986 in Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca. Argentina won 2–1 and for some English people the legacy of this event perhaps best symbolizes the rivalry between the two teams, and is usually mentioned whenever the two sides meet.Six minutes into the second half, the score was 0–0. Maradona cut inside from the right flank and played a diagonal low pass to the edge of the area to teammate Jorge Valdano and continued his run in the hope of a one-two movement. Maradona’s pass, however, was played slightly behind Valdano and reached England’s Steve Hodge, the left-midfielder who had dropped back to defend.
Hodge (who swapped shirts with Maradona after the game) tried to hook the ball clear but miscued it. The ball screwed off his foot and into the penalty area, toward Maradona, who had continued his run. England goalkeeper Peter Shilton duly came out of his goal to punch the ball clear, with his considerable height (6′1″ or 185cm) making him clear favourite to beat Maradona (5′5″ or 165cm) to it. However, Maradona reached it first—with the outside of his left fist. The ball went into the goal, and the referee, (Tunisian Ali Bin Nasser), not having seen the infringement, allowed the goal.
Many people, including Shilton, did not initially realize it was a handball. Some television commentators thought the objections of the English defenders were claims for offside (Maradona could not have been offside because the previous touch was by an England player), and it was only clear from other camera angles—not the original one—that there had been an offence.
The Argentine players and fans celebrated (video shows Maradona looking toward the referee; he later said “I was waiting for my teammates to embrace me, and no one came . . . I told them, ‘Come hug me, or the referee isn’t going to allow it.’” [1] while the English players protested to no avail.
Incidents of players seeking to gain an advantage by skirting the laws of the game, in the hope that the referee does not see, are common. This incident has derived its notoriety largely from the importance and closeness of the match, the animosity between the nations, and the responses of Maradona and the English media.There is more Hand of God Wikipedia.
2. It’s a Sprint, Not a Marathon
Cuban American runner Rosie Ruiz didn’t just win the 1980 Boston Marathon, she set a new record with a time of 2:31:56. However, on closer inspection, it turned out Ruiz probably hadn’t run the whole race. Or even most of it. No one saw Ruiz plodding along in the early going, and she somehow shaved over 25 minutes off her impressively fast time in the 1979 New York Marathon only six months earlier, further raising eyebrows.
It turned out that maybe the New York Marathon time wasn’t completely legit, either; a freelance photographer came forward with the revelation that she had definitely been with Ruiz on the subway during the race. Soon, a narrative formed: it seemed that Ruiz had cheated in the New York Marathon, and cheated so well she’d posted an outstanding sub-three-hour time and qualified for Boston, a major achievement for any marathon runner. Her boss was so excited about this triumph that he offered to pay her expenses to run Boston. At this point, Ruiz was probably too embarrassed to fess up to her earlier misdeed, so she went to Boston and waited at Kenmore Square, around a mile from the finish line, jumped into the race, and sprinted to the finish. Most observers don’t think Ruiz was trying to win, just post a respectable time, but she jumped in too early and set a new record.
Marathon officials stripped Ruiz of the title after interviewing her and finding she knew very little about the course’s landmarks or distance-running jargon, but she still maintains that she finished both races fair and square. As such, Ruiz has never returned her first place medal.
3. A Black Pox on the Black Sox
The 1919 Chicago White Sox Team Photo (Image Credit: Wikipedia)
This is pretty much the mac-daddy of all sports scandals. The 1919 Chicago White Sox was one of the greatest baseball teams ever to take the field, including superstar left fielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
But two gamblers, “Sleepy Bill” Burns and Billy Maharg, backed up by gangster Arnold Rothstein, changed that by bribing eight players with $100,000 to throw the World Series [wiki]. The fix was a success, the Sox lost, and nobody really suspected a thing until late in the next season, when the eight players were indicted. Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis suspended them all from baseball for life, and they all had it coming.
Except one. “Shoeless” Joe did all he could to avoid being involved: he told Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the scam, but was ignored; he asked to be benched for the Series, but was refused; he even batted .375 for the Series and had 12 base hits (a Series record at the time) and the only home run. Due to the scandal, Jackson is still not in the Hall of Fame, though many players have supported his induction.
4. Stella “the Fella” Walsh
In 1980, a 69-year-old member of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame was shot and killed outside a Cleveland shopping mall. Police immediately ascertained that the victim was Stella Walsh, the greatest female track-and-field athlete of her day. Stella, born Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna in Poland, won a gold medal for Poland at the 1932 Olympics and a silver in 1936, and set 20 world records. But when the police took the body to be autopsied, they found something very unusual on the 69-year-old woman: male genitals?! Further studies showed that she … er, he … had both male and female chromosomes, a condition called mosaicism. When the shocking news got out, it took approximately 2.7 seconds for the great runner to get a new nickname: Stella the Fella.
5 Mighty Sports Illustrated Fans Strike Out
The greatest baseball pitcher of all time was actually a figment of George Plimpton’s imagination. His article for the April 1, 1985, issue of Sports Illustrated was entitled “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.”
It told the story of an English orphan, raised by an archaeologist, educated at Harvard, and trained by a yogi in Tibet, who showed up at the Mets training camp in Florida. He could throw a fastball at 168 mph (the record at the time was a comparatively sluggish 103) and preferred to pitch with one foot bare and the other in a large hiking boot. As of the magazine’s publishing date, Finch hadn’t yet decided if he was going to play for the Mets.
The response was massive. Sports Illustrated received over 2,000 letters immediately following the story, many expressing their hopes that Sidd would play. Two weeks later, the magazine fessed up to their hoax. Of course, the clever Plimpton had included a subtle clue in the article’s subhead: “He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent lifestyle, Sidd’s deciding about yoga …” Confused? Just take the first letter of each word: “happyaprilfoolsday.”
6. Fishy Results
In 2005 angler Paul Tormanen of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, was a rising star on the competitive bass fishing circuit, often grabbing his limit of fish within an hour of a contest opening. His career seemed to really be taking off, at least until he was arrested in Louisiana for felony contest fraud. Tormanen admitted a fairly basic scheme for winning some big-money bass tournaments; he’d catch his fish beforehand, take them out on the lake, and tie them to stumps. He used his tethered fish to win the 2005 Red River Bassmaster Central Open in Louisiana, in the process taking home a new fishing boat and $10,000 cash. Unfortunately for Tormanen, another competitor found one of his ringer fish during a practice round and secretly marked it with the help of fish and wildlife officials. When Tormanen weighed in with his catch, authorities caught onto his fraud. The incident earned Tormanen a lifetime ban from B.A.S.S. competitions, and he received a suspended sentence of six months, a fine, 120 hours of community service, and two years of probation.
7. Harness Racket
Harness racing is a bit different from the horse racing you see in competitions like the Kentucky Derby. Jockeys sit in a little cart called a sulky, and the horse pulls them along at a trotting gait. However, in the 1950s it was as corrupt as any other major gambling endeavor.
Harness racing was quickly gaining popularity in its move from pastoral enterprise to legitimate gambling sport until a major scandal rocked it in 1953. The previous year a labor baron named Thomas F. Lewis had been gunned down outside his apartment in the Bronx, and the investigation into his untimely demise turned up some sordid tales of the racing industry. Lewis had been president of a chapter of the AFL’s Building Service Employee’s Union, and as such had been the de facto boss of Yonkers Raceway, the most popular harness racing track in the country.
During his rein Lewis forced the course’s management to illegally hire hoodlums and ex-convicts as track employees without submitting to background checks. The track was also forced to retain four thugs as “labor troubleshooters” to insure against future labor disturbances that could halt racing. When Governor Thomas Dewey learned of this corruption, he promptly closed the track until each of the 1200 employees could be fingerprinted and properly identified as suitable for a racecourse.
8. Camp Barbed Wire
Rugby union is a major passion in South Africa, and the national team, known as the Springboks, wanted to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup so much that they went a bit overboard in their preparations. When the roster for the event was named in September 2003, coach Rudolph Straeuli decided to send the squad to a police camp in the South African bush. The activity, known as Kamp Staaldraad, or “Camp Barbed Wire,” would bring the players together as a team.
This excursion was no corporate team-building retreat, though. It was a bit more brutal: players were allegedly forced at gunpoint into a freezing lake to pump up rugby balls, then dumped naked into a foxhole where icy water was poured on their heads as they sang the national anthem. Other reports included the news that the players were forced to crawl naked across gravel and kill chickens.
When the South African media got wind of this training exercise it became a full-blown scandal that cost Straeulli his job and earned the contempt of most fans. Even worse, the fracas demoralized the Springboks, who couldn’t make it past New Zealand in the quarterfinals.
9. Tug of Whine
Tug of war was still a medal event during the 1908 Olympics, and that meant it could become embroiled in a scandal. When a team comprised of Liverpool’s finest police officers met the American pullers, the Englishmen quickly dispatched the Yanks. The Americans, though, cried foul. They claimed that the Brits were wearing illegal boots equipped with steel cleats to give them a traction advantage. The Liverpudlians countered that they were just police officers wearing police boots and that the Americans would have to deal with it. This response so enraged the American squad that they abruptly withdrew from the event, and the team from Liverpool went on to win the silver. That fall the Brits magnanimously offered to pull against the Americans with both sides wearing stocking feet and the proceeds going to the charity of their choice. However, it doesn’t seem this match ever took place.
10. Drug Racing
Critics occasionally like to poke fun at NASCAR’s alleged roots of Southern moonshining and bootlegging, but the now-defunct IMSA GT race circuit was rife with real smuggling during its brief life as an alternative racing league in North America. From at least 1975 to 1986 a handful of top drivers on the tour paid for their racing teams not just by selling sponsorships, but by operating a massive drug-smuggling cartel. How big was their outfit? When the drivers were caught, it was estimated that they’d imported and distributed over 300 tons of Colombian marijuana over the course of eight years. Several drivers, including John Paul, Sr., John Paul, Jr., Randy Lanier, and the Whittington brothers were convicted in connection with the ring. Former 12 Hours of Sebring winner John Paul, Sr. was the alleged mastermind of the operation; he received a 25-year federal sentence for charges that included shooting a federal witness. Pundits noted that the initials IMSA must have stood for “International Marijuana Smugglers Association.”
Conclusion : There are no easy solutions to the deep trends in World society that lead to more cheating. However, if the pattern of history holds, this era of greed and social Darwinism is likely to be followed by a new emphasis on equality and community, values that foster honest competition. In the meantime, there are plenty of practical reforms that can help keep people honest.
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#6 of top 10 sports scams…
first of all this Paul guy is a perch jerker! he wasn’t up and coming… he was and is full of crap!!! you’ve painted too pretty of a picture for this guy. He should be in prison for what he did in that tournament, you know, the one he was caught cheating. i’m saddened that you have plastered his picture in your wonderful magazine. he has received “press” again. this type of “wannabe” loves this stuff.
Disappointed in Missouri…