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- Frictional
- Wikimedia Commons
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15 Of The Most Controversial Sports Moments In History
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For some competitive athletes, winning really is everything. Sports history is full of controversial moments in which athletes or coaches can exploit loopholes in the rules, or outright cheat. Rivalries, long-standing grudges, big payouts, or the fierce desire to earn first-place gold or glory at any cost have led to the most controversial scandals and moments from the annals of sporting history.
And pretty much all sports are in contention.
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1The Men's Basketball Gold Medal Contest At The 1972 Olympics Might Be The Most Controversial Basketball Game Ever
At the 1972 Summer Olympics, the United States and Soviet Union met in the men's basketball gold medal game. Up to that night, the US was 63-0 all-time in Olympic play. In 1972, professional players were not allowed to participate, so the US team consisted of top college players.
The US was heavily favored, but the game was close throughout. The Soviet Union led 49-48 with three seconds remaining in regulation when US star guard Doug Collins (the future No. 1 pick in the 1973 NBA draft) stole the ball and was fouled to prevent a breakaway layup. He made the first of two free throws, but then the horn went off as he attempted the second - which he made. The referee, Renato Righetto, allowed the free throw to count, giving the US a 50-49 lead.
An assistant coach for the Soviet Union ran onto the floor, protesting that the team had called timeout before Collins's second attempt. The game was stopped with one second remaining because of the coach's disruption. The refs agreed that the Soviets had successfully called timeout and put three seconds back on the clock, despite protests from the US.
During the timeout, the Soviets illegally substituted Ivan Edeshko into the game. He inbounded the ball to Modestas Paulauskas, who then tried to get the ball up the floor to star Alexander Belov, but the clock ran out. The US appeared to win the game and the gold medal.
But Renato William Jones, secretary general of FIBA (the International Basketball Federation), demanded that the Soviets get a third chance to inbound the ball with three seconds to go. He had no jurisdiction to overrule the referees, but was allowed to do so. On the third attempt, Edeshko threw a full-court pass to Sergei Belov, who scored an uncontested layup at the buzzer, giving the Soviet Union a 52-51 victory.
The US Olympic Basketball Committee filed a formal protest heard by a five-member FIBA panel. The panel voted 3-2 in favor of the Soviet Union. The US boycotted the medal ceremony. Bill Simmons, chairman of the US Olympic Basketball Committee, announced:
We do not feel like accepting the silver medal because we feel we are worth the gold.
But Soviet head coach Vladimir Kondrashin said:
We deserve the victory no matter what the circumstances. We had them puzzled from the start since we used a different lineup to confuse them at the beginning.
Since then, the US has made unsuccessful attempts to lobby the International Olympic Committee to overturn the result.
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2The Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan Scandal Redefined Sports Rivalry In 1994
Heading into the 1994 US Figure Skating National Championships in Detroit, Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were the Top 2 female skaters in the US, and both were among the favorites to win a medal at that year's Winter Olympics. Kerrigan was seen by many as an insider, a “golden girl" and the heir apparent to 1992 Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi, while Harding was viewed by some as a rebellious outsider, albeit a very talented skater.
On January 6, 1994, Kerrigan was coming off the ice after her practice when a man hit her in the knee with a metal rod before fleeing. Kerrigan's tearful cries of “Why? Why? Why? Why me” became a familiar refrain as media covered the incident. Although she wasn't seriously injured, Kerrigan was forced to withdraw from the competition; Harding ended up winning the gold medal, securing her spot on the Olympic team. Kerrigan was also awarded a spot on the squad.
On January 11 the FBI began investigating rumors that Harding's bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt, and her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, had orchestrated the attack on Kerrigan. Eckhardt confessed his involvement the next day and implicated Gillooly along with Shane Stant - the man who actually attacked Kerrigan - and Stant's uncle, Derrick Smith. Although she knew all the men, Harding originally denied that she had any knowledge of the planned incident.
Gillooly surrendered on January 27. Four days later he testified against his ex-wife, implicating her in the scheme. Investigators went through the couple's trash (despite being legally divorced, they had gotten back together) and discovered notes, written in Harding's handwriting, that detailed Kerrigan's practice schedule. Despite this evidence, Harding was still allowed to compete at the Winter Olympics.
In the end, neither American won the gold medal. Harding finished in eighth place after restarting her free program when the laces on one of her boots broke. Kerrigan won the silver medal, and 16-year-old Ukrainian skater Oksana Baiul unexpectedly won the gold. Kerrigan, who had received enormous sympathy after the incident, ended up harming her reputation when she was caught on tape complaining about Baiul's behavior.
On March 16, Harding pled guilty to “conspiracy to hinder prosecution” and was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $160,000. Unlike the four men charged in the incident, she was able to avoid jail time. But on June 30, 1984, the US Figure Skating Association stripped Harding of her gold medal from the national championships and gave her a lifetime ban from competing in any sanctioned events. William Hybl, chairman of the panel hearing Harding's case, told the Washington Post:
By a preponderance of the evidence, the five members of the panel concluded that she had prior knowledge and was involved prior to the incident. This is based on civil standards, not criminal standards.
At least two television documentaries, along with the 2017 feature film I, Tonya, have been made about Harding's life and skating career. Kerrigan turned pro after the 1994 Winter Olympics and appeared mainly in ice shows.
Wild controversy?
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Diego Maradona, a national hero in his native Argentina, is widely considered one of the greatest soccer players in history. A member of Argentina's national team for four World Cups (1982, 1986, 1990, and 1994), he is remembered for one of the most memorable moments in World Cup history - the “Hand of God” goal.
This moment occurred during a 1986 quarterfinal match against England in Mexico City on June 22, 1986. The teams played a scoreless first half, but six minutes into the second half, Steve Hodge, one of England's midfielders, wildly kicked the ball into his team's penalty area. Maradona rose up and punched the ball out of the air with his fist, getting it past the charging Peter Shilton (England's goalkeeper) for the goal.
It is illegal for soccer players to use their hands this way. But the referee, Ali Bin Nasser, did not see the play, and the complaints of the English players who did see the illegal goal fell on deaf ears.
After the game, Maradona told reporters that the goal was scored by “un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios” (“a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”).
The Argentine side went on to win the 1986 World Cup.
Maradona passed in 2020 at the age of 60. In November 2022, the ball from the “Hand of God” goal went up for auction as part of a special auction of World Cup items.
Wild controversy?- Photo:
- Chicago Daily News
- Wikimedia Commons
- Public domain
4Thanks To The 1919 'Black Sox' Scandal, People Still Know The Name 'Shoeless Joe Jackson'
The 1919 Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant and faced the National League champion Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 Cincinnati Reds in the World Series (which that year was a best-of-nine series rather than the standard best-of-seven). The White Sox team included stars like pitcher Eddie Cicotte, who led the league with 29 wins that season, and outfielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who still owns the fourth-highest career batting average (.356) in MLB history (he hit .351 in 1919).
Many of the White Sox players hated the team owner, Charles Comiskey, who was known for being cheap and failing to pay promised bonuses to his players. For example, Cicotte reportedly had a clause in his contract that he would get a $10,000 bonus if he won 30 games in 1919. According to one legend, Comiskey, instead of risking the need to pay his star pitcher the bonus, ordered White Sox manager Kid Gleason to hold Cicotte out of five scheduled starts at the end of the season (although some sources says this happened in 1917, not 1919).
Because players had few options or rights - there was no union, let alone free agency - some were either targeted or approached by gamblers with the idea of making some extra money by throwing games.
On September 21, several White Sox players - including Cicotte, but not Jackson - met in first baseman Chick Gandil's hotel room to discuss throwing the World Series. Rumors of a fix were so strong that although the White Sox were heavily favored, a bunch of bets came in on the Reds just before the first game. Several reporters covering the World Series also heard the rumors and kept a close eye on the contests.
Although the players attempted to go back on the fix, winning Games 6 and 7 after the gamblers reneged on promised payments, the White Sox lost the series in eight games (threats were reportedly made against some of the players and their families to ensure they'd lose).
In September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate rumors that the World Series was fixed. In October, the grand jury indicted eight White Sox players, including Cicotte; Jackson, who played well in the series but reportedly accepted $5,000; and Buck Weaver, who attended the September 21 meeting but didn't take any money and played well in the series. Among the charges leveled against the players was conspiracy to defraud. Before the trial, key evidence, including signed confessions from Cicotte and Jackson (who was illiterate), disappeared. The players recanted their confessions, but testimony from ex-MLB player-turned-gambler Bill Burns implicated the players in the fix.
The jury deliberated for three hours before acquitting the players of all charges on July 28. But Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a federal judge who had just been appointed the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, issued a different verdict for the implicated players, issuing this statement:
Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ballgame; no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame; no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are planned and discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.
The banned players were dubbed the “Black Sox." Both Weaver and Jackson appealed Landis's decision, but their appeals were repeatedly denied. Jackson, who assuredly would have been a Hall of Famer if not for the scandal, passed in 1951 at age 64.
The “Black Sox” scandal has been recounted in multiple books, documentaries, the 1988 feature film Eight Men Out, and 1989's Field of Dreams.
Wild controversy?- Photo:
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- Bill Mitchell
- Wikimedia Commons
- CC-BY 1.0
In the early 1990s, Monica Seles was the dominant female tennis player in the world. She won the first of her nine Grand Slam titles, the French Open, in 1990 when she was 16 years old, making her the youngest champion in the history of that tournament. She was ranked the No. 1 player in the world at the end of both 1991 and 1992.
Seles's biggest rival was Steffi Graf. On April 30, 1993, Seles was playing a match against Magdalena Maleeva in Hamburg, Germany, when a man ran onto the court and stabbed Seles in the back. The incident occurred during a break in the second set of the match in full view of the crowd. One eyewitness told reporters, “He held the knife with both hands as he stabbed her in the back.”
Seles wrote about the incident in her 2009 autobiography Getting a Grip:
I remember sitting there, toweling off, and then I leaned forward to take a sip of water, our time was almost up and my mouth was dry. The cup had barely touched my lips when I felt a horrible pain in my back. My head whipped around towards where it hurt and I saw a man wearing a baseball cap, a sneer across his face. His arms were raised above his head and his hands were clutching a long knife. He started to lunge at me again. I didn't understand what was happening.
The 19-year-old Seles was rushed to the hospital with a half-inch gash in her upper back. Peter Wind, the tournament's doctor, told reporters that Seles “was very lucky. Neither the lungs nor the shoulder blades were affected. Monica is still suffering from shock and will stay overnight for observation.”
Because Seles was Serbian and had received menacing threats in the past in connection with conflict in the then-country of Yugoslavia, there was speculation the incident was politically motivated. But the Hamburg police quickly ruled that out.
The man who hurt Seles, Gunter Parche, was described as an obsessed fan of Graf's who was determined to help her regain the No. 1 ranking. In October 1993 he was convicted of attacking Seles. He received a two-year suspended sentence after an attempted murder charge was dismissed. The light sentence angered some in the tennis world. Tennis legend Martina Navratilova told ESPN she believed the sentence was "insane and so nationality driven. If someone had done that to Steffi [Graf, who is German] so Monica would win, they'd have thrown away the key.”
Seles did not return to competitive tennis for more than two years, at the 1995 Canadian Open, which she won. In 1996 she won the Australian Open, recording the last of her Grand Slam titles. She played her last competitive match in 2003, although she didn't officially retire until 2008. She was later voted into the Tennis Hall of Fame.
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Rosie Ruiz 'Won' The Boston Marathon In 1980 By Running Less Than A Mile
In 1979, Rosie Ruiz, a 26-year-old administrative assistant, and an unknown in the distance-running world, posted a time of 2:56:29 in the New York City Marathon - 11th best among the female entrants. At the time, no one connected to the race thought there was anything suspicious about the result.
Her time was good enough to qualify her to compete in the Boston Marathon. On April 21, 1980, Ruiz supposedly finished first in the women's division of that race with a time of 2:31:56. Not only was this about 25 minutes faster than what she ran in the New York City Marathon, but in 1980 it was also the third-fastest time recorded in history by any female marathoner.
Her huge time improvement raised suspicion, especially when she failed to appear in any photographs of the race until the end. When Bill Rodgers, the winner of the men's division, asked her, "What were your splits?" Ruiz allegedly answered, “What are splits?” (A split is the amount of time it takes to run a certain portion of a race; tracking splits helps runners pace themselves.)
Rodgers reported his suspicions to Will Cloney, the race director, who interviewed Ruiz. In 2000 he told The Eagle-Tribune that Ruiz had been very convincing in her defense: "I told her that our records didn't have her at any of the checkpoints, but she didn't care. She said, 'I ran the race.'''
Eight days after the race Ruiz was stripped of her title and medal when investigators found she had joined the race just 1 mile before the finish line. The women's title was then awarded to Jacqueline Gareau, who had finished the race in a course record time (for female racers) of 2:34:28. Ruiz, who for years consistently maintained that she had won the Boston Marathon fairly and refused to return the winner's medal, ended up losing her job as an administrative assistant.
Although she never explained her reasons for cheating, many believed her boss had been so impressed she qualified for the Boston Marathon that he offered to pay her way to the race. It was thought Ruiz had planned to jump into the race in the middle of a pack of runners, but instead found herself ahead of all the female competitors when she made her way onto the course.
Ruiz had her finish in the New York City Marathon disqualified when it was learned she had later left the course and taken a subway to a spot near the finish line, where she rejoined the race.
Plus, Ruiz should never been allowed to compete in the New York City Marathon in the first place: She turned in her application after the deadline, but was given a special dispensation to compete after claiming she was dying of brain cancer. If she had not allegedly posted a qualifying time in that race, she never would have been able to compete in the Boston Marathon.
Ruiz acquired lasting name recognition for this stunt. “Doing a Rosie” is still runners’ slang for cheating by cutting the course. In the years after this cheating scandal, Ruiz had numerous run-ins with the law, including being sentenced to probation for grand larceny, forgery, and coke-dealing. She passed in 2019 at the age of 66.
Wild controversy? The undisputed heavyweight champion of the world from 1987 to 1990, Mike Tyson is widely regarded as one of the top heavyweight boxers of all time. However his career was derailed in 1992 after he was convicted on rape charges and sentenced to six years in prison.
He was paroled in 1995 after serving three years and began planning his comeback. He had several successful bouts, and on November 6, 1996, faced Evander Holyfield for the heavyweight title. Holyfield, who had become the undisputed heavyweight champion in 1990 after defeating Buster Douglas, knocked Tyson out in the 11th round, making him the first boxer to win a heavyweight championship belt three times.
Tyson believed Holyfield had illegally head-butted him multiple times during the bout and demanded a rematch. That rematch took place on June 28, 1997, with both men receiving what were then record fees for any boxing match.
Holyfield head-butted Tyson during the second round, but referee Mills Lane ruled the action incidental. The bout then took a strange twist in the third round when Tyson bit both of Holyfield's ears, severing part of his opponent's right ear. Tyson, who said his action was revenge for Holyfield's illegal head-butts in their previous bout, was disqualified.
Tyson's actions cost him more than the bout. On July 9, 1997, the Nevada State Athletic Commission revoked his boxing license and fined him $3 million.
In 2022, Tyson and Holyfield teamed up again, albeit for something entirely different. The two former boxers launched Holy Ears, a brand of cannibas-infused edibles - shaped like ears.
Wild controversy?- 8
Lance Armstrong Took The Tour De France By Storm Before His Doping Was Exposed
Lance Armstrong was an American hero, having won the Tour de France - the most prestigious event in the cycling world - seven consecutive times. He had yet to win the Tour de France when he was diagnosed with Stage 3 testicular cancer in 1996 and given no more than a 20% chance of survival.
In 1997 the cyclist founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation and began holding charity events to raise money for cancer research. To symbolize his cause he began wearing a rubber yellow bracelet. In 2004, Armstrong and his foundation partnered with Nike to produce and sell cancer-awareness “Livestrong” bracelets that became a fashion statement; from 2004 to 2013, Nike sold approximately 80 million of them.
Rumors of doping had followed Armstrong since he won his first Tour de France in 1999. In 2004, fellow Tour de France champion Greg LeMond openly questioned whether Armstrong - by then a five-time Tour de France winner - was as clean as he claimed. Armstrong had never tested positive for drugs, but as LeMond pointed out to the French newspaper Le Monde, that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't doping:
Everybody says that [they're "clean"]. But neither had [world time-trial champ] David Millar tested positive and he now admits he took EPO [a banned drug]... The problem with Lance is that you're either a liar or you're out to destroy cycling. Lance is ready to do anything to keep his secret but I don't know how long he can convince everybody of his innocence.
One month before LeMond's comments, Armstrong lost an appeal that would have given him the right to insert a denial against accusations of doping in the book LA Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong. The book's author, Emma O'Reilly, a physiotherapist who had worked with Armstrong from 1998 to 2000, claimed the cyclist used the banned drug erythropoietin, better known as EPO, which forces the body to produce extra oxygen-carrying red blood cells.
Armstrong constantly denied the accusations and continued to race, winning the Tour de France twice more. But in 2012, Union Cycliste Internationale - the governing body of the sport - stripped Armstrong of his titles and banned him for life after the US Anti-Doping Agency accused him and his US Postal Service racing team of "running the most sophisticated, professional, and successful doping program the sport has even seen."
Armstrong fought back; his lawyers labeled the US Anti-Doping Agency's findings “a one-sided hatchet job.” But in a 2013 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Armstrong finally admitted the allegations against him were true. It was a limited confession, however, as he suggested that doping was common in the professional cycling world. He also denied that he had threatened teammates who wouldn't dope, or bribed the UCI to cover up his test results:
I didn't invent the culture and I didn't try to stop the culture... and the sport is now paying the price of that and I'm sorry for that. I didn't have access to anything else that nobody else did.
In 2007 the cyclist's lobbying had been in major factor in getting Texas lawmakers to pass a $3 billion cancer research fund. But in the midst of the doping scandal, the cancer charity Armstrong founded tried to disassociate itself from the disgraced cyclist. Armstrong was forced out as chairman of the board and the name was officially changed from the Lance Armstrong Foundation to the Livestrong Foundation. In 2013, Nike announced that while it would continue supporting the foundation in its attempts to raise money for cancer research, it would no longer sell the yellow Livestrong bracelets or any other merchandise associated with Armstrong.
Wild controversy? - 9
The Goalie From Chile Hid A Razor In His Glove And Cut Himself During The 1990 World Cup
Roberto Rojas is widely considered to be the best goalkeeper in Chilean soccer history. Nicknamed “The Condor,” he was the top goalie on Chile's national team for most of the 1980s. But he was also involved in several scandals throughout his career. In 1979, the 21-year-old goalie was one of the players involved in a fake passport swindle that allowed players who were too old to compete for Chile in the South American Under-20 Championships. In 1984 he tested positive for anabolic steroids, which cost him a chance to participate in the 1984 Olympics. And in 1990, he did something that briefly got him banned.
On September 3, 1989, Chile faced Brazil in a World Cup qualifier match. If Chile won, they would advance to the 1990 World Cup. Brazil led the game 1-0 when someone in the crowd (later identified to be Rosemary Mello) threw a flare from the stands that landed behind Rojas.
The goalie fell to the ground. When he got up, blood was streaming down his face. The Chilean team left the pitch and filed an official protest, hoping Brazil would have to forfeit the game, which would allow Chile to qualify for the World Cup.
It didn't take long for a photograph to show the flare had never touched Rojas. In 2019 the photographer, Ricardo Alfieri, told Goal:
I took a sequence of 14 or 15 photos of the flare falling and the rest, because the flare landed on the floor and threw up a cloud of smoke, Rojas went down amidst the smoke and after that the next photo I have of Rojas, he was covered in blood. I had the impression that it had not hit him, but there was a contradiction: it didn't hit him but the guy was bleeding. It didn't make sense...
FIFA, the international governing body for the sport, undertook an investigation. It was discovered that Rojas's injury had been self-inflicted with a razor blade the goalkeeper had hidden in his glove. Rojas was banned from soccer - although the ban was lifted in 2001. Chile coach Orlando Aravena, vice captain Fernando Asteng, team doctor Daniel Rodriguez, and a few other Chilean team officials were also banned for their part in the hoax. The Chilean national team, meanwhile, was banned from taking part in qualifying for the 1994 World Cup.
In 1995 Rojas confessed the hoax in an interview with La Tercera:
I cut myself with a razor and the farce was discovered… It was a cut to my dignity. I have had problems at home with my wife, my teammates turned their backs on me... but if I were Argentine, Uruguayan, or Brazilian, I would not be suspended.
He said Alejandro Koch, the physiotherapist for the Chilean team, had helped him carry the blade onto the pitch [Koch was also banned by FIFA]. In a different interview with Mas Vale Tarde, the disgraced goalie said:
[I did it] for passion, for Chile to have a chance because Chile was being harmed at that time. We had had problems in the last qualifiers, but when one makes that kind of mistake he wants the chance to redeem himself, but I did not have that.
Mello, meanwhile, became a minor celebrity in Brazil for her part in the hoax, even posing on the cover of Brazilian Playboy in November 1989. After Rojas's ban was lifted in 2001, he went on to coach clubs including Sao Paulo and Sport Recife before turning to broadcasting.
Wild controversy? 
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Canadian track star Ben Johnson made his name in international track and field when he won a bronze medal in the 100-meter dash at the 1984 Summer Olympics, finishing just behind the gold medalist, American star sprinter Carl Lewis.
Johnson and Lewis developed a rivalry over the next few years as they battled to be the top sprinter. Johnson set a new world record when he ran the 100 meters in 9.83 seconds at the 1987 World Championships. For the 1988 Olympics, Lewis looked to be the front-runner when he ran a wind-aided 100 meters in 9.78 seconds at the US Olympic trials. Johnson, meanwhile, suffered a hamstring injury in May 1988 and wasn't expected to be at full strength in Seoul.
The 100-meter finals took place on September 24. Lewis ran the race in 9.92 seconds, setting an American record, but he finished several steps behind Johnson, who was timed in 9.79 seconds. The jubilant Canadian star told reporters:
The important thing was to beat Carl. That was my main goal, not the world record. Just to beat Carl Lewis to win.
Johnson's triumph was short-lived. On September 27 he tested positive for steroids. Although he denied deliberately taking the performance-enhancing drug - he claimed an herbal drink he consumed had been spiked - he was stripped of his gold medal, which was given to Lewis.
Lewis, who had accused Johnson of doping before the Olympics, had failed a drug test himself at the US Olympic trials when his urine sample was found to contain banned stimulants. The failed test should have led to him being kicked off the Olympic team, but he won an appeal under the “inadvertent use” argument.
After this fact became public knowledge in 2003, many started dubbing the 1988 Olympics 100-meter final “the dirtiest race in history.” Johnson and Lewis weren't the only ones cheating; reportedly, six of the runners in the final eventually ended up either testing positive for banned substances or otherwise were involved in doping scandals.
Wild controversy?Barry Bonds holds the Major League Baseball all-time records for most career home runs (762) and most home runs in a single season (73). A seven-time National League MVP, he should have been a lock to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Instead, he fell short of the necessary 73% of votes in each of the 10 years he was on the ballot, although he still could still be voted in by the Hall of Fame's Today's Game Committee, formerly known as the Veterans' Committee.
Bonds isn't in the Baseball Hall of Fame because he used illicit performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). He isn't the only star player to do so - the late 1980s to the late 2000s have been dubbed MLB's “Steroid Era” because of the presumed widespread use of PEDs.
Steroids had been banned by Major League Baseball in 1991, but league-wide testing didn't start until 2003, which allowed many players to get away with using the banned substances. In 2000 Bonds hit a career-high 49 home runs. The next season, when the 36-year-old outfielder blew past that total in an attempt to break Mark McGwire's single-season home run record (70), reporters began questioning Bonds about this power surge.
He had no answers, other than to attribute it to a higher power:
There are some things I don't understand right now. The balls I used to line off the walls are lining out [of the park]. I can't tell you why. Call God. Ask him. It's like, wow. I can't understand it, either.
Bonds broke McGwire's record when he belted his 71st home run of the season on October 5, 2001. He finished the season with 73 home runs. But speculation that he was using PEDs did not go away.
In 2004, reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote numerous articles about a nutritional supplement company called BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative) and its distribution of performance-enhancing drugs to many big-name sports stars.
These stories increased pressure on the U.S. government to pursue an investigation into the use of PEDs in sports. In December 2003 Bonds became the latest of many high-profile athletes to testify before the secret federal grand jury investigating BALCO. He said in his testimony that he never knowingly used any PEDs.
Court documents, however, revealed that Bonds had tested positive for three different types of steroids. They also showed that the baseball star's personal trainer had once told his business manager in the Giants' clubhouse how he injected the slugger with PEDs "all over the place."
In November 2007 Bonds was indicted on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice charges based on that December 2003 testimony. If convicted, he could have faced a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. The indictment cited 19 separate times when Bonds allegedly lied under oath in his testimony.
The indictment was revised multiple times over the next few years. Finally, in April 2011, Bonds was convicted on the sole count of obstruction of justice, but jurors were deadlocked on the remaining charges. He was sentenced to two years of probation, 250 hours of community service, a $4,000 fine, and 30 days of home confinement.
Bonds appealed. The conviction on obstruction of justice charges was upheld in 2013, but the baseball star appealed again - and won. In April 2015, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction.
Wild controversy?- 12
A Soccer Match Between El Salvador And Honduras Was Blamed For Starting An Actual War In 1969
The Central American nations of El Salvador and Honduras border one another. In June 1969, tensions were high between the two countries because the Honduran government began expelling thousands of Salvadorans out of the country. In the preceding years, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans had moved from their tiny nation to the much larger country of Honduras to try to make a living as farmers. In 1967 the Honduran government passed a land-reform law that basically required the Salvadorans to go back home. But when the law proved ineffective, Honduran President Oscar López Arellano turned to force.
Against this background, the national soccer teams of El Salvador and Honduras met in Mexico City on June 27, 1969. It was the third and deciding game between the two squads - the winner would become the first Central American nation to qualify for the World Cup.
Government officials and the media seemed determined to use these contests to stoke animosity between the countries. The media exaggerated or made up stories of conflicts between fans. Before the final match, members of the Salvadoran National Assembly put forth a resolution declaring it “lamentable” that Hondurans were retaliating against Salvadorans as a “result of the recent international football games.”
During the final game, players initially avoided displaying any politically based antagonism toward each other. In 2019, Salvador Mariona, captain of the 1969 El Salvadoran squad, told Sports Illustrated: “We were focused on qualifying, but we knew the conflict was there… On the field, we respected each other. Even today, the ones still alive [from that Honduras team], we have a strong friendship.”
The contest was tied with two minutes to go. El Salvadoran star Mario Monge told Sports Illustrated the players then starting thinking of “the Salvadorans suffering in Honduras.” This “led us into a winning state of mind. We kept telling each other, ‘Tenemos que ganar, tenemos que ganar (we have to win).'"
The match went into extra time. With four minutes remaining in the first extra period, Pipo Rodríguez was able to get behind the Honduran defense and scored, giving El Salvador a 3-2 lead. But there were still 19 minutes to be played. The Salvadorans hung on for the win. After the match ended, Rodriguez consoled the exhausted Honduran players.
Although there were no real incidents during or after the match, the media still portrayed it in a way that led to tensions. A UPI story ran the headline “Soccer War.” The Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Gráfica had the headline “HONDURAS ELIMINADO” on its front page.
On July 16, more than two weeks after the soccer match, a brief (four-day) war between the countries broke out when the Salvadoran military bombed Honduras. But as Cristian Villalta, editor of the Salvadoran paper El Grafico, told Sports Illustrated: "This was two military dictatorships using the games to exacerbate nationalism.” Calling it the Soccer War, he said, is “like saying WWII broke out because of the artistic failure of Adolf Hitler in Vienna. It’s nonsense.”
The players who spoke to the magazine agreed. “The war didn’t start because of our games,” Monge said. "There was a political motive. It just happened to be during the time of the qualifiers.” Rodriguez added, “I think we were used. The [Salvadoran] government used us as their voice. It happened in Honduras as well.”
Wild controversy? - Photo:
- Frictional
- Wikimedia Commons
- CC-BY-SA 4.0
Although Muhammad Ali is widely recognized as one of the greatest boxers in history, in 1964 the fighter (then still known as Cassius Clay) was simply a challenger looking to take the title away from current heavyweight champion Sonny Liston - who was considered one of the most intimidating fighters in the world.
The two men met for the title on February 25, 1964. Liston was the favorite, but Clay was confident he could defeat the champion. Liston didn't seem to take the young fighter seriously, barely training for the bout. At the end of the fourth round, Clay complained he couldn't see and asked his trainer to cut off his gloves, which would have given Liston the win. Instead, the trainer washed out Clay's eyes and the bout continued. Liston, with an injured shoulder and one eye badly swollen, refused to come out for the seventh round, relinquishing the heavyweight title to his 22-year-old challenger.
Some observers believed Liston had deliberately thrown the fight. When his publicist informed him of this, the boxer reportedly replied, “Me? Sell my title? Those dirty b*stards!”
On May 25, 1965, the two boxers met again and the rematch turned out to be even more controversial. Clay, by that time known as Muhammad Ali, took out the former champ with one blow in the first round, an overhand right hand. As Liston lay on the canvas, Ali stood over the fallen fighter, yelling, “Get up and fight, sucker! Get up and fight!”
In a 1994 interview with Sports Illustrated, Liston recalled:
Clay caught me cold. Anybody can get caught in the first round, before you work up a sweat. Clay stood over me. I never blacked out. But I wasn't gonna get up, either, not with him standing over me… [Y]ou can't get up without putting one hand on the floor, and so I couldn't protect myself.
Liston got up and the bout resumed. But Nat Fleischer, editor of The Ring magazine, began yelling at referee Joe Walcott to stop the fight, because Liston had been down on the canvas for 17 seconds before getting up. Even though the referee had never started a count, after he talked to Fleischer, he stepped between the two boxers and ended the bout. ""I was never counted out," Liston said later. "I coulda got up right after I was hit."
Although some claimed Ali's punch landed, others believed Liston had thrown the fight.
Liston never fought again and passed in 1970. Ali's punch, meanwhile, ended up being dubbed the “Phantom Punch” because of controversy over whether it actually landed.
Wild controversy?- Photo:
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'Deflategate' Led To A Four-Game Suspension For Patriots Star QB Tom Brady
The New England Patriots have been the most successful NFL franchise in the 21st century, winning six Super Bowl titles since 2001. But the franchise also has a reputation for not always playing by the rules and/or getting preferential treatment from the referees or league, such as the January 2002 “Tuck Rule Game” between the Raiders and Patriots, or “Spygate” in 2007.
In 2015 the Patriots found themselves in the middle of another controversy. Dubbed “Deflategate,” it had to do with an investigation over whether the Patriots arranged to illegally deflate footballs used in the first half of the AFC Championship Game (in which New England defeated the Indianapolis Colts 45-7). Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said the team would cooperate with the NFL, but New England star quarterback Tom Brady called the allegations “ridiculous.”
ESPN journalist Chris Mortensen reported that 11 of the 12 balls used in the first half of the January 18 title game had been significantly underinflated. A few days later, Brady, who had not yet met with the NFL, said he "didn't alter the ball in any way.”
On January 26, reports come out that a Patriots locker room attendant had been caught on video taking footballs from the officials' locker room into another room, then bringing those balls out to the playing field before kickoff. After the Patriots won the Super Bowl, news reports revealed the Colts had reached out to the NFL before the AFC Championship Game to express their concerns about underinflated footballs.
In May, a report from NFL employee Ted Wells said it was “more probable than not” that the Patriots had deliberately deflated some of the footballs used in the first half of the AFC title game, and that Brady was “at least generally aware” of this rule violation. Among the evidence were text messages between New England's equipment assistant, John Jastremski, and locker room manager, Jim McNally, that implicated the quarterback. Although Brady refused to provide the NFL with any of his email or phone records, Wells used Jastremski's records to find an increase in the frequency of phone calls and texts between Brady and the equipment assistant shortly after suspicions of the underinflated footballs became public knowledge. After not communicating via phone or text for six months, Jastremski and Brady spoke six times on the phone over three days.
A few days after Wells's report was released, the NFL suspended Brady for four games, fined the Patriots $1 million, and took away two of the team's draft picks. McNally and Jastremski were also indefinitely suspended. Brady appealed the suspension, but the NFL Players Association was unable to get NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to appoint an independent arbitrator to handle the case. Instead, Goodell himself heard the appeal. On July 28, the NFL announced that Brady's suspension would not be reduced.
The case then headed to court. In September 2015, US District Judge Richard M. Berman ruled in favor of Brady, erasing the suspension, saying Goodell's punishment against the quarterback was too harsh. The NFL appealed the ruling but didn't request an emergency stay, meaning Brady was eligible to play until the Court of Appeals issued its ruling.
The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York heard the NFL's appeal in March 2016, and on April 25 reinstated Brady's suspension. However, the quarterback again appealed. On July 13, 2016, the court denied the appeal, upholding Brady's four-game suspension. The case finally came to a close when the quarterback accepted the suspension.
Wild controversy? - 15
A Soccer Rivalry In The US During The 1920s Sealed The Coffin On The Sport In The Country
In the 1920s, a “Soccer War” erupted in the United States that pitted the US Football Association (the governing body of the sport in America) against the American Soccer League.
The conflict occurred because some of the ASL team owners did not want to participate in the National Challenge Cup - considered the championship of American soccer - due to scheduling difficulties. The ASL had even boycotted the National Challenge Cup during the 1924-25 season. In 1927 the USFA had to negotiate with FIFA - soccer's international governing body - to avoid being penalized over several ASL teams signing star players who were already under contract to European teams.
Several ASL team owners decided they wanted to separate the league from the USFA and FIFA. In 1928, New York Nationals owner Charles Stoneham proposed that the ASL owners remove the league's teams from playing in that year's National Challenge Cup. He also proposed that the ASL, whose teams were all on the East Coast, develop a Midwestern Division, hoping the ASL division winners could meet in a final game that would replace the National Challenge Cup.
Three ASL teams - the New York Giants, Bethlehem Steel, and Newark Skeeters - refused to withdraw from the National Challenge Cup and ended up being suspended by the ASL (those teams joined up with some semi-pro clubs to form the Eastern Soccer League). The ASL was then suspended by the USFA, starting the “Soccer Wars.”
The USFA had the most public support and economic power. In October 1929, the ASL owners conceded they couldn't win this “war." The three banned teams rejoined the league, which played the 1929-30 season under the name of the Atlantic Coast League.
But just weeks after the settlement, the league faced an even bigger problem - the Wall Street crash. As the country fell into the Great Depression, the ASL struggled to keep going. In 1933 it was replaced by a scaled-down semi-pro league that didn't have the resources to recruit stars from Europe.
Wild controversy?
