I’m sure at some point someone has said this to you, whether it was your coach, parent, teacher, etc. As Spygate continues to rear its ugly head, it made me wonder, what/who are the biggest cheaters in sports history? Sure, it’s part of baseball lore that players/coaches/managers steal signals. But does that make it right? Spitballs, pinetar, stickum? I’m not sure, especially in this day and age that you can have an absolutely clean and fair game? Shouldn’t we strive for that on a daily basis? Does our “Win at all costs” or “Just win baby” mentality prohibit any sort of “Winning the right way” attitude? What we adults do will always affect our children or younger geeneration. Has the new generation been ruined with all of the steroids talk? Let’s hope not, but I know that’s not reality…...

Anywho…..since I’m a list guy, here’s some of the notorious cheaters in sports history:

-1919 World Series. Ah…the Chicago Black Sox. At least the Cubs weren’t involved in trying to fix a World Series. Many baseball fans feel Shoeless Joe Jackson has had a raw deal and perhaps they are correct. But…..the team fixed the Series and that’s just plain wrong….

-Sammy Sosa’s Corkgate. Corked bats has been one those baseball things. I think this was the beginning of the end for Sosa. No matter how he tried to justify it was a batting practice bat, he was still caught….

-1994’s Bat Burglary. Jason Grimsley crawling through a stadium’s ducts to exchange a clean bat bat for the corked bat of Albert Belle. Way to take one for the team Jason…..

-1951 NY Baseball Giants. The Giants had an elaborate sign stealing system in their famous comeback to the pennant. The Shot Heard Round The World…was it fixed???? Apparently so

Check out this list for more of baseball’s notorious cheaters. You may be surprised: http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/cheaters/ballplayers.html

-1951’s Basketball point-shaving scandal involving CCNY and many other universities. I think because of this, many institutions were wary of sending their teams to NYC’s Madison Square garden, where the NIT (the national tournament of choice back then) was played. I think also meant the beginning of the end for the NIT as it was and was prominent in the growth of the NCAA tournament.

-Could my favorite punching bag Kevin Sampson be considered a cheater? He was certainly breaking NCAA rules with his unauthorized phone calls, but did it truly give Indiana and Oklahoma an advantage? You didn’t see either go very far in the NCAA’s, but rules are rules.

-SMU still remains the one major NCAA team to be given the “Death Penalty” for repeated rules violations (back in 1987). The football team was affected by this and really never recovered.

-Gaylord Perry has been one of baseball’s notorious spitballers and freely admited it. It never stopped him from gaining entry into Baseball’s Hall Of Fame. Which leads to this question: We seem to accept “cheating” in forms of spitballing, bat corking, ball scuffing and sign stealing as part of baseball. These items on their own should be wrong, right? I hate that athletes take drugs, steroids, etc. as a means to get an advantage over their competition. Why is one form of cheating accepted over the other? Maybe Spygate has taught us that maybe sign stealing is wrong and should be stopped. Or do we want to win so bad, that it doesn’t matter?

My last note on the subject is this: My brother is a high school wrestling coach and one of the big issues he faces are athletes moving to areas that they don’t actually live and compete for highly successful teams. This is apparently common practice and rarely enforced (at least in the state he lives). Is it considered cheating when coaches do this? My brother won’t do this and won’t compromise his ethics for wins and losses. When “cheating” like this occurs on the high school level, it’s no wonder behavior like this continues, especially with all of the exposure kids have when college and professional athletics are marred by cheating.

Please feel free to weigh in with your comments. I hardly from you anymore…..