sports conspiracies

[rangercal]

These conspiracies are hard to ignore

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3594758?GT1=6444

Elliott Kalb / Special to FOXSports.com

 

 

We need to know that our games and competitions are fair.

 

We are rightly outraged when we invest time into watching American Idol and are told that a certain contestant was given an unfair advantage by a judge. We are infuriated to find out that NBA referees might have been told to give preferential or harsher treatment to a certain player, and not others. All these game shows and sports leagues have going for them is the trust that the public places in them.

 

Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy, left, stirred up a controversy when he implied NBA officials were targeting Houston center Yao Ming. (Bill Baptist / Getty Images)

 

Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy told the press that he was told by his inside source (a referee not working the playoffs) that officials were instructed to watch Yao Ming more closely for moving screens — and that it was working. Commissioner David Stern fined Van Gundy $100,000.

 

The coaches' remarks don't seem all that inflammatory, especially considering how often Phil Jackson used similar tactics in past playoff seasons to try and get officials to call the upcoming games to his advantage. The difference, of course, was that Jackson offered no proof of a league-wide internal edict.

 

Van Gundy is in the position of other whistle-blowers (not the literal referees, but the figurative ones, real heroes from reporters and politicians who expose conspiracies) in which he may be forced to give up his job unless he cooperates and answers more questions and possibly names his source.

 

I'm not implying that there is a league-wide conspiracy to help certain players or teams at the expense of others. But before we condemn Van Gundy, there should be a completed investigation into the matter. Conspiracies happen when certain people are held to silence, while others commit a crime, or breach in ethics. History shows us that the first thing that happens is that the person who sheds light on the conspiracy becomes intimidated, and the target.

 

There have been a ton of conspiracies in sports. I could probably come up with 10 just from the sport of boxing, and another 10 just from the Olympics. You don't think Olympic weightlifters, for example, haven't been taking illegal substances for years to keep up with their training (and their opponents). This is not meant to be a complete, or inclusive list. Here are just 10 instances where it was proven — or widely assumed — that the truth was being withheld from the public.

1. Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker get caught fixing a baseball game.

Following the 1926 season, Tigers player-manager Ty Cobb announced he was stepping down. A few weeks later, Indians player-manager Tris Speaker did the same. Both superstars were forced to resign under allegations that they conspired to fix a game a few years earlier.

 

After meeting with Commissioner Judge Landis, it is ruled that the fix charges were unfounded. The pitcher who produced handwritten letters that offered up proof was resentful that Cobb had cut him from his roster, and Speaker didn't offer him a tryout. In all probability, the commissioner didn't need a second Black Sox scandal so soon after the first one.

 

In any case, Cobb became emboldened, and considered a suit for slander. Cobb and Speaker then ended their brief retirements and signed with other American League teams. Cobb was the first player inducted into the Hall of Fame a few years later. Tris Speaker was voted in the next year, as one of the first eight players inducted.

 

2. Hank Greenberg doesn't get pitched to.

 

In 1938, there was widespread anti-Semitism in this country, in part because of people's concerns that the United States would soon have to enter the growing war in Europe. The Detroit Tigers' Hank Greenberg was on his way to breaking Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, but pitchers stopped pitching to him.

 

Greenberg faced many of the same kind of venom-filled letters from strangers that Hank Aaron received in the days leading to his breaking of Ruth's career home run record in 1974. Greenberg hit his 58th home run with five games left in the 1938 season.

 

Was there a conspiracy by anti-Semitic pitchers not giving him any good pitches to hit? Greenberg never claimed any collusion in the years that followed any. He said he simply "ran out of gas," and finished with 58.

 

3. The unwritten and unspoken agreement by major league baseball owners not to sign black players until Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson in 1947.

 

There was no rule against having black players prior to 1947. Was it just a coincidence? Even Rickey's signing of Robinson didn't prevent conspiracies of teams "signing too many" black players. The NBA had an unsaid "quota" system into the 1960s, with no team having more than three black players. It took Boston winning eight consecutive championships with Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones and Satch Sanders to change that.

 

4. Sonny Liston probably threw at least one fight against Muhammad Ali.

 

There were all sorts of conspiracy theories about both of the Liston-Ali fights. Some involved the mobsters making millions from betting against Liston, while others involved Black Muslims threatening Liston's life. You have to remember the times — Malcolm X had recently been assassinated. Was Liston knocked out by a grazing blow that was hard to see, or was he a terrible actor?

 

 

In the late 1960s, Bobby Orr was the first NHL player to bring a lawyer with him into contract negotiations. In 1998, that lawyer was sent to jail. (STUART CAHILL/AFP/ / Getty Images)

 

5. Alan Eagleson abuses power as the head of the NHL players union.

 

In the late 1960s, it was very rare for a player to bring a lawyer or agent with him to handle negotiations. When Bobby Orr, the great hockey star of the Boston Bruins, brought in attorney Alan Eagleson, it marked the beginning of Eagleson's rise that would lead him to become the head of the Player's Union. It was not a great move on Orr's part. Eagleson was also the legal representative of Bruins general manager Harry Sinden. Eagleson was also cozy with other teams' owners.

 

I know it's hard to believe (I'm being sarcastic, folks), but Eagleson conspired for years with NHL owners and management. Eagleson served as an agent to many players as well as a union leader. It was said that Eagleson compromised his union duties in return for personal gain at the expense of all NHL players. Eagleson was jailed in 1998 and fined $1 million.

6. MLB owners collude vs. free-agent baseball players.

Jack Morris was the winningest pitcher in baseball in the 1980s, peaking in 1986, after winning 20 games the previous season. The free agent Morris had to agree to salary arbitration with the Tigers. That's because he was turned down by every other team. He even offered himself to the Yankees in a deal that was impossible to refuse. He told Boss George Steinbrenner to just name the price! He said he would sign a one-year contract, with his salary determined by an arbitrator Steinbrenner said at the time it wouldn't be fair to his free-agent pitcher Ron Guidry, whose contract wasn't negotiated yet.

 

Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and Carlton Fisk were just three of the big-time free agent players who couldn't get a contract. The owners conspired to bring down big free-agent contracts by what the courts would soon rule as collusion. In the years following, small-market owners stopped pretending that there was a level playing field with the richest teams, and today's system is the result.

 

7. The Knicks win the NBA's first lottery draft in 1985.

 

If I've been hard on the NBA in other conspiracy issues, they've done everything they can to clean up even the appearance of a conspiracy with their annual draft of college players. Until 1985, the teams with the worst records got the top picks.

 

That didn't work, because certain teams figured out how to lose, or tank, games at the end of their meaningless seasons. Then, in 1985, the NBA figured out that they should have a lottery of all the teams that didn't make the playoffs, and each of those seven teams would get an equal chance at the top pick — Patrick Ewing in 1985. When the pick went to New York, the league had their number one market competitive for the next 15 years.

 

The Kings, Clippers, and other lottery losers were stuck spinning their wheels. Could the league have tilted, weighted, or heated the envelope with the Knicks' logo on it? Anything is possible, folks, so in future years, the league has gone to ping-pong balls in a machine that gives additional chances to the teams with the worst records. And they have representatives from prestigious accounting firms to assure fairness.

 

8. Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield fight to a controversial draw in a unified heavyweight title fight in 1992.

 

HBO boxing announcer Jim Lampley called the decision "fraudulent." Lennox Lewis wound up in a draw, in a fight he clearly won. It happened because one of the judges, Eugenia Williams, scored the Lewis-dominated fifth round for Holyfield. Williams was a competent judge who had worked more than 90 fights (yeah, and Paula Abdul is a competent judge, as well). But in boxing, and other sports with subjective judges, these things happen. Promoters like Don King get the benefit of big-money rematches, as well. Nothing should surprise us.

 

 

Did Michael Jordan keep Isiah Thomas off the 1992 Olympic team? (Mike Powell / FOXSports.com)

 

9. Isiah Thomas is left off the 1992 Olympic Dream Team.

 

Isiah Thomas should have been on the 1992 Olympic Dream Team. He should have been on the team even ahead of Michael Jordan. Jordan won Gold for the USA in 1984. Thomas didn't have that collegiate opportunity, because President Jimmy Carter pulled the plug on Thomas' chance when he stopped the United States from sending a team to Russia in 1980.

 

Wouldn't you think that a member of the 1980 team — and a two-time NBA champion still only 31 years old — would have been a rock-solid choice, especially considering the USA coach was Pistons head coach Chuck Daly? In this case, it might have been a conspiracy of one (Jordan) that left Thomas off.

10. The 1972 U.S. Olympic Basketball team, 1988 Olympian Roy Jones Jr. deprived of gold medals.

There are too many of these instances in Olympic history. These are two of the most famous, and two that I'm most familiar with. Coach Hank Iba and the 1972 Olympians were victims of unbelievable decisions that forced them to keep playing the final seconds of the gold medal game until the Soviet team scored the game-winning basket. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Jones had to accept a silver medal, after clearly beating South Korean Park Si-hun. There were later reports of payoffs that influenced that decision.

 

Sometimes, the public eventually learns of the conspiracies, and sometimes it does not. We just have to remain skeptical of all that we hear, and keep an open mind to those who expose potential wrongdoings.

Edited May 10, 2005 by rangercal

[HighHeat45]

2. Hank Greenberg doesn't get pitched to.

 

In 1938, there was widespread anti-Semitism in this country, in part because of people's concerns that the United States would soon have to enter the growing war in Europe. The Detroit Tigers' Hank Greenberg was on his way to breaking Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, but pitchers stopped pitching to him.

 

Greenberg faced many of the same kind of venom-filled letters from strangers that Hank Aaron received in the days leading to his breaking of Ruth's career home run record in 1974. Greenberg hit his 58th home run with five games left in the 1938 season.

 

Was there a conspiracy by anti-Semitic pitchers not giving him any good pitches to hit? Greenberg never claimed any collusion in the years that followed any. He said he simply "ran out of gas," and finished with 58.

 

Now, i dont know the whole story because I just heard of this now, but isnt it possible they didnt pitch to him so he didnt hit a home run and get an easy run, Not just because he was Jewish?

[Punch and Judy Garland]

As a side not rent "the Life and times of Hank Greenberg" at BB. Great film

[KipWellsFan]

My dad always claims Liston threw the fight, he's probably right.