The Hall of Shame: Ranking the Most Notorious Cheaters in Sports History

Everybody wants an advantage over competitors; sometimes, that means breaking or bending the rules without being caught. Several athletes in the history of sports have accomplished this well, and some have been messy in their efforts. Everyone will be included in this listing, covering the whole spectrum of sports cheats, from teams and players to owners and physicians.

This is a list of the biggest cheaters in sports history, from steroid use in Sochi and betting on baseball to feigning injuries and faking disabilities.

50. Jalen Rose

Always allow a jump shooter room to land neatly. This is considered an unofficial rule inside the NBA and the rest of the basketball world. Even with tight defense, every shooter must land on their feet to avoid sprained ankles. However, Jalen Rose of ”Fab Five” did not let Kobe Bryant do that in the Finals of the 2000 NBA.

Bryant had an injury that forced him to miss the remainder of one play and the next few games, but the Los Angeles Lakers were still able to win the series. Six years later, Kobe would exact his vengeance on Rose and the Raptors by scoring eighty-one points against the team while Rose was also the main defender on him.

49. Gaylord Perry

Gaylord Perry entered the Hall of Fame after winning the Cy Young Award twice and being an All-Star five times throughout his career. On the other hand, Perry was an unrepentant cheater who delivered two pitches against the rules. The first one was the “spitball”, wherein he cheated by placing some vaseline on the baseball and then tossing it. He allegedly smeared Vaseline on his trousers’ zipper to avoid being caught.

The second illegal pitch he threw was known as the “puffball,” and it got its name from the fact that Perry loaded up on ”rosin” before throwing it. When Perry would throw the ball, both his hand and the ball would’ve been so slathered in the material that it’d cause a plume of white smoke to be released simultaneously with the throw.

48. Jerry Rice

A decade following his retirement from the National Football League, the player widely regarded as the league’s best wide receiver acknowledged that he’d had some assistance throughout his career. Jerry Rice revealed that he used a small amount of ”stickum” on the gloves to improve his ability to grab balls as he talked about the outstanding catches he had made with the assistance of gloves.

Rice didn’t play in the NFL until 1985, two years after the league outlawed the use of stickum. However, he also claimed that all other receivers playing during his period utilized the chemical, even though other players like Cris Carter and Michael Irvin denied that this was the case.

47. Graig Nettles

In the same way that cork helps make a bat lighter, which in turn permits a batter to have a higher swing velocity, superballs impart additional bounces to a bat, which in turn helps hitters. Graig Nettles had never been accused of corking the bat. However, his cheating with the usage of superballs had been on plain display during 1974.

Following a single broken bat, the superballs were scattered around the playing field, where the catcher for the other team quickly gathered them together to inform the umpire. Umpire quickly overturned his hit, and he couldn’t be on the field for the play. Nettles’ squad won 1-0 thanks to a previous home run hit with the same bat.