The Group Chat: You can see everything
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
🙂↔️ The Wide Deciever
The newest bombshell to enter the Sports Scandal Villa is Daejon Love, who was arrested in August for allegedly scamming at least 61 women out of $1.3M by posing as a San Francisco 49ers wide receiver. Naturally, a Netflix documentary is already in the works.
⚾ The Houston Astros saw stole the signs
Throughout the 2017 season, culminating in their World Series win, the Astros regularly used an illegal camera system to steal pitching signs from opposing teams’ catchers and relay them to their hitters at bat in real-time by banging on trash cans. And yes, they were allowed to keep their championship title. You can’t make this sh!t up.
🏈 Deflategate, duh
The New England Patriots cheated on a championship run of their own. The 2014–15 Pats, led by quarterback Tom Brady, defeated the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game en route to their Super Bowl XLIX win. Two days later, ESPN reported that 11 of the 12 balls New England used in the first half were significantly underinflated and therefore easier to grip, throw, and catch.
- An NFL–commissioned report found it was “more probable than not” that the Pats deflated the balls…and that Brady was aware.
- The league fined the team (then worth $3.2B) a paltry $1M, and Brady served a four-game suspension to start the 2016–17 season (they went 3-1 without him). Seems like maybe the squishy balls were worth it?
🏃 Run, Rosie Ruiz, run…or not
In 1980, Ruiz won the Boston Marathon in record-breaking time — 2:31:56 to be exact. But eight days later, she was stripped of her title because she only ran the final half-mile of the 26.2 mile race. Believe it or not, this was the second time Ruiz pulled off such a heist: She won the 1979 NYC Marathon months earlier, but rode the subway for 16 miles. A victory for public transportation, we guess?
🚲 Lance Fraudstrong
Back in 2012, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong was stripped of all his titles and received a lifetime ban from cycling for using a slew of performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career. It’s hard to overstate how much this shook the culture at the time — Armstrong was a widely beloved figure after his public battle with cancer. The Oprah Winfrey confession interview is still one to watch.
