World History
Sports Illustrated (via SI.com) has a nice photo essay of the top twenty-five non-drug related scandals in sports history. The list is biased towards American scandals (although there are international examples too) and the last 100 years. Nonetheless, I found it fun to browse through.
Here are a few examples from the list:
1. Black Sox scandal, 1919 - When eight Chicago White Sox players were implicated in throwing the World Series against the Reds, it shook the sporting world as nothing had before. Though the guilt or innocence of the players is still debated (did Shoeless Joe Jackson play well anyway? Should Buck Weaver have been barred from the game?), the Black Sox scandal stained baseball's reputation and ruined the game for many.
2. Diego Maradona's World Cup goal, 1986 - Six minutes into the second half of the quarterfinals of the 1986 World Cup, Argentine superstar Diego Maradona scored a goal ... with his left fist. The referee did not see the infringement, and the goal stood, despite protests from the English team. Argentina won the game 2-1 and eventually the World Cup. A few months later Maradona admitted the goal had been scored by his hand and not the "hand of God," his original claim.
7. The Danny Almonte age scandal, 2001 - Almonte led the Rolando Paulino All-Stars to the Little League World Series, where he pitched a perfect game in leading his team to a third-place finish. However, scandal tainted the world of youth sports when the team was stripped of all victories that year and its third-place Little League World Series finish after it was proven Almonte was actually 14, two years older than the Little League age limit.
15. The IOC strips Jim Thorpe of his Olympic medals, 1912 - Thorpe won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, but was stripped of both medals after it was revealed he had been paid small sums of money to play baseball in 1909 and 1910, when Olympic rules prohibited professional athletes from participating. Many said Thorpe, one of the greatest all-around athletes of all time, was discriminated against because of his ethnic background, a hybrid of Irish, French and American Indian heritages. In 1983 his results were reinstated by the IOC and his medals were returned to his children.
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Thanks to Byzantium's Shores for leading me towards two fun geography games. Both are simple. Type in as many American states or UN member nations as you can in ten minutes. Spelling counts! The American states game is here and the UN nation one is...
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The Real Story of the Ancient Olympic Games - Were the ancient games better than ours? More fair and square? More about sports and less about money? Are modern games more sexist? More political? Have we strayed from the ancient Olympic ideal? From...
World History
Infamous Non-Drug-Related Sports Scandals
Sports Illustrated (via SI.com) has a nice photo essay of the top twenty-five non-drug related scandals in sports history. The list is biased towards American scandals (although there are international examples too) and the last 100 years. Nonetheless, I found it fun to browse through.
Here are a few examples from the list:
1. Black Sox scandal, 1919 - When eight Chicago White Sox players were implicated in throwing the World Series against the Reds, it shook the sporting world as nothing had before. Though the guilt or innocence of the players is still debated (did Shoeless Joe Jackson play well anyway? Should Buck Weaver have been barred from the game?), the Black Sox scandal stained baseball's reputation and ruined the game for many.
2. Diego Maradona's World Cup goal, 1986 - Six minutes into the second half of the quarterfinals of the 1986 World Cup, Argentine superstar Diego Maradona scored a goal ... with his left fist. The referee did not see the infringement, and the goal stood, despite protests from the English team. Argentina won the game 2-1 and eventually the World Cup. A few months later Maradona admitted the goal had been scored by his hand and not the "hand of God," his original claim.
7. The Danny Almonte age scandal, 2001 - Almonte led the Rolando Paulino All-Stars to the Little League World Series, where he pitched a perfect game in leading his team to a third-place finish. However, scandal tainted the world of youth sports when the team was stripped of all victories that year and its third-place Little League World Series finish after it was proven Almonte was actually 14, two years older than the Little League age limit.
15. The IOC strips Jim Thorpe of his Olympic medals, 1912 - Thorpe won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, but was stripped of both medals after it was revealed he had been paid small sums of money to play baseball in 1909 and 1910, when Olympic rules prohibited professional athletes from participating. Many said Thorpe, one of the greatest all-around athletes of all time, was discriminated against because of his ethnic background, a hybrid of Irish, French and American Indian heritages. In 1983 his results were reinstated by the IOC and his medals were returned to his children.
- Fun Geography Games
Thanks to Byzantium's Shores for leading me towards two fun geography games. Both are simple. Type in as many American states or UN member nations as you can in ten minutes. Spelling counts! The American states game is here and the UN nation one is...
- Hohokam Ballplayers Made The Bleachers At Yankee Stadium Seem Tame By Comparison
Hohokam Ballplayers Made The Bleachers At Yankee Stadium Seem Tame By Comparison - An article from the Tucson Weekly on ancient Hohokam sports. The Hohokam were a Native American culture that existed in Arizona from 250 AD to about 1450 AD. They left...
- The Real Story Of The Ancient Olympic Games
The Real Story of the Ancient Olympic Games. The Winter Olympics will begin on February 10th in Torino, Italy. The official site in English is at Torino 2006. Although the ancient Greeks did not compete in ice hockey, skiing, luge, or any of the other...
- Civilization Iv
Civilization IV. OK, I'll publicly confess it. I am a Civilization addict. I have been playing the game for over a decade now through many incarnations. And with the release of version 4, I just lost another weekend... If you are unfamiliar with the...
- The Real Story Of The Ancient Olympic Games
The Real Story of the Ancient Olympic Games - Were the ancient games better than ours? More fair and square? More about sports and less about money? Are modern games more sexist? More political? Have we strayed from the ancient Olympic ideal? From...