The hall of shame
From the murder to a football star's pregnant girlfriend to the retirement of four sports icons, 1999 was a bad year to be a sports fan.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Julian Rubinstein
Dec. 23, 1999 |
1999 was a terrible year for sports fans for a lot of reasons. It was the year of predictability, with both the New York Yankees and Denver Broncos repeating as champions in their sports. The en masse retirements of such
peerless icons as Michael Jordan, John Elway, Wayne Gretzky and Steffi Graf marked the low points of a year that was filled with its share of shameful and ignominious moments. Here are the 10 most disgraceful and dishonorable sports stories of 1999.
The Rae Carruth story
Without question, the most deplorable story from the sports world this year is the one still developing in North Carolina. Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth was arrested in the trunk of a car in Charlotte and charged with first-degree murder. The victim was Carruth's 24-year-old pregnant girlfriend Cherica Adams, who died Dec. 14, about four weeks after being shot in the neck, chest and abdomen as she was driving her black BMW through a residential neighborhood last month. Sources close to the investigation say police believe Carruth, a third-year player who has been injured most of this season and was suspended by the Panthers without pay when he was made a suspect, masterminded the shooting of Adams. Police reportedly believe Carruth was riding in an SUV in front of Adams's car and was in cell phone contact with another vehicle containing three gunmen, who have also been arrested. Adams's child, a boy, was
delivered 10 weeks prematurely and is in fair condition at an area hospital. It is not known if Carruth is the father.
Catcher in the wry
No catcher since the fictional Crash Davis (from the classic 1988 baseball film "Bull Durham") has had the audacity to do what minor leaguer Jeff Alfano did this season. Weeks after serving a six-game suspension for trashing the clubhouse buffet table after being criticized by his manager, the Hunstville (AA) Stars player found a more creative method of working out frustrations with another member of his team, pitcher Robert Theodile. In extra innings of a tense late-season game he was catching, Alfano began telling opposing batters what pitches
Theodile was throwing. In the top of the 17th inning, the Stars opponents, the Orlando Rays, put the information to good use, blasting a grand slam off Theodile that won the game and earned them a trip to the playoffs. Alfano, who later admitted his transgression, was suspended for 30 games beginning next season.
Hockey coaches lead by example
The NHL has always had a problem curbing on-ice violence enough to satisfy some purists. But after this season you can't say the anti-fight club didn't make their feelings known. Following a September preseason game in which he was disgusted by the violent tactics employed by the Chicago Blackhawks against his team, Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee stormed into the Chicago
locker room and began pummeling Blackhawks coach Lorne Molleken. Several Blackhawks players and arena security people jumped in to stop the fracas, but not before McPhee had blackened one of Molleken's eyes. McPhee himself was bleeding from the face and missing an entire arm of his suit jacket. But at least he'd made his point: Violence has no place in this game.
A runner's million-dollar strategy
Hoping to generate publicity, the Golden League, Europe's premiere track circuit, decided to offer a $1 million bonus this year to any athlete who could win all seven meets in their respective event. And after Kenyan Bernard Barmasai was victorious in each of the circuit's first five 3,000-meter steeplechase races, the gimmick seemed to be paying dividends as the track community, particularly in Europe, buzzed with speculation about Barmasai's potential record windfall. But the notion was so enticing even to Barmasai that at the sixth meet, on Aug. 11 in Zurich, he convinced countrymen Christopher Koskei, another top steeplechaser, to deliberately lose, thus helping to keep his bid for the jackpot alive -- and ultimately embarrassing himself and his sport. "It was not cheating," Barmasai maintained when Golden League officials learned of the
fix and disqualified him amid a flurry of negative press. "It was tactics."
The real deal?
In March, 48-year-old Atlantic City, N.J., municipal accounts clerk Eugenia Williams came to Madison Square Garden thinking what fun it would be to judge the heavyweight title fight between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. She never
imagined that scoring the bout in Holyfield's favor would launch a thousand
investigations and knock the already wobbly sport onto the ropes. After all, Don King, Holyfield's notorious promoter, was paying her $5,150 for the gig and she was just an anonymous occasional fight judge who'd recently declared bankruptcy. Why would this be any different from, for instance, the lightweight fight she judged last December between Ivan Robinson, a family friend, and Arturo Gatti. (She scored it for Robinson, who won a unanimous decision.) So this time, even though Lewis landed nearly three times as many punches as Holyfield, Williams scored it how she saw fit: 115-113 for "The Real Deal" Holyfield. Conflict of interest? Please. "I was just doing what I was hired to do," she said.
Next page | Prostitutes, men in masks and the Olympic games
News
