Sports Cheats

The Pam Scam

From the marathon runners who took a ride on the subway to the football players who sprayed themselves with cooking oil - Kidzworld looks at some of the sports world's biggest cheats and scammers.

German Gas Guzzlers
Before the 1976 Olympics, German swimmers had 1.8 liters of air pumped into their butts in order to improve buoyancy. This scam helped front crawl and backstroke specialists but one of the breastrokers on the team claimed it made his feet stick out of the water.

Spider Man
In 1969, Chicago Blackhawk's goalie, Tony Esposito, sewed a piece of web meshing between the legs of his goalie pants. Tony's spiderweb stopped hockey pucks from going through his legs. During a game, a shot caught in his web and rebounded back at the shooter, nearly hitting him in the face. Soon after, the National Hockey League outlawed goalies from using Tony's web.

Pam Scam
In November 2002, four defensive linemen with the Sacramento State Hornets football team sprayed the non-stick cooking spray, PAM, onto their jerseys during a game against Montana. The linemen thought this scam would allow them to slip past Montana's offensive line. The plan never worked. Not only did Sacramento lose the football game, the cheating linemen also got busted after a photographer took a picture of the players spraying themselves with PAM on the sidelines.

Submarine Thieves
In the 1950s, coaches with the Chicago White Sox bought a WWII submarine periscope, which they used from the scoreboard to steal catchers' signs to the pitchers. The periscope was so powerful that they could see whether the catcher's fingernails were dirty or not.

Subway Scammers
33 runners at the 2000 Berlin Marathon decided to take a shortcut - by riding the subway when they arrived at the 15 mile mark. The runners obviously forgot about the computer chips they were wearing, which automatically record their times every three miles. All 33 runners were disqualified and their times were removed from the final race results.

Have you ever cheated while playing sports? What's your best trick? Do you think it's okay to cheat to win a game? your cheating stories.

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