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Just to be clear: Most of the stories on this list are totally unsubstantiated. Most of them probably aren’t even true.
Although this may be the case, there’s always something fun about urban legends and conspiracy theories. Even when you know they probably aren’t true, they still make for fun stories to follow and think about—especially since most of them have just a dash or a pinch of plausibility to them.
In sports, there are plenty of such rumors—just as there are in every other field. Whether they deal with rumored trades, fixed boxing matches, a love triangle or… Wade Boggs drinking 107 beers in one day, there’s no shortage of enjoyable, mythical content there. The rise of the internet has only made these kinds of theories more prevalent, as the barriers of entry into media have come crumbling down. Some are totally absurd, like the idea that all professional sports are rigged.
The ones on this list, however, all have a little bit of a believable storyline to them. This isn’t to suggest that these stories should be taken as facts—they shouldn’t. But hey: Fiction can be fun too, and most of these stories are probably #FakeNews.
For fans who often watch athletes season after season through the prism of TV and the internet, it’s also a point of curiosity to wonder what these players are like when the cameras are turned off. Do they hang out at Illuminati meetings? Do they conspire to fix games? Is there some element of sports they don’t let the fans in on?
That’s where the urban legends come in. They often attempt to explain the unknown in a much more interesting and exciting manner than what is probably true. So with that said, let’s take a look at the 16 best sports rumors, conspiracies, and urban legends:
16. Golden Tate ended Russell Wilson’s first marriage
Year: 2014
Athletes involved: Russell Wilson, Golden Tate
Wilson abruptly filed for divorce from his high school sweetheart, Ashton Meem, in 2014. Soon after, rumors began to circulate that the marriage ended after his Seahawks teammate Golden Tate had an affair with Meem. To make matters worse, Tate was sent to the Detroit Lions around this time, and reports said it was a vengeful Wilson who got him kicked off the team.
Tate adamantly denied these rumors, and even addressed them in a column he wrote for The Cauldron in 2015:
I did not have an affair with Russell Wilson’s wife, nor did I have anything to do with his divorce. That is laughable for anyone who knows us. His ex-wife, Ashton, is still best friends with my girlfriend. Russell and I were good friends when I was in Seattle, on and off the field — he knows the rumors about me were unfounded, damaging to my reputation, and an attack on my character. Anyone who circulated that rumor was just plain irresponsible.
Wilson is now married to Ciara, so it’s safe to say he bounced back from the divorce pretty quickly.
15. Wade Boggs drank 107 beers in one day
Year: Unknown
Athletes involved: Wade Boggs
This rumor has seen a resurgence in interest after an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia featured The Gang attempting to break Boggs’ drinking record. For years, it was rumored—and Boggs seemed to have confirmed—that he drank 64 beers on one flight from Boston to Los Angeles.
But during the taping of the Always Sunny episode, Boggs told actor Charlie Day that he didn’t drink 64 beers. He had 107.
Day was under the impression that this story was true, so it looks like this legend will live on.
14. Curt Schilling’s “Bloody Sock” was a hoax
Year: 2004
Players Involved: Curt Schilling, Doug Mirabelli
Schilling’s recent foray into politics often takes the spotlight away from what was a fantastic baseball career. The most famous moment of his career undoubtedly came during the 2004 ALCS, as the Red Sox ace pitched through an injured ankle in what became known as the “Bloody Sock Game.”
Or was it ketchup?
Longtime broadcaster Gary Thorne reported in 2007 that the bloody sock was all a hoax, and that Schilling painted the sock to make it look like he was bleeding. He cited former Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli as his source. Mirabelli, however, denied this adamantly, and said he was only joking, and Thorne later retracted his report. Schilling has obviously denied this as well.
13. Tony Parker cheated on Eva Longoria with Brent Barry’s wife
Year: 2010
Athletes Involved: Tony Parker, Brent Barry
According to Longoria, Parker sent hundreds of inappropriate text messages to Erin Barry, Brent’s wife. Parker and Barry were teammates on the Spurs from 2004-2008, and the two couples had been friends before their respective divorces. Erin Barry denied an affair with Parker, but her marriage ended at about the same time as the Parkers’ did.
12. Dock Ellis pitches no-hitter while high on LSD
Year: 1970
Athletes Involved: Dock Ellis
After a night of heavy drug and alcohol use, Ellis dropped some acid around noon the day of his no-hitter. He had lost track of time thanks to his late-night drug binge, and thought he was pitching the next day. Ellis was wrong.
Somehow, Ellis made it to the stadium about 90 minutes before he was supposed to pitch for the Pirates. He then proceeded to throw a no-hitter—albeit with eight walks and a hit batsman.
Fourteen years after the no-no in 1984, Ellis finally made his claim about being on acid that day. He recalls:
"I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me."
People who knew Ellis at the time are of divided mind as to whether he was actually under the influence of acid that day. Since we only have Ellis’s claims as evidence, we will probably never know the truth of this one. But the legend is sure to pick up steam soon: Ice Cube is actually directing a movie on Ellis’s life, so there is bound to be renewed interest in this no-hitter.
11. Toni Braxton broke up the Mavericks
Year: 1996
Athletes Involved: Jason Kidd, Jim Jackson
The “Unbreak My Heart” singer broke up the Mavs’ young core of Jason Kidd, Jim Jackson, and Jamal Mashburn—the “Three J’s— according to an unsubstantiated legend.
Braxton, according to the legend, went to an Atlanta hotel to pick up her date: Jason Kidd. But she left with Jackson instead. Furious at what went down, Kidd demanded a trade, and was sent to the Suns in December of 1996. Jackson was traded later that season as well.
Kidd, Jackson, and Mashburn have all denied that Braxton caused the rift—although there’s no disputing that there was a rift. But Braxton did little to quell these rumors herself, saying: "I've at least heard of them [but] as far as dating, whether it's true or not, I can never kiss and tell."
10. Michael Jordan’s first retirement was a secret suspension for gambling
Year: 1993
Athletes Involved: Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan shocked the basketball world when he retired in 1993, at just 30 years old, to become a lackluster Double-A outfielder. (Read this in an ESPN "30 for 30" announcer voice): But what if I told you that Jordan's first retirement was actually a suspension? The conspiracy goes that the NBA, irked by Jordan's massive gambling debt, secretly suspended its biggest superstar for over a year.
9. Jordan actually had food poisoning
This Jordan theory is a lot more credible than the aforementioned one—it's even backed up by MJ’s trainer. The story of the "Flu Game" is well known: Jordan, battling severe flu-like symptoms, was able to fight through his sickness to drop 37 points on the Jazz in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to give the Bulls a win. What isn't in question is that Jordan was sick. What is in question is what Jordan was sick with. In 2013, his trainer, Tim Grover, said that the sickness was not actually the result of the flu. Jordan instead had food poisoning. Here’s his version of how Jordan got sick, as quoted by ESPN:
"Yes, 100 percent poisoned for ('The Flu Game')," Grover said on TrueHoop TV. "Everyone called it a 'Flu Game,' but we sat there and we were in the room, we were in Park City, Utah, up in a hotel. Room service stopped at like 9 o'clock. And he got hungry, and we really couldn't find any other place to eat so we ordered ... I said, 'Hey, the only thing I could find is a pizza place.' He said, 'All right, order pizza.' We had been there for a while, so everybody knows what hotel ... I mean Park City (didn't have) many hotels back then. Everybody kind of knew where we were staying.
"So we order a pizza, they come to deliver it, five guys come to deliver this pizza. And I'm just ... I take the pizza, and I tell them, I said, 'I got a bad feeling about this.' I said, 'I just got a bad feeling about this.' Out of everybody in the room, he was the only one that ate. Nobody else ... then 2 o'clock in the morning, I get a call to my room. I come to the room, he's curled up, he's curled up in the fetal position. We're looking at him. We're finding the team physician at that time. And immediately I said, 'It's food poisoning.' Guaranteed. Not the flu." According to Phil Jackson, Bulls teammate Ron Harper also believed that the sickness was due to bad pizza.
8. Mike Piazza is in a relationship with Sam Champion
Year: 2002
Athletes Involved: Mike Piazza
Even by Mets standards, this was truly a bizarre episode. Rumors began to swirl back in 2002 that the Hall of Fame catcher was gay, and that his partner was ABC News weatherman Sam Champion. The rumors got so out of hand that Piazza conducted a press conference—publicly declaring his heterosexuality. This press conference made the front page of the New York Post with all of the attention it garnered. Piazza is now happily married with children, so evidently these rumors have been debunked.
7. "Macho Man" Randy Savage dated a teenage Stephanie McMahon
Year: 1990s
Athletes Involved: Randy Savage, Stephanie McMahon, Vince McMahon
Despite being one of the most iconic and popular wrestlers of all time, "Macho Man" Randy Savage was somehow not inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame until years after his death in 2015. Why is that? One rumor purports to explain why: Back in the ‘90s, Savage had an affair with Stephanie McMahon, WWE CEO Vince McMahon's daughter, while she was only a teenager. Legend has it McMahon was so furious with Savage that he would never let him back in the WWE or its Hall of Fame for as long as he lived. The McMahon family has never addressed the rumor, so it remains unsubstantiated.
6. Cal Ripken Jr. beat up Kevin Costner for sleeping with his wife
Year: 1997
Athletes Involved: Cal Ripken
According to this one, Ripken let Costner—a friend of his—stay at his house in 1997. During this stay, Ripken found Costner in bed with his wife. Ripken then proceeded to kick the living daylight out of Costner, who pressed charges.
Since a Ripken arrest would have ended his consecutive games streak, this theory says that the Orioles canceled that night’s game—citing an electrical failure at Camden Yards—to keep the streak alive (the Orioles actually did cancel a game in 1997 for this reason). No arrest records have ever surfaced, and Ripken denied the Costner legend in 2008.
If you think this theory is a little implausible and farfetched, that’s probably because you’re a rational person.
5. Jimmy Hoffa is buried under Giants Stadium
Year: 1976
Athletes Involved: New York Giants
The mob-linked union boss disappeared without a trace in 1976. Nobody knows who or what was responsible for that disappearance, but he was declared legally dead in 1982—despite the fact that his remains were never found. According to mobster Donald "Tony The Greek" Frankos in a 1989 Playboy interview, Hoffa was buried under the field of the old Giants Stadium—his disappearance coincided with the construction of the stadium. This theory was fueled by an unexplained bump around the 10-yard line. However, an episode of Mythbusters debunked this when it used radar technology to look for human remains and found none. No remains were found when the stadium was demolished in 2010, either. The search for Hoffa continues...
4. Sonny Liston took a dive against Muhammad Ali
Year: 1965
Athletes Involved: Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali
The so-called “Phantom Punch” that knocked out Sonny Liston in the second round of his second fight against Muhammad Ali has become one of the most famously contested plays in sports history. From the only video angle that’s available, it appears as though Ali barely even grazes Liston, who then falls to the ground. It was after this punch that the picture of Ali standing triumphantly over Liston was taken.
The fact that the fight ended like this in just the second round prompted a national outrage among fans. To this day, it remains unclear if Liston took a dive; he died in 1970, so there’s no way of knowing from his end. The FBI at the time believed that the fight would be fixed by the mob.
Liston was deeply ensconced in organized crime, so it’s possible that he took a dive out of some sort of mob-linked motive. Others have speculated that he took the dive because people from the Nation of Islam, the religious group that Ali had just converted to, threatened to kill him or his family had Liston won.
The “Phantom Punch” remains perhaps the most controversial moment in sports history, and will continue to be a point of theorizing and argument among fans.
3. The NBA rigged the 1985 Draft Lottery to get Patrick Ewing on the Knicks
Year: 1985
Athletes Involved: Patrick Ewing
The “Patrick Ewing Frozen Envelope Theory” is arguably the most famous sports conspiracy to ever surface. Before ping-pong balls determined the draft order, the order was chosen by an envelope system. And the theory goes that the Knicks' envelope was frozen or bent in some way so that commissioner David Stern would grant the Knicks the first overall pick--thus putting Georgetown star Patrick Ewing in the league's biggest market. There isn't much evidence for this, but given the NBA's perceived reputation of being a "fixed league," it has become a well-known theory. Speculation regarding fixed draft orders once again gained steam in 2016, when Dikembe Mutombo congratulated the Sixers for getting the first overall pick — hours before that pick was announced publicly.
2. Delonte West had an affair with LeBron’s mom
Year: 2010
Athletes Involved: LeBron James, Delonte West
This rumor was highly embarrassing for one player. And for another, it entirely destroyed his reputation. Back when LeBron James and Delonte West were teammates on the Cavs in 2010, West reportedly had a relationship with James's mother, Gloria. When LeBron found out about this during the 2010 playoffs, he was evidently so distraught that he played very poorly—the Cavs were eliminated in the second round.
After the Cavs were eliminated, rumors began to surface about the relationship on Deadspin and other sites. James and West both denied these rumors initially, but West appeared to have confirmed them in 2014. He spoke to Vice Sports about his son, and said this:
“His middle name is Delonte but I didn’t want to name him Delonte West Jr. just because of that,” he says of the Gloria James rumors. “I don’t want my son going to school and people making fun of him for something his daddy did. He goin’ to school and ‘didn’t your daddy have sex with LeBron’s mamma?’ I don’t want him to deal with all that man.”
Whether the rumors are true or not, West has become known more for this alleged action than for his time in the NBA.
1. Derek Jeter gives gift baskets to one-night stand partners
Years: 1990s-2010s
Athletes Involved: Derek Jeter
Jeets' on-field legend is rivaled only by his Hall of Fame status off the field. The list of former Jeter girlfriends reads like a who’s who of hot celebrities. But Jeter doesn't just take it on the run--at least not according to this rumor. A 2011 Page Six report documented how Jeter, after one-night stands, will give women gift baskets of autographs and other memorabilia as a thank you for spending the night.
Even without this rumor, Jeter is already on the Playa Mount Rushmore with little conversation. Anyone who could date Adriana Lima, Minka Kelly, Mariah Carey, Jessica Alba, and Scarlett Johansson is a legend by any definition of the word.
But if this is true, it puts him in an entirely different class of mackin’. To give a batch of your own memorabilia is the most savage thing one can do to a woman you're probably never going to see again—plus it’s not a bad gift in general. So is this actually true? According to Jeter, no.
“It’s a dumb story,” he said in 2015. “And you really have to be dumber to believe it. But they believe it!...You guys really believe that? My own memorabilia, I’m signing?” The legend of the Jeter Gift Baskets is probably not true. But millions of fans of Jeter's on and off-field prowess will still love to believe that it is.