Baseball sells itself as a steady, summer-long story where the rules feel almost sacred—until they don’t. Not many outsiders are familiar with the ins and outs of the controversies in America’s pastime, but every so often, MLB delivers a scandal so loud it rattles the box seats. Come with us as we revisit some of the biggest scandals over the years.
The Black Sox World Series Fix
Back in 1919, several Chicago White Sox players conspired to throw the World Series, turning the sport’s biggest stage into a rigged performance. The fallout was brutal: lifetime bans and the creation of a powerful commissioner’s office to make sure baseball never looked that helpless again.
Pete Rose and the Gambling Bombshell
Pete Rose played with a level of intensity everyone remembered, but the gambling allegations hit harder than any fastball. When MLB determined he’d bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds, he accepted a lifetime ban. It still pains people to this day.
Steroids and the Home Run Boom
The late 1990s and early 2000s brought towering home runs and even taller suspicions. Performance-enhancing drugs didn’t just inflate stats—they warped reputations, records, and Hall of Fame debates for an entire generation.
The 2017 Astros Sign-Stealing Scheme
Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA on Wikimedia
You’d like to think scandals belong in the past, but that’s not always the case. Using technology to decode signs—and allegedly a trash-can signal system—turned the 2017 title run into a permanent asterisk in many fans’ minds. The boos that followed weren’t subtle, and they weren’t temporary either.
The 1994 Strike That Canceled the World Series
Not every scandal involves cheating; sometimes it’s labor warfare. In 1994, owners and players collided over money, and the season collapsed. It was actually a strike that wiped out the World Series entirely.
