Ryan Braun has been lying to our faces for the past 2+ years. We now know that he is a cheat who should pack up that MVP award and ship it to its rightful owner, Matt Kemp. Personally, I don’t hate on any athlete who gets caught cheating, mans up, and comes clean. But liars? People who look directly into the camera and proclaim their innocence time and time again, and only come clean when they’re caught dead to rights? They go directly on my shit-list, and it’s damn near impossible to come off it.
Along with Ryan Fraud Braun, here’s a list of the biggest liars in the history of sports, in no particular order:
Lance Armstrong
I’m not sure if Lance is signaling the amount of Tour De France titles he won, or the amount of PED injections he had that day. Before this whole Ryan Braun thing, Lance Armstrong was the undisputed king of lying about PED use. He aired his dirty laundry in a 2 part TV special interview with Oprah, and to be honest it just made me hate the guy more. I sold every piece of LiveStrong apparel I owned on eBay (and was amazed there were people out there willing to buy it).
Manti Te’o
Ok, so he got “catfished”. As the MTV show has shown us, this happens to morons all the time. The problem I have with Te’o is that he found out Lenny Kekua wasn’t real, yet he decided to keep up the charade of a sob story that his girlfriend died so the media and general public would feel bad for him. I’d tell Manti Te’o to go fuck himself, but he’d probably come out with some story about how his left hand died and try to get me to feel sorry for him.
Sammy Sosa
“Slammin’” Sammy Sosa failed a drug test in 2003, and then all of a sudden forgot how to speak English. Then there was the time he got caught using a corked bat. Weirdest of all (as you see in the picture above), he turned white for a while back in 2009. Sosa was one of the most likable players in sports when he was mashing home runs for the Cubs, but in reality was nothing but a liar, and a cheat.
Mark McGwire
During his playing days, Big Mac claimed everything he had put in his body complied with the guidelines set forth by Major League Baseball. In 2010, he came clean about juicing after landing the hitting coach job with St Louis. We couldn’t put Sosa on this list without his lying bash-brother.
Marion Jones
You see those medals track star Marion Jones is holding in the picture above? Yea, she doesn’t have those any more. Jones vehemently denied using PEDs for years, only to come clean after the evidence piled up against her in the 2007 BALCO scandal. Jones is basically the female equivalent of Ryan Braun.
Pete Rose
Charlie Hustle denied betting on baseball for 15 years until he got tired of lying every day of his life and came clean in 2004. While I respect the fact that he was betting on his own team and not throwing games for the sake of padding his own wallet, it’s immoral, and lying about it is even worse. One of the best baseball players of all-time will never get in the Hall of Fame because he’s a liar.
Tiger Woods
Tiger lied to his ex-wife Elin more than he lied to the public, but he was so prolific at it that he had to be mentioned on this list. While it’s no secret that pro-athletes sometimes engage in extra-marital affairs, the extent that Tiger took it to classifies him as a sex-addict. Tiger came clean and lost over $100million in a divorce settlement. I’m not mad at Tiger, I feel bad for him. Bottom line- if you want to mess around with multiple women, don’t get married.
Miguel Tejada
Tejada (or Tejeda, no one is sure) may be the most interesting liar in this article. In 2009, he admitted to misleading Congress about the use of performance-enhancing drugs. A year prior, though, after an ESPN interview, Tejada came clean about being 2 years older than MLB thought he was. When he signed his first Major League contract, he had claimed to have been born in 1976. It was later uncovered that a Dominican birth certificate showed he was born in 1974. That birth certificate also showed the spelling of his last name as “Tejeda” rather than “Tejada”. Muy interesante.
Alex Rodriguez
Aroid Arod also claimed he was clean up until he was caught dead-to-rights in 2009. He admitted his PED use and became one of the most hated men in professional sports. Currently he is trying to strike a deal with MLB over the Biogenesis scandal amid rumors that he could be facing a lifetime ban. Liar, liar, career on fire.
Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart is by far the most moronic and pathetic liar on this list. If you haven’t heard his story, you’re in for a treat. Back in 2008, Hart staged a phony news conference on National Signing Day, declaring his intent to go to California. The only problem is Cal never recruited him in the first place. While some D-1 schools were initially interested in the football star early in his high school career, his 1.8 GPA and decision not to take the SATs at all pretty much dropped him off the national recruiting map altogether. Hart ended up going to Feather River College, a junior college in Quincy, California. After playing sparingly his 1st year, sitting out the 2nd year due to a knee injury, then sitting out an additional due to (you guessed it) academic ineligibility, Hart finally got his shit together and was named first-team All-California junior college lineman in 2011. In 2012, he turned down an offer to play 1 year of D-1 ball at Appalachian State. He instead signed with Division II Missouri Western State where he’d have 2 years of eligibility.
Are there any other liars in sports you’d like to see added to this list? Enter your thoughts in the comment section.
