Cheaters!
 

The other day I saw this article about the Chargers and their "sticky towels":

NFL fines Chargers $20,000 in sticky towel case - latimes.com

and now this:

USC fined for deflating footballs during game against Oregon

Ever been involved in blatant cheating situation or caught someone? (please, football related references only)

The worst "cheating" I've seen was in church-league softball (yeah, I know...), a team needed a win to advance, and was playing a team who truly didn't care. Yet somehow in the last inning, team didn't care was winning. Cheating team batted out of order multiple times on purpose (I saw the slugger come up 3 times, several others twice - with several not batting at all - in an inning that had about 12 or 13 at bats), and team didn't care... didn't care.

Cheating team won - umpire did nothing (I was a spectator). I've always wondered if I would have stepped in if I was the umpire. Someone apparently reported the thing to the league, though, and the cheating team was suspended, the coach banned.

Ball boys kept trying to slip in a slick pumpkin on 4th down for punts. I kept tossing it back to them. Finally had enough and went to the coach and told him it was going to cost him if it came in one more time.

He said "which ball is it?". I pointed it out. He took it from the ball boy, took out his pocket knife and stabbed it (the ball, not the boy), looked at me and said "there, its fixed". I had to suppress my chuckle.

:eek:

He had a weapon on campus! Don't let those administrators know...

;)

Edit: I mention this because several years ago we were asked by some AD's to report tobacco usage on the sidelines, apparently out of some fear of backlash from the state for their zero tolerance policy. Please, I'm in Eastern Washington. Many coaches chew tobacco, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the players did as well.

I've never had actual cheating by teams, but by the chain crew. I posted on this before, but I had the chain crew set the chains at the back of the ball for the home team, and the front of the ball for the away team.

The umpire isn't supposed to interject unless the offended team appeals the previous batter, after the play, but before the succeeding batter is pitched to. At this point, the umpire can take corrective action. But since you're describing a recreational league, it's possible even those rules didn't exist.

Varsity & JV/Freshman chain crews and clock operators here (Southern Nevada) are an auxiliary crew of regular officials. In fact, usually when we have a Thursday night JV/Freshman double-header, we just swap out crews between the two games.
We haven't had visiting coaches complain about cheating chain crews, and since most coaches know we're "off-duty" officials, we occasionally get them asking us about calls. The worst problem I had was someone insisting that the umpire was giving his team an unfair spot on short yardage and demanded that I (holding the box) make the correction. I simply informed him he was addressing his complaint to the wrong person.
I did catch chain crew in a youth game cheating. After everything was set, the LTG stake holder started pulling the rear stake really subtle-like, which normally wouldn't have been noticed, except that my crew also likes to spot balls right on the 5-yard lines whenever it's close and practical. When we start second down and the LTG has moved 6 feet from the 5-yard mark where he started, the problem is quite obvious.

We have regulars who are locals, except in the one cheating case. We've even had to grab people out of the stands because the chain crew failed to show up. I wish we had enough officials to assign officials to chains. And even if we did, I wish we had the funds to afford to send them to the games.


We do the same. We try to start each series on a yard line, and all drives on a major line. In the case where we caught the cheating, we had the case where we spotted the ball on a new drive on a major line. After an incomplete pass, our U noticed the box was behind the line. He scratched his head and decided to keep an eye on it. Sure enough, every time we started a new series, the box was behind the spot on the field.

A good umpire wouldn't interject themselves. Batting out of order, like not touching a base, is only an offense if properly and timely appealed by the defense. Personally, I don't classify it as cheating. Bush league, but not cheating.

You're right that by rule, we do nothing. But at what point does it become unsportsmanlike? Ever? Maybe never?