WBOB Original Reads

Fox's Top 5: Dumbest Excuses Athletes Used After Being Caught Doping in Sports

5/14/2021

Ryan L. Fox

In all facets of life, there are people who do things the right way and then there are those who cheat their way to success. When caught, these people try to justify their cheating with some outlandish claims that they conceived in their heads that justifies their actions. Sports is no different.

Over the course of so many years and throughout many different sports, athletes and trainers have been ousted in one way or another of their cheating. But instead of owning up to their cheating, some (if not all) have come up with outlandish excuses that range from a ‘tainted sample’ to something so absurd, it would have been better to come out with the truth and retain some dignity.

Below are some of, if not, the worse excuses to justify getting caught for cheating. For the first time in the Fox’s Top 5, there is no ranking. Some of these excuses (if not all of them) were so idiotic, so mind-numbing that even just looking over them induced headaches. They were all so bad, it was too hard to rank them.

1. Hay, You Shouldn't Eat That

We have to kick off the list with what actually inspired this list to begin with. Yes, when I mean hay I mean I’m talking about horses. Just a couple of weeks ago was the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby with Medina Spirit getting the victory. But as his owner, Bob Baffert was celebrating and people were trying to cash out money, race officials discovered in postrace drug tests that Medina Spirit actually tested positive for elevated levels of betamethasone (an anti-inflammatory corticosteroid that helps relieve joint pains in horses) that were double the legal amount allowed.

So instead of just accepting the penalties and suffer a little humiliation, Baffert concocted a pretty outlandish (and disgusting if you think about it) excuse as a defense.

According to Baffert, the reason why Medina Spirit's test results came back the way they did was because the 3-year colt "ate some bad hay" before the Derby. But not just any bad hay oh no. What tainted the horse's food was that one day, one of Medina Spirit's handlers couldn't make it to the rest room and decided to use the horse stall as a bathroom stall and peed on some of the hay, which the horse ingested. The best part of that story is that said handler had traces of Dayquil in his system because he was 'under the weather' and it was the Dayquil that triggered the positive result in the postrace drug test.

Uh, first off eww. Secondly, EEWWWW! Third, what the ****?! This is just not only stupid by just downright disgusting! Seriously, in what part of Baffert's mind did he pull this ex...you know what, for my sanity and the sanity of you readers I am not even going to go there.

2. Casper, the PED Peddling Ghost

Ah yes, the ol’ ‘The Devil made me do it’ excuse. It’s a lot more common in sports than you think. When an athlete gets busted for cheating, they vehemently try to deny any sort of involvement of wrongdoing and try to parley the fault onto another guilty party. It can range from a player getting help from another teammate (looking right at you, you dirty rat Jose Conseco), a team trainer/doctor gone maverick, or a 'family member' (aka, the A-Rod excuse). But back in 2017, former NFL wide receiver Jeremy Kerley took the ol' 'blame somebody else' to a supernatural level.

Kerley was on his second stint with the New York Jets and was primarily used as the No. 3 receiver. For the year, Kerley amassed 22 catches for 217 yards and 1 TD in 8 games. But then on November 6, he tested positive for PEDs and was suspended for 4 games in correspondence to the rules. But when asked how the PEDs got into his system, Kerley gave an excuse for the ages. The cause of the PEDS in his system: ghosts.

Quote, "I don't know...There's a lot of ghosts here. Ghost put it in there. You know, the Ghost of Christmas past? ...I don't know." up, a grown man blaming spooks for his PED usage (don't bother trying to comprehend the idiocy, you'll only hurt yourself). The kicker is that when it was announced that he was being suspended, Kerley said he'd do his own investigation. But when he was reinstated, Kerley said that he couldn't conduct the 'investigation' because he 'didn't have time' to do so. He was immediately released from the team after being reinstated by the league.

3. www.fakesite.com

You won’t believe the depths that some athletes will go in order to try and to acquire a performance enhancing substance to help give them an edge over the competition. By hook or by crook, they will find a way to get what they want/need and when they get caught, they will try to find a way to weasel their way out of it.

And then there's Melky Cabrera who took it to a whole new level.

Back in 2012 when he was a part of the San Francisco Giants, Melky was enjoying one of his best seasons ever. He was named an All-Star, had 11 home runs, 60 RBIs, and was hitting .346, which was leading the NL at the time. But then on August 15 that season, MLB levied a 50-game suspension on Melky for a failed drug test which saw high levels of testosterone in his urine. Melky tried to say that he was the victim in all that. He claimed he bought a supplement product off a website and it failed to notify him the ingredient list, which contained banned substances in it that would trigger a positive test for performance enhancers.

That's not the facepalming part of that whole mess, here is the facepalming.

Prior to the suspension hearings, Melky paid an associate of his $10,000 to create a fake website for the performance enhancing drugs. By doing that and going through with the plan, Melky would be able to claim he was innocent through a clause within the CBA between the MLB and the MLBPA in it's drug program.

It would have worked...except the fact that both MLB and the FBI conducted an investigation on the matter and found out that the website was completely fake. Cabrera ended up serving his 50-game suspension, which made him miss the rest of the 2012 regular season as well as be held off the postseason roster when the Giants won the World Series that year.

Swing and a miss.

4. Watch What You Eat

They always warn you to be careful what you put in your mouth whether it be food or drink. You always hear the tale of athletes get busted for a positive test because they ate some 'bad meat' while staying in a foreign country. But in the case of Czech Republic male tennis player Petr Korda, it was some bad veal that did him in back in 1998.

During the '98 Wimbledon, Korda ended up testing positive for nandrolone. For those who aren't familiar nandrolone, it is your run-of-the-mill anabolic steroid. Aka, it helps speed up the recovery time from injury as well as help put less strain on the body during intense workouts and helps increase body mass. At the time of his positive test result, Korda was dealing with a foot injury so one could easily connect the dots.

But, like so many other athletes who get busted, Korda had an excuse ready for the occasion.

See, Korda was a big consumer of veal (aka, baby calf meat). But no, he didn't consume regular veal. To get the best flavor, Korda said he liked his veal injected with, you guessed it, steroids. Nothing like having a hearty slab of veal pumped full of steroids and HGH for dinner, like how mom always used to make. Am I right fellas? Even after his suspension from the tour (which was for 12 months), Korda still maintained his innocence that he was guilty from eating 'bad veal'.

Maybe he should have gone with a regular steak instead.

5. Failure to Read the Label

There have been cases in sports where athletes take male sexual performance enhancing drugs (i.e. viagra) to get a boost in the competition. This is mostly due to the fact that majority (if not all of them) contain some levels of testosterone, which in turn boosts muscle growth, which in turn boosts athletic abilities. There have been plenty of instances where male track stars have been caught taking these 'performance enhancers' but then there's American sprinter LaShawn Merritt.

From 2005 to 2009, Merritt won multiple gold medals in a variety of Track & Field World Championships in the 400m and the 4x400m relay, including 2 gold medals during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. But then on April 22, 2010, it was revealed that he had failed multiple drug tests due to his urine having traces of the banned steroid dehydroepiandrosterone (DEHA), which helps boost levels of testosterone within the body.

Want to know Merritt's defense?

He claimed that was that the reason why he failed his drug tests was from consuming the over-the-counter penis enlargement drug ExtenZe and he 'failed to read the ingredient list' to see that the product contained DHEA.

Yeah...it's exactly how you read it folks.

Basically, Merritt wanted to enhance his performance on the field by taking bedroom performance enhancers. And then when caught, he used the cliché excuse of 'I didn't read the label properly', which only made him not only look desperate but dumb as well. Seriously though, he's not only a world-class runner in the 400m and 4x400m relay but an Olympic gold medalist too. You should know what you can and cannot have in your system and feigning ignorance after being caught just makes you look more like a complete tool.