15 Of The Longest, Oddest, And Most Deserved Suspensions In Sports History

Leave it all on the field (including your salary, reputation, and dignity).
15 Of The Longest, Oddest, And Most Deserved Suspensions In Sports History

What is it about a sport that encourages violence, ignores brain injuries, and provides each player with top-of-the-line knife-shoes that breeds violent psychopaths?? 

Maybe that’s just baked into the heritage of professional sports? As a society we should probably consider replacing fighting or obnoxious tweeting. So rather than muttering on the see-saw, Johnny is trying to sit in his 5.2 million dollar mansion, starting to learn from his auditor that the lost revenue means he can't afford his mortgage.

Anyone who has ever participated in team sports knows that things might get a little heated—the more intense the tournament, the greater ferocious the competitors' tempers. As well as laid-back and refreshing as soccer players appear to be, individuals can get plain nasty. Recently suspended Uruguay's Luiz Suárez for league matches and actively prevented him from any football and rugby tasks for four months because once he bit an opposing player during Italy vs Uruguay game.

Chris Simon 65 GAMES TOTAL I CRACKED.COM This guy was the real-life Happy Gilmore. He was once suspended for taking a baseball swing at Ryan Hollweg's face, and another time for stomping Jarkko Ruutu's leg with his skate.
Art Folz LIFETIME BAN CRACKED.co In 1925, he supposedly tricked a local high school football team into playing against the Chicago Cardinals, in order to beef up their record to make the 1925 NFL Championship.
Myles Garrett THE REST OF THE SEASON 2 CRACKED.COM In 2019, Garrett was suspended indefinitely though he returned to the field the next season - for taking off the opposing quarterback's helmet and bludgeoning him with it.
Adam Jones 1 SEASON CRACKED.COM Jones missed a whole season because of one really bad night at a strip club in 2007: he allegedly attacked a dancer and threatened a security guard.
Plaxico Burress UNTIL HE LEARNED HIS LESSON GRACKED.COM Burress, famously, shot himself in the leg when he brought a gun to a nightclub, nestled securely in his wasteband. He spent 2 years in jail, and was... somewhat performatively banned by the NFL during that time. He got right back to work after he got out.
Luis Suarez 1 YEAR CRACKED.COM Suarez is probably the only professional athlete with 3 distinct biting incidents on his Wikipedia page. His 3rd bite was his magnum opus: on an internationaly televised World Cup game, he chomped the shoulder of his opponent Giorgio Chiellini, then fell to the ground holding his face.
Viktor Troicki 18 MONTHS prin CRACKED.C By all accounts, the tennis pro just forgot to provide a blood sample to the Monte-Carlo Masters tournament, and was hit with the year-and-a-half ban. He had no prior history of doping, or avoiding doping tests.
Latrell Sprewell 68 GAMES BA RANK MUNS 1ST TS 9TH STLS 5TH CRACKEDG Sprewell was benched after choking out his coach, being sent to the locker ROOM, and then coming back to punch him one last time. The Warriors, understandably, tried to fire him, but he somehow won an arbitration battle. All the team could do was trade him off to the Knicks.
Guillermo Mota 100 GAMES CRACKED.COM Motal was the first MLB player hit with a mandatory minimum 100-game ban for doping. His agent said the substance detected was really just children's cough medicine... which might have been believable, had this not been his second offense.
Billy Coutu LIFETIME BAN CRACKED.COM In the middle of the 1927 Stanley Cup Finals, Coutu's coach allegedly told him to go start a fight. The Wild Beaver artfully orchestrated the brawl by... beating the sh* out of two referees. He's still the only NHL player ever banned from the league for life.
The Black Sox LIFETIME BAN ALL EDDIE CICOTTE FRED CLAUDE WILLIAMS MCMULLIN PISBERG BUCK'WEAVER EIGHT MEN CHARGED WITH SELLING OUT BASER CRACKEDo Eight players on the 1919 Chicago White Sox were cleverly dubbed The Black Sox after it was alleged they were paid to take a dive in the World Series.
Merle Hapes LIFETIME BAN CRACKED.COM In 1946, the Mayor of New York confronted two Giants players about a bribery scheme to throw the NFL Championship Game. Neither Hapes nor teammate Frank Filchock actually took a bribe, but Hapes made the mistake of admitting that it was offered. For his honesty, he was banned from the league for life.
Marty McSorley THE REST OF THE SEASON CRACKED.co In 2000, McSorley whapped an opponent in the head from behind, causing a severe concussion, and was later found guilty of assault with a weapon. He wasn't the first player to go to court for in-game violence, but the last time it happened, in 1988, the NHL didn't find it necessary to actually suspend the guy on trial.
Mariano Puerta 8 YEARS CRACKED.COM After his runner-up finish at the 2005 French Open, Puerta tested positive for a heart stimulant. He says it was his wife's heart stimulant, which he'd clumsily slurped down when he reused her glass. To his credit, the amount detected was too small to have any effect on his performance, so his ban was shortened to 2 years.
Eric Cantona 8 MONTHS new CRACKEDG He was nearly jailed for a well-executed kung-fu kick to a heckler as he was being ejected from a game, but wound up with 120 hours of community service instead. In a presser after the game, he explained his actions by saying When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in the sea. Thank you very much.
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