There have been many dramatic on-field moments in the 130+ years of Major League Baseball. The sport has also had its share of troubles, events which harmed or threatened to harm the public image of the game. This article is not intended to present America's Pastime in a bad light but just to point out some of the moments it would like to forget.

Gambling scandals
Four players from the Louisville Grays of the National League were found to have thrown games in exchange for bribes from gamblers, or had knowledge of such transactions and would not cooperate. The players (Jim Devlin, George Hall, Al Nichols and Bill Craver) were suspended by their clubs, later supported by the league. Louisville dropped out of the circuit and St. Louis followed, partly in consequence. This was an important test of the resolve of the young league; both of the preceding National Associations had tended to look the other way.

1877 conspiracy
On the eve of the "playoff" or "makeup" game between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Giants that would decide the National League championship, there was an attempt to bribe the umpire, Bill Klem, to help the Giants win. Klem refused, the Giants lost to the Cubs, and the matter was kept fairly quiet. It came out the following spring, but the results of the official inquiry were kept secret. However, the Giants' team physician for 1908, a Dr. Creamer, was reportedly the culprit, and was banned for life.
Recent research has suggested that Creamer was allowed to be the "fall guy"; some baseball historians now suspect that the Giants' manager, Baseball Hall of Famer John McGraw, was behind Creamer's bribe attempt, or that it may in fact have been McGraw himself who approached Klem. If true, and it had became known, it could have been disastrous, as McGraw was such a prominent figure in the game.

1908 bribery attempt

Main article: 1914 World Series 1917-1918 suspicions

Main article: Black Sox Scandal 1919 conspiracy
After the 1919 scandal and some further game-fixing incidents in 1920 had been resolved, and with Landis having taken over, the gambling problem apparently went away, for the most part, for decades. Commissioners have taken an almost fanatical interest in the subject, suspending well-known individuals for lengthy times just for having been seen with gamblers; Leo Durocher, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was suspended by Commissioner Happy Chandler for the 1947 season for just that reason.
After their retirement, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays served for a while as greeters at legal gambling casinos. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn issued a ban against the men. Newspaper articles of the time pointed out that Mantle and Mays played before there were large player salaries. Their bans were finally lifted during Commissioner Peter Ueberroth's term.

1919 aftermath
Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader and manager of the Cincinnati Reds since 1984, was reported as betting on Major League games, including Reds games while he was the manager.
Rose had been questioned about his gambling activities in February 1989 by outgoing commissioner Peter Ueberroth and his successor, National League president A. Bartlett Giamatti. Three days later, lawyer John M. Dowd was retained to investigate the charges against Rose. During the investigation, Giamatti took office as the commissioner of baseball.
A March 21, 1989 Sports Illustrated article linked him to gambling on baseball games.
The Dowd Report asserted that Pete Rose bet on fifty-two Reds games in 1987, at a minimum of $10,000 a day.
Rose, facing a very harsh punishment, along with his attorney and agent, Reuven Katz, decided to seek a compromise with Major League Baseball. On August 24, 1989, Rose agreed to a voluntary lifetime ban from baseball. The agreement had three key provisions:
To Rose's chagrin, however, Giamatti immediately stated publicly that he felt that Pete Rose bet on baseball games. Then, in a stunning follow-up event, Giamatti, a heavy smoker for many years, suffered a fatal heart attack just eight days later, on September 1. Many believed that the Rose case gave Giamatti the distress which led to his untimely passing.
The general consensus among baseball experts is that the death of Giamatti and the ascension of Fay Vincent, a great admirer of Giamatti, was the worst thing that could happen to Pete Rose's hopes of reinstatement.
On February 4, 1991, the twelve members of the board of directors of the Baseball Hall of Fame voted unanimously to bar Rose from the ballot. However, he still received 41 write-in votes on January 7, 1992.
Allan H. "Bud" Selig, the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, succeeded Vincent in 1998.
In 2004, after years of speculation and denial, Pete Rose admitted in his book My Prison Without Bars that the accusations that he had bet on Reds games were true, and that he had admitted it to Bud Selig personally some time before. Rose, however, stated that he always bet on the Reds — never against. [1] Critics overwhelmingly saw it as an act of puerile rationalizing.
Pete Rose has applied for reinstatement twice: in September, 1997 and March 2003. In both instances, the commissioners have failed to act, thereby keeping the ban intact. However, he was allowed to be a part of the All-Century Team celebration in 1999 since he was named one of the team's outfielders. It was speculated that this was a major step towards reinstatement, but to date, Rose's ban is still intact.

Major League Baseball would make no finding of fact regarding gambling allegations and cease their investigation;
Pete Rose was neither admitting or denying the charges; and
Pete Rose could apply for reinstatement after one year. 1980s Pete Rose betting scandal
Baseball has had its share of problems with substance abuse from the inception. Prior to the 1970s, there were countless individual problems with alcohol abuse, but as alcohol was a legal substance during most of that time (except for the Prohibition era), alcohol was typically seen as a character weakness on the part of individuals. Public awareness of illegal drugs accelerated during the 1970s, and by the 1980s a number of players had become caught up.

Illegal substance abuse

Main article: Pittsburgh drug trials 2005-2006 steroids investigations

Game of Shadows
List of Major League Baseball figures that have been banned for life
Steroids in baseball