Rosie Ruiz

Memory is a tricky thing. Before reading today's obituary, if you were to ask me which marathon Rosie Ruiz was the "winner" of, only to be disqualified later for having jumped into the race a mile from the finish, I would have replied. "New York." Nope. It was Boston, 1980. I knew the year, however.

It turns out she was mistakenly awarded a finishing time of 2:56:33 for New York's 1979 marathon when she dropped out after 10 miles with an ankle injury, went to the finish line to watch the race, and was inadvertently credited with a finishing time by a race volunteer. It was then that she perhaps got the idea that you could earn a finishing time without actually running all the miles.

Ms. Ruiz's New York time likely enabled her to qualify for an entry spot in the Boston Marathon, since then, as now, you need to meet qualifying standards to legitimately get a number and start the race.

It didn't take long for suspicious to be raised about her Boston finish. Bill Rodgers, the 1980 male winner, said she didn't look "tired enough" to have completed the race.

Rosie insisted she was legit, but everyone else had her down as a fraud—a pariah. Offers were made to have her enter another race and prove she was capable of the times she had been credited with. She wouldn't.

There were stories she had a "plate in her head," thereby explaining her "odd" behavior. Today's NYT obituary doesn't mention anything having to do with a metal plate in her head.

Fame is fleeting, even infamous fame. It didn't take long for Rosie to recede from the spotlight. Turns out she got her herself into quite a bit of trouble embezzling money from a real estate firm, and selling cocaine to an undercover agent. For whatever reasons, the punishments for these offenses were not lengthy prison sentences.

In the photo above, Rosie is being helped by the Boston police after it was thought she had won the race. Prescient. She later was escorted by the police when she was being arrested.

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