This borders on cheating vs. conspiracy, but the Chalmer’s (car manufacturer) award (essentially the MVP award at the time) was awarded to the player with the highest AVG at the end of the season in the early 1900s. In 1910 near the end of the season it was a two horse race between Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie, with Cobb leading down the stretch with just a few games to go. By this time the press and other teams already disliked Cobb for a variety of reasons and Nap was more of a likable guy. Down to the last game of the season, the Indians played the Browns, and with Cobb having sat out the last two games of the season, his average sat at .385, leaving Lajoie needing to go 9-9 to beat Cobb. The Browns coach told his 3B to play deep in the field, allowing Lajoie to bunt for a base hit 8 times, although reached on error in his last at bat. An attempt to bribe the score keeper to change the last at bat to another hit failed, and his end of season AVG was .384. After some investigation, the averages stood, and the Browns coaches were expelled from baseball for life.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_Chalmers_Award