Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

[Reed John]

Given what's been in the US sports media lately, I figured we should have this thread.

Favorites:

Pete Rose - he was an awesome player for the Reds so as a Reds fan, I have to like him a little. Plus he always put in a hard effort. His downfall is that he is not very bright and has a horrible gambling addiction, but because he is always surrounded by sychophants and gold-diggers, he's never been forced to deal with his problems. He's despicable in some ways, but also just very sad and tragic.

Shoeless Joe Jackson - say it ain't so, Joe. Two good movies about him. I don't care about the truth. When the legend is better, print the legend.

Kirby Puckett - everyone loved him, but after he retired, something snapped. He was charged (but acquitted) of forceably dragging a woman into the bathroom in a suburban bar. There are also stories of other acts of public assholery. But before anyone could figure out what was going on or help him, he died.

Larry Johnson (the Chiefs running back, not the basketball player) - still time for him to redeem himself, and he's trying to, but his anger management issues, which were apparent even when he was at Penn State, keep sabotaging his career. That and the fact that Herm Edwards ran him into the ground.

Mickey Mantle - despite playing for the Yankees, seemed like a generally good guy. He had a great career anyway, but he drank and womanized too much and it cost him years of his career and his life.

Least Favorite:

Michael Vick - overrated to begin with, relied too much on his gifts and didn't really develop as a qb. Ran a dog-fighting ring. Anyone that could willfully torture dogs has got to be a deeply messed-up individual. I don't see why any NFL team should take him. He's just not that good.

OJ - Played for USC. Was really always a douchebag even before he became a murderous douchebag.

Barry Bonds - could have been one of the greatest ever anyway, but had to cheat and balloon up like the hulk. Also a complete asshole.

Mark McGwire - You don't want to talk about the past? Ok, we won't talk about your baseball career either. Go away.

A-Rod - Gets away with it. Douche. Yankee and, at least as far as the WBC goes, traitor to two countries.

Bonus Category:

Favorite redemption story:
Josh Hamilton - from best prospect in baseball, to junkie, to all-star. Got to root for that guy.

[Reed John]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I can't believe this is nil. I was expecting somebody to wax lyrical about George Best or Gazza by now.

[ursus arctos]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Perhaps that's because it is in Sports and not Football.

I'd flip Rose and Bonds from your list, but that is almost certainly due to where we have each lived, the teams that we've followed and what our experience of the two players has been.

[Gangster Octopus]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I never usually notice what forum a post is in, if it appears when I'm logged on.

[Reed John]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I wish that we could "cross-list" threads.

I'll try to do that.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

[Kid A]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I've always liked Paul Merson, and not just cos he was an ex-Arsenal player. I salute his addictive personality - it must be some effort to be addicted to gambling, alcohol & cocaine. He could have been an incredible player if he'd stayed clean. It says a lot for his ability that he could get away with carrying on playing for so long while an addict. Famously he can't remember anything of playing in the '94 Euro Cup Winners Cup Final and said that Arsenal effectively won that with 10 men.

[Jupp04]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Reed, maybe I am extraordinary ignorant, but the only name from your list that I have heard before was Larry Johnson - the basketball player!

[ursus arctos]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Not that surprising (though I would be surprised if you have never heard of OJ Simpson, even if you were not aware of him during his gridiron career).

The list is entirely made up of baseball and American football players.

[Guest]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Michael "The Prick" Vick is apparently making a comeback.

May he not suffer any physical pain in the least from dog-loving vengeful opponents, oh no. That would be terrible.

[Reed John]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I know my list is USA-centric, but I don't think these kinds of rise-and-fall stories are at all unique to American sports. I was sort of hoping we could compare and contrast.

I'm surprised Pete Rose isn't more well known overseas because I think he is a good example of a big divide between European and US sports. Europeans, it seems, don't get too freaked out about gambling on sports and their potential to ruin everything. We do, although in a somewhat haphazzard, schizophrenic and hypocritical way.

[matt j]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I've had to think about this for a while, but the name I kept coming back to was: Ken Caminiti.

Part of this was because he was a major part of a Astros team that I followed closely (basically 84-94 was my big 'baseball' time period), and second because he never really got a chance to find redemption.

Named MVP of the National League, first major MLB player to admit steroid use, and an alcoholic and substance abuser. Dead at 41.

(The Black Sox are an obvious favorite, though. Eight Men Out is a great book and a great film.)

[Reed John]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I'd forgotten about him. I didn't recall that he played for the Astros. I recall him as a Padre.

["Hold on, buddy!"]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Mark 'the smashing machine' Kerr was a guy who pretty much did as the nickname suggested when it came to MMA. Then the drugs, lack of motivation to train and mentally imbalanced girlfriend/wife caught up with him.
All of which happened whilst he was being filmed for a documentary, the intro of which can be seen here:

I dunno, he always struck me as a pretty 'nice' guy, for want of a better word, who in some ways seemed not to suit the business of pounding the crap out of other people.

[Guest]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Favourite: Robin Friday
Least: Hanse Cronje

[dotmund]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

My least favourite is easily Ben Johnson. What a cunt. We sports fans have been very lucky over the last decade, when you consider it. Blanket coverage of sporting events has coincided with the emergence of some of the greatest practitioners in the history of all kinds of different disciplines - Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher, Lance Armstrong, Phil Stamp...

However, such is the poisonous effect of Ben Johnson, I feel completely unable to add the brilliant Usain Bolt to that list. Not because I think he is doping. But because thanks to Ben Johnson, you can never shake the nagging doubts about athletics. Human beings racing one another using their bodies alone should be the purest and greatest of the sports. Ben Johnson made it dirty, artificial and false. Thanks for that, you arsehole.

[manandvans]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

dotmund wrote:

Ben Johnson made it dirty, artificial and false. Thanks for that, you arsehole.

Bit harsh to blame him for all the sports ills. How many US athletes were subsequently proved to have been juiced ? And with the consent of the US authorities.
It must have been compulsory in eastern Europe at the time as well.

I read the Pete Rose autobiography. Enjoyed it but didn't need to told every page that he is the all time hits leader. Should be allowed into the Hall of Fame in my opinion but don't think it'll happen.

Is there anyone in the Hall Of Fame who has subsequently been proved to have juiced? And would they be kicked out?

[ursus arctos]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

No one currently in (primarily due to the rule that requires that five years pass between retirement and eligibility), and no one has ever been expelled from the Hall of Fame based on post-induction revelations.

[Reed John]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

This is a topic of much, much discussion among baseball people on radio, tv, etc.

Mark McGwire was the first of the obvious juicers to come up for election into the HoF and got way fewer votes than would probably have been expected had he not had that horrible performance in Congress.

But without his home run totals, especially breaking Maris' record in 1998, he probably wouldn't be anywhere close to being a hall of famer. The question gets more dicey with a guy like Barry Bonds who probably would have been one of the best ever even before he turned into The Hulk.

The question of Pete Rose depends on what people think the Hall of Fame really is. To fans, it's a museum (a great one, by the way) in Cooperstown and also a list to be argued about the same way record collectors argue over Top 5 this or that. For most of us, it's about the history of the game, and the HoF should reflect the good, bad and the ugly. For the most part, it does. There are exhibits on the segregated era of the game, etc. But the actual Hall (which is the least interesting part of the HoF) doesn't always reflect all of this.*

For the writers who vote on it, it's a list to be argued over and an easy thing to write a sanctimonious column about when they can't think of anything better to write about.

But many of the guys actually inducted in the HoF seem to think of it as a club the membership of which they want to protect from people they believe to be of low moral character.

My feeling is that Rose deserves to be banned from baseball and ought never hold any job remotely associated with a major or minor league, college, Japan, Venezuelan Junior development camp league, high school, little league, Babe Ruth League, PONY League, Teener League, ACME League, Cal Ripkin League, Cap Cod League, Appalachian League, North Shore Over 35 Men's wood bat league division B, whatever.

But he is a big figure in the history of the game, especially in the 1970s, which was a fairly interesting era for baseball for a variety of reasons. He is, also, one of the greatest lead-off hitters of all time. What he did after he retired from playing is bad and he's a deluded, sad, gambling addict, but there's no evidence that I know of that he ever threw any games and even if he did that doesn't take away from all he accomplished as a player.

And all of the gambling crap and the circus around it when he got busted deserves some kind of exhibit in the HoF too because of what it says about the uneasy relationship between sports and gambling in the US and also what it says about how celebrity plus addiction can help a man turn his life into a tragedy.

*The Cincinnati Reds have their own Hall of Fame museum which I recently visited. Pete Rose is prominent in many of the exhibits. There's even a rose garden on the spot where his record-setting hit landed (It's just outside the museum and outside the staidum. The new stadiums in Cincinnati sort of "straddle" the footprint of old Riverfront. It's hard to explain without a map). But Rose is not in the Red's own Hall of Fame and his number is conspicuously absent from the handful of numbers that the Reds have retired. I'm not sure if this is the club's decision or something enforced by baseball.

I'm sure if they took a vote, a clear majority of Reds fans would say he belongs in the HoF and would probably welcome him into their own HoF, as a memory of the Reds glory days. On the other hand, I know Johnny Bench doesn't want Rose in Cooperstown and his opinion does carry a lot of weight among Reds faithful (as it should).

[ursus arctos]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

It's been much too long since I've been to Cooperstown (we used to go every year when I was a kid), but my recollection is that Rose isn't absent from the museum (which, as Reed rightly notes, is the real heart of the HoF). This would seem to support that.

Maybe I'm just old, but I would have much more of a problem with writing cases like Rose "out of history" than I do with keeping the players involved out of the Hall itself.

But then again, I'd vote for Bonds, since I'm convinced he would have made it whether or not he used.

[Reed John]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

It looks like Selig may reinstate Rose. Then the question will be whether his chance to be voted in by the writers has expired or not. I think the rule is 20 years after retirement, but since Rose was banned all of that time it's not clear how that would apply. If he's reinstated but deemed to be ineligible to be voted in by the writers, then his only chance would be to be voted in by a committee of current Hall of Famers. I think straw polls show pretty convincingly that they will not vote him in.

So it's possible that Selig can have his cake and eat it too by reinstating him and then letting the Veteran's Committee vote him down.

As for the steroids guys, it was apparently so rampant that it's hard to say which numbers were illegally boosted and which were not, but the writers should try. So that would mean a guy like Bonds is in, but McGwire is out. If this Big Papi thing holds up then he's definitely out (not sure if he would have been in anyway). Clemens is more of a borderline case, I think, as is Manny. The fact that Clemens is a prick and Manny behaves like a spoiled 7-year-old won't endear them to the voters.

I think Bonds should be allowed in but it should say on his plaque that he admitted to taking steroids (he did, he just said it was an accident).

On the plus side, hopefully the careers of some guys who didn't do steroids (or at least, there's no evidence that they did) will look brighter in this context. Craig Counsell, for example.

[manandvans]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

Clemens is more of a borderline case

Really. I assumed he would have been a cert.

As for Big Papi. I saw a game a couple of years ago when one of the commentators (Rick Sutcliffe maybe) was questioning whether a player who has been a DH for the most influential part of his career should even be considered for the HoF.

For me, if genuine greats like Rose & Bonds (and Clemens) are not in the HoF then it becomes a bit meaningless for lesser players who are in.
It should be about the elite. It's not like these guys have killed anyone. Although from the biography I read a few years back that didn't stop Ty Cobb getting in.

[ursus arctos]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

Clemens would have been a cert if he was clean. The question is how much of his post Boston career is tainted.

If Dan Duquette would have been right about his being on a downward slope except for the benefit he gained from the drugs, he suddenly becomes a much less compelling case.

I'm not rational on the subject of Rose. I could never stand the guy, and am completely unmoved by suggestions that his exclusion is unfair.

[Reed John]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I think Dan Duquette may be right. By my count, 164 of Clemens 354 wins came after Boston. I think it's safe to say that steroids go him probably at least 6 to 10 more good years and he probably wouldn't have made it to 300 wins without them. That doesn't mean he still wouldn't have got in. If he had quit after, say, his Toronto period, he could still claim to have been among the most dominant pitcher of the 1980s. Koufax had a pretty short career, but was so consistently nasty during that period that it's good enough.

But if Clemens' performance was enhanced by steroids throughout his Boston years too, then all of those strikeouts don't seem as impressive.

Pete Rose was always kind of an idiot-savant that Reds fans tolerated because he was local and blue-collar and played hard and all of that. He was balanced out by the more gentlemanly style of Morgan, Bench and Concepcion.

There's a lot of resentment in the midwest toward the perceived East Coast bias of the sports media. It's often justified, but not always. As they were with Marge Schott or controversial former UC basketball coach Bob Huggins there's a lot of Cincinnatians who take the "we know he's a son-of-a-bitch, but he's OUR son-of-a-bitch" approach to Pete Rose.

My sense is that there are a lot of Reds fans who believe that Pete Rose would be in the Hall of Fame if he'd played for the Yankees or Red Sox. I don't believe that.

I don't think "fairness" should enter into it.

What he did was potentially really bad. The game cannot survive if it's fixed or fans think its fixed. What he did was only the thin end of the wedge, but the consequences are potentially so dire that Giamatti was right to bring the hammer down. Plus he lied about it a lot. The game can't tolerate players lying to the commissioner.

On the other hand, I don't see how the integrity of the game is enhanced or preserved by keeping him out of the Hall of Fame. Keeping him out of organized baseball, yes, but not the Hall of Fame. So I don't think it would be especially unfair if he were allowed in either.

I think a lot of baseball fans are just way too anoraky about this, to use the British expression. It simply bothers them that this list of all lists known as the Hall of Fame, is not entirely complete or historically accurate. It's not like anyone who knows anything about baseball doesn't know who Pete Rose is (and, for that matter, there's no question a lot more people know who Shoeless Joe is because of the black sox than they would if he'd just gone into the hall of fame with no scandal).

[Brandenburger Toro]

Favorite (and Least Favorite) Fallen Sports Heroes

I also don't see how the integrity of the HOF is impaired by keeping out cheats.

Usain Bolt could run up and down the side of the swimming pool, and finish every length a virtual ocean ahead of Michael Phelps. Should we put him in the Swimming Hall Of Fame?

Hell, no. Rules matter.