Bo Jackson’s two sport career.
I wouldn’t call Strawberry a bust. He may have been busted, and his career was ruined by drugs, but he was an 8-time all-star, four-time MVP candidate, was a multiple member of the 30-30 club, and managed to play 17 seasons despite it all.
I’d also disagree with Bill Walton. He may not have been as great as he could have been, but his being in the HOF means he can’t possibly be called a bust.
Some better choices:
Chuck Estrada – great rookie season, two tolerable ones, then blew out his arm and only appeared in a handful of games. His final ML win was in relief of Tom Seaver’s first start.
Shawn Abner – a real can’t-miss minor leaguer when he was drafted by the Mets. They got smart and shipped his off the San Diego; he ended up hitting .227 lifetime.
Pumpsie Green – the first Black member of the Red Sox, the last team to integrate. They said they waited until they found the right person. Green hit .246, had little power, and was a worse than average fielder. His other claim to fame was when he and Gene Conley jumped the team bus one afternoon and vanished, only to be discovered several days later at Logan airport, drunk and trying to take a flight to Israel. The next year, he was shipped to the 1963 Mets, and wasn’t good enough to catch on there.
Clint Hartung – the Hondo Hurricaine. Was supposed to be all ready for the Hall of Fame when he started pitching for the Giants in 1947. 29-29 lifetime with a 5.02 ERA. Seeing that pitching wasn’t his game, the Giants converted him into an outfielder, where he appeared in 39 games (plus two games of the 1951 WS). Though he actually hit pretty well as a full-time pitcher, his BA the years he was playing outfield was .213.
The facts show that he failed numerous drug tests. Now, you can prefer to ignore those facts, but it’s still ignorance.
Some more:
Joe Charbonneau – Rookie of the year in 1980, but batted less than .215 in parts of two seasons after that.
John Huarte – Heisman trophy winner, and signer of a $100,000 bonus for the New York Jets – big money in 1964. However, the Jets spent four times that amount for Joe Namath shortly afterward. Guess who got the playing time? Huarte didn’t play a down for the Jets. He was soon shipped to Boston, where he couldn’t catch on there. Lifetime, he has a total of 19 NFL completions, a slight drop from the 114 he had as a senior at Notre Dame.
As a group, the Heisman trophy winners have done poorly in the NFL (partly because the award often goes to a QB, who is then drafted by a terrible team and forced to play immediately). Those who had little impact on the NFL include Gary Beban, Terry Baker, Gino Torretta, Archie Griffin (an especially big bust since he was a two-time Heisman winner), Joe Bellino and John Lattner. And there are nine Heisman winners who never played pro football at all (though you probably should exclude Ernie Davis, who died).
Tony Mandrich - The Cowboys were seriously thinking about taking him instead of Aikman. Whew!
Oh yeah, let’s not forget Brian Bosworth.
Upon reread, I see that you, Lorenzo, in fact did not forget Bosworth.
I’m just glad someone else feels the same way about the 'Bos.
Gee, then I guess Sid Vicious died of something that had the exact same symptoms of, but was definitely NOT a drug overdose of **ANY ** kind especially **NOT ** heroin.
And I guess Kurt Cobain wasn’t addicted to any drugs, especially NOT heroin, but rather was addicted to Fruit Loops.
You sir, are living in Candyland.
And you sir, are in fatc, a fucking idiot.:wally :wally :wally :wally
So, Strawberry and Daly have “alleged” substance abuse problems because you didn’t see them, but you know that Walton suffered from a protein deficiency. I don’t buy that. Were you monitoring enzyme levels of Walton’s liver? Were you sitting in examining rooms with Walton’s doctors?
Couldn’t if just be a case that Walton was just a player who was injury-prone? It happens.
::nudges WSLer::
This ain’t the pit, man:)
Gotta reaffirm Heath Shuler and add that guy who went to OSU, took, like, golf and “what every college student should know about AIDS”, so he could keep his GPA up, then got drafted by the Pats and hasn’t done much of anything remarkable since.
Andy Katzenmoyer perhaps?
There could be an entire thread just on free-agent busts…
You could reasonably argue that Tim Belcher was a bit of a bust, although he played many years in the majors - he was a #1 draft pick and never lived to his initial promise.
If OSU = Oklahoma St. as opposed to Oregon St., then you’re thinking of wide receiver Hart Lee Dykes. Goddamn, did he fall off the planet!
I recall that that draft featured two highly rated wideouts – Dykes and Michigan St.'s Andre Rison. So maybe the Pats did well enough to avoid adding such a malcontent.
Snooooopy is not sane.
That being said, Mr. Lorenzo, you have your opinions, and I have mine.
Your’s just happens to be wrong.
But if you’re willing to live with that, so am I.
Have a nice day.
This type of posting will not be tolerated in IMHO again. Consider this to be a formal warning, WSLer.
Opinions are opinions and as long as they are supported by facts, examples, theory, personal experience, logic, intuition, other types of reasoning, etc., then they become informed opinions which I do not believe can be judged wrong or right. At the SDMB one of the precepts is that we are to respect each other’s opinions in IMHO.
I really do hope that you have read in my posts that I do have a bias against Bill Walton and that he is NOT a bust in the sense of a 1st round draft choice that never scores a point. Based on his NBA career, I question his induction into the HOF, but that is the topic of another thread.
I give you credit for not getting exasperated and losing your temper or engaging in behavior not becoming of a gentleman. I think we both agree that Bill Walton is not a bust in the conventional sense of the word.
Let’s move on.
Agreed
Call it irrational, but I am less paranoid of accusing someone of being a vegetarian than I am of accusing someone of illegal drug use. Does it have to make sense?
Seriously, I believe Walton’s protein-deficient vegetarian diet was common knowledge and commonly accepted as fact while he was a Trailblazer.