Ironically, late last night, I turned on the NBC Sports channel; they were running Game 1 of the '96 Series, and I turned it on just a moment after the Jeter home run, when the Orioles were still arguing with the umpires over the call.
Some of them handle it better than others.
There was a story about a long-retired Ty Cobb having a conversation with a catcher named Nig Clark, who told Cobb about a trick he had used to get runners called out at the plate when they were really safe. (I can’t remember how it worked–I think it involved fooling the umpire about how many outs there were). When Clark admitted that he’d used it successfully against Cobb around ten times over the years, Cobb was enraged: “You cost me ten runs! Runs I earned!”
In contrast, Jack Dempsey (despite being so fiercely competitive they named a vicious-fighting fish after him) could be remarkably laid back in loss. At the bell ending the the 1927 rematch with Gene Tunney, Dempsey immediately shook hands amiably with Tunney. In his dressing room, of all people, was Dempsey’s friend Ty Cobb, who was more upset at the loss than he was.
Dempsey also did a remarkable thing in the runup to that fight. When he heard that Al Capone (a Dempsey fan) was planning to rig things in his favor, Dempsey (politely) wrote Al, asking him not to. “Let the fight be decided in the spirit of true sportsmanship”.
Given the choice of being second best and declared winner; and being best and declared loser; Cobb would have chosen the former, Dempsey the latter.
I don’t think that your conclusion follows from your story.
If your story is accurate, Cobb was angry NOT because he had been bested, but because he had been cheated. He had been called out when he was really safe, based on the umpire somehow being deceived about what really happened. Cobb was not “second best” on the day; his abilities made him safe, but the cheating (or whatever) deprived him of the proper result. There is no evidence in this story to suggest that Cobb would not have accepted a fair and honest result based on ability.
Similarly, Dempsey’s call to Capone does not demonstrate an acceptance of “being best and declared loser.” After all, if he had lost the contest in a fair fight, he would not have been best, by definition. He simply wanted the results of the fight to reflect the merits of the two boxers, whichever one happened to be better on the day.
Explain this picture. Cobb was well known for deliberately spiking opponents.
Fair play, my ass.
That picture is completely irrelevant to my argument, which was based entirely on the story told in the previous post.
If you read my post, you’ll see the words “I don’t think that your conclusion follows from your story.” You will not see the words: “Ty Cobb was a fair and lovable character in all of his baseball exploits.”
Happy to help.
He may not win any more championships. But he won in the sense that he got a better contract from the Buccaneers than he would have gotten from the Patriots. I’m sure Brady is just as competitive about the money he makes as he is about the games he wins.
As others have noted, Brady’s not unique in this regard. I imagine pretty much every professional athlete has the same “win at all costs” mentality. If they don’t, they wash out of professional sports. To play at that level, you need extraordinary drive along with extraordinary skills.
I wasn’t thinking I’d be asked to provide cites about Cobb’s propensity for cheating, which likely extended to fixing games (google ‘Ty Cobb Dutch Leonard’). In other news, the pope is Catholic.
If Cobb had been a veritable boy scout like Christy Mathewson, I could see his piping up about being cheated (at least, for a little while–this was decades later).
In any event, my point was to enumerate the widely disparate personalities that extreme competitors (which the OP asked about) can display.
I admire a drive to be the best and do your best, but I don’t like the win-at-all-cost mentality because that tends towards ruthless, dodgy behavior if not all out cheating.
I don’t feel like that is fair to Brady. He often took lesser contracts with the Patriots so they’d have more money to field a more competitive team and he didn’t make the Buccaneers negotiate a higher contract or engage in a bidding war.
That’s not to say he isn’t concerned with money rather that the real money is with his brand and he has a better chance to put up great numbers tossing to Evans, Godwin and now Gronkowski than what the Patriots put around him.
It would be really hard to be friends with a really driven person. I imagine that having close friends isn’t really high on their priority lists, though.
A list of anecdotes detailing MJ’s legendary competitive nature: https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/michael-jordan-stories-that-prove-hes-not-very-nice/news-story/900a8907bc9d28abf092bb44d590c962
I was trying to find a cute for the infamous story of him, ‘cheating a college teammate’s grandmother while playing Hearts,’ and found the above blurb instead. It frankly sounds psychotic, but it helped him be the best ever, and we were all entertained by him, so I guess that makes it OK.
On Alessan’s point, from family members who’ve competed in high-end D1 college football, they mentioned it stopped being fun and was more of a job at that level of competition. I’m sure they had fun in parts, but for them it was no longer a game. More how they were able to maintain a modest brief living as a college student-athlete.
A list of anecdotes detailing MJ’s legendary competitive nature: https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/michael-jordan-stories-that-prove-hes-not-very-nice/news-story/900a8907bc9d28abf092bb44d590c962
I was trying to find a cute for the infamous story of him, ‘cheating a college teammate’s grandmother while playing Hearts,’ and found the above blurb instead. It frankly sounds psychotic, but it helped him be the best ever, and we were all entertained by him, so I guess that makes it OK.
On Alessan’s point, from family members who’ve competed in high-end D1 college football, they mentioned it stopped being fun and was more of a job at that level of competition. I’m sure they had fun in parts, but for them it was no longer a game. More how they were able to maintain a modest brief living as a college student-athlete.
Strictly speaking, none of them are 
The OP forgot to cite Alex Rodriguez as one of those gotta-win mentality Yankees, as demonstrated by his PED use and a certain, um, dodgy postseason play.
As for Ty Cobb (described by one of his contemporaries as wanting to win “in the worst way”), there seems to have been a consensus that fielders who denied runners a clear path to a base were fair game whether it involved spiking or not. That Cobb was one of the players involved in fixing a couple of games (I think Tris Speaker was another) appears likely.
That contemporary is Jimmy Austin. He made that comment in the classic baseball oral history The Glory of Their Times.
Austin is the third baseman being spiked by Cobb in what’s claimed to be the most famous baseball pic of all time (google it).
My all-time favorite baseball book.
Cobb is not spiking him in that photo.*
Quoting Jimmy Austin in the book:
“Ty was fair enough on the bases, though. He nicked me a couple of times, but it was my fault. I don’t blame him.”
*It’s a good action photo, despite the faux baseball added to the picture by an overzealous retoucher.
Back when they were both till alive, NASCAR driver Neil bonnet was being interviewed, and he told a story about his best friend Dale Earnhardt. One day they were going to go down fishing, and they were going to ride quads. Dale suggested they race. So they did. Dale was so competitive that he ran Neil off the road into the trees (and won). How “win at all costs” do you have to be to run your supposed best friend off the road in a friendly race?
And worse yet, Neil told the story with reverence, as if he thought that as just normal behavior.
Well one of them is a seven-time champion with 76 wins, and the other is a no-time champion with 18 wins, so I guess ol’ Ironhead would be happy with that comparison.
Some Early Wynn quotes:
“A pitcher has to look at the hitter as his mortal enemy.”
When asked if he would throw at his mother on Mother’s Day: “I would if she were crowding the plate.”
Quotes about Early Wynn:
“I usually stick out my hand and hope he puts the ball in it. Except the one time I went out to take Early Wynn out. I stuck out my hand and he hit me right in the stomach with the ball.” - Indians manager Al Lopez
“That s.o.b. is so mean he would $^#&ing knock you down in the dugout.” - Mickey Mantle
Yeah, Earnhardt is one that kind of sticks on me, even though I never liked him. I’d often felt that he was a dirty, nasty driver. The day he died, I shed no tears, because he’d spent his career either threatening to or actually putting people into the wall. But the wreck that killed him wasn’t because he was being an especially dirty driver, he was blocking as best he could, but not doing anything crazy. However, his success kind of caught up with him that day, as he bunched a large group of cars behind him. It doesn’t look like intentional contact, but one tap was all it took for him to go around and the tight group ensured he wouldn’t have time to collect it. That’s just part of high speed circle track races.
So, the reputation that led to him being “The Intimadator” didn’t lead directly to his death. However, his death showed how cavalier that behavior was. The difference between you walking away and dying is simply the angle you hit the wall at. Any time you made an unsafe pass or block, you’re potentially willing to kill someone (at worst, potentially a spectator) for position in a sport. A sport that no matter how much I love it can be accurately described as: driving in circles as fast as you can.
I mean, would you rather be Jacky Ickx, who walked to his car and carefully fastened his seat belts, had a competitor who crashed and died on the first lap and then went on to win the 1969 Le Mans race? Or would you rather be Stefan Bellof, who died and extinguished a very promising career trying to pass Ickx in a move that Derek Bell said was: “…a totally unnecessary accident. Bellof was incorrect, and I would say that to his parents. Nobody in his right mind would try to pass on what may be the most difficult corner in the world.”
Again, in most sports, you might end someone’s career with a dick move, but you’re unlikely to kill them. When you make a dick move in racing, there might not be any more of that other guy, or there might not be any more you. There’s already more than enough chances for that to happen, if you add more you’re going to lose a lot of reputation.
He wrecked Terry Labonte on the final lap of one race, and even though Labonte won, they had to tow the car to the winner’s circle.
Earnhardt would not just nudge people to pass, he’d plow them over. And NASCAR never did a thing. They had “Jordan rules” for ironhead, and I got sick of it pretty fast.
I wanted him to get his comeuppance one day, but I really didn’t want out all at once. But I can live with it.