Most unsportsmanlike and sportsmanlike athletes by sport

Don’t have time to follow all 250 or so sports out there SO PLEASE DON’T RIP ME make your arguments, but based on my experience and first impressions:

MOST UNSPORTSMANLIKE

MLB Baseball
-Pitchers trying to deliberately hit batters because they showed them up or the other team’s pitchers hit their batters, followed up by dugout clearing brawls.
-Base runners “spikes up” dirty tactics including trying to the second baseman’s legs out during the throw from first base
-Spitballs, emery boards, and other dirty tactics by baseball pitchers
-Steroids and other PEDs trying to get the advantage
-An under reported signal stealing scheme by many teams
-No shaking of the hands by the teams after a game or a series. Everyone just heads right back to the dugout.

Is there a dirtier game with a longer history of cheating than professional baseball? Is there truly any sport with less sportsmanship and more dirty dealing than baseball?

NHL hockey
I think the reasons for this are obvious. Only reasons not #1 are the handshake lines after each Stanley Cup playoff series, ironically one of the biggest displays of sportsmanship in athletics, and there is actually a “code” amongst fighters.

NASCAR

Ok we can debate “athletes” here on another thread, and while many racers are friends. there seems to be a fist fight every other race, finger pointing every race, and some dirty tactics between drivers despite speeds at over 200 miles per hour and the risk of death. 1/2 the fun of NASCAR seems to be the “paint rubbing”.

Other sports that seem to be unsportsmanlike: Australian Rules Football, Ladies Ice Skating, Lacrosse. Suspicious? Polo!
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MOST SPORTSMANLIKE

Judo
Been watching international tournaments over the past year or so, the athletes follow referees instructions to the letter, and shakes each others hands no matter the decision even unfair. Excessive celebration from winners is very rare, and I know there was one time at the Olympics or another competition a judo player attacked a referee, which was viewed with horror by the Judo community.

NFL football
Cant tell you how many times I’ve seen players help up players they just tackled, and when the game is over, everyone goes from trying to kill each other to best friends.

Soccer
Yeah I know there is diving, and dirty tackles but at the end of the day most of the teams seem to be able to put their differences aside and shake hands at the end of the match and even trade kits. I think the combination of many players being on the same club but different countries and vice versa helps. Seems to me the players “know” each other, and recognize their foes are just trying to do their job in multiple venues.

Other sports that "seem " to have good sportsmanship: Rugby, Formula One (at least among the podium racers), golf, UFC and boxing . . .

Agree? Disagree? Is there a sport I missed? Who are the good sports and bad sports out there? Remember: BY SPORT, not athlete!

What’s wrong with trying to hit the batter? Dude needs to man up.
Cricket is a downright dirty sport. As is tennis.

Educate us?

Catchers trying to fool the home plate ump by moving their mitt into the strike zone after the fact.

Cricket
Ball tampering, match fixing, spot fixing, home team being incharge of designing playing conditions.

Tennis
Match fixing, PEDs, and the authorities seem to be involved in covering up.
(Serena, Rafa and Djoker).

wait Serena Williams ? when was this?

I don’t think so. However, when a player attempts sleight of hand whether via framing a pitch or pretending to have caught a fly ball, the umpire gets the call correct, and then the player argues the call, I consider arguing in the scenarios where one knows better to be unsportsmanlike. Dishonestly working the refs occurs more in other sports, and it might occur even less in baseball if they can get robots to call balls and strikes.

She has gotten multiple dodgy TUEs for otherwise banned substances.
Including several which were granted weeks later.

Good Sportsmanship

I think the world cup skiers have a healthy respect for each other. Sure there are individual rivalries but I get the feeling that the threat of really bad injury on every run gives them all a decent sense of perspective.

Both NFL:
Sportsmanlike: Walter Payton
Unsportsmanlike: Ndamukong Suh

I haven’t watched it for a long time, but snooker was unusual in that players would delcare fouls on themselves that nobody spotted, and would actually argue with the referee when he replaced the balls in a way that was to their own favour. I’ve no idea if this is still the case.

Good one, yes that is still the case. It is seen as terribly bad form to seek an advantage in that way. Of course it is a little self-serving because if you are trying to get out of a snooker, mess it up, but get another chance with the balls replaced then you do need them to be put back in the same way as it gives you a better chance of getting it right the next time.

I’m not an expert on it (yet), but from everything I’ve learned so far, rugby is a particularly sportsmanlike sport. Yes, it’s violent and the players get beat up, but they’re expected to respect each other, and (even more importantly) respect the referee.

In big matches, the referee is miked up, and you can hear him providing instruction to the players: “I didn’t like that hit, and if you do it again, it’ll be a penalty,” to which the players will respond respectfully (“yes, sir”).

A friend of mine, who grew up in Ireland, likes to say that “rugby is a violent sport, played by gentlemen, while soccer is a beautiful sport, played by thugs.”

Yes - boxing.

I’d also put Andrew Luck high on the list for sportsmanship:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/andrew-luck-the-nfls-most-perplexing-trash-talker-1418663249

For unsportsmanlike you gotta also consider Vontaze Burfict.

double post

Distance runners in general.
Even high school cross-country/distance track is devoid of trash talking and such.

I’m combining Major League Baseball and softball.

Baseball: Albert Belle breaking up a double play by absolutely leveling Fernando Vina:

Softball: Central Washington University’s girl’s softball team, who carried an opponent to each base after she sustained a torn ligament in her knee rounding the bases after hitting her first career home run. Game rules prohibited her teammates or coaching staff from helping her. If they were to use a pinch runner, rules dictate that the home run would be changed to a single. So two members of the opposing team carried her around the bases, stopping at each one so she could touch each base with her non-injured leg:

Snowboarding and free style skiing seems to be very sportsmanlike it almost seems as if everyone is rooting for each other.

I’m NOT talking about when snowboarders race each other ——that looks like it can get chippy!
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Yeah there’s been some ugly episodes but at the very least after MOST fights the boxers congratulate each other after bashing each other’s faces in for 45 minutes.

There’s always exceptions to the rule!

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