Well, gosh, that just isn’t true at all. Robinson was spiked quite a few times in 1947. Slaughter’s is the most memorable, because it caused the worst cut, but he absolutely was not the only player to do it.
Hey, I remember those Packer teams. I’m a Buccaneers fan so I saw a lot of those guys. Of course, they didn’t bother too much head hunting against us. Hard to find a player good enough to be worth taking out of the game.
On the good guy side I want to nominate Richard “Batman” Wood who played linebacker for the Bucs in the late 70’s early 80’s. He was a Buccaneer star but not an NFL star if you know what I mean. Anyway, he took tae kwon do at the same dojo my brother did so I ran into him a lot and he was a fantastic person. You could see he really respected the sport and he didn’t act like a star or anything and showed deference to those who outranked him including my brother who was only a kid.
He was approachable and funny as well. Really a nice guy. Now, he’s a high school football coach which is a great place for him I think. I understand he eventually got his black belt as well.
Now, if you’re going to mention dirty players how can you leave off your own Najeh Davenport? Can’t get much dirtier than that. 
Oh, and your link is currently unavailable according to youtube.
I was one of the few who made it to the Bucs / Packers “Snow Bowl” game in 1985 (my parents lived, and still live, only a few miles from Lambeau). Yeah, you had James Wilder, and then… 
I definitely remember him. 
He drew Batman logos on all of his pads – no one would be able to get away with that in today’s NFL.
The “Dump Truck”? Heh. Not dirty so much as gross and stupid. 
(For the benefit of the uninformed, when Davenport was in college, he broke into a co-ed’s dorm room, and defecated in her laundry basket.)
Weird; it was up this morning. It had Cecil (who was, at that point, defensive coordinator for the Titans) flipping the officials a bird for repeated penalties against his defense. Still photo of the moment is here (probably NSFW, since it is an obscene gesture).
My great aunt was there too. She was a senior citizen but a die hard Bucs fan who could rival the best of them. She won the tickets from a radio station in Tampa. She was so happy and she’d always talk about that trip. Good times.
Hey, in all fairness, we did have a dude named Lee Roy Something or Other that you might remember but no sane person would try to hurt him. From all accounts though, another nice guy. His nickname was after all “The Gentle Giant.”
Actually, he was seen as a pretty nasty guy. This is from a 1975 SI profile:
Okay, for a more recent example, how about John Rocker?
I’ll go with the obvious: Jerry Sandusky.
Hockey:
Sawchuk was a goalie. He also had an extremely sad life, suffering from untreated depression, alcoholism and severe injuries. His old brother, whom Sawchuk idolized, died of a heart attack at 17.
Bad guys - Todd Bertuzzi, Claude Lemieux, Sean Avery, Marty McSorley, Ulf Samuelsson, Mike Milbury (he once beat up a kid at his son’s hockey game!), Bobby Clarke, Tom Barrasso (he’s known as “Barrasshole” around here). And while I love the guy, Matt Cooke (although he has changed his game)
Patrick Roy’s supposed to be a real prick off the ice.
Harold Ballard pretty much ran the Maple Leafs into the ground. And of course who could forget: Gary Bettman.
Alan Eagleson screwed over a lot of people – especially Bobby Orr.
Nice guys - Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Stan Mikita, Ron Francis, Coach “Badger” Bob Johnson, Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Lanny McDonald.
Funny about Gordie Howe – one of the meanest players ever, but the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. Go figure.
He had a good rep though around here in Pittsburgh. People loved the guy. (Wagner, that is, not Cobb)
No mention of the ultimate good guy – Roberto Clemente? He died in a plane crash delivering supplies to earthquake victims, for crissakes!
Football:
Good guys - Art Rooney Sr, aka “The Chief”. EVERYONE loved the guy. My dad knew him from working on the North Side and said he was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. Troy Polamalu.
Bad guys: Ben Roethlisberger. Family members of mine have had run ins with the guy – all of them said he was a complete douchebag. Ray Lewis. (Hello, he killed a guy!) Adam “Pacman” Jones.
I’ve already given my spiel about how we can’t really KNOW who’s a good guy… but I admit, I’d be very sad if I found out that Ron Guidry (my favorite Yankee of all time) wasn’t a good guy. He always SEEMED to be one.
Yeah, that’s right up there with Mike Tyson calling you ‘sane and well-adjusted’, Muhammed Ali saying you’re ‘soft-spoken’ or LeBron James saying you undervalue your talents. Not really what you call a high bar.
Ty Cobb might not be whom you would choose for a character reference, but his opinion of Honus Wagner wasn’t unique. Everyone seemed to love him. Wagner was universally praised for his patience, kindness and gentle nature.
Formula 1 bad guy: Michael Schumacher. He wasn’t called The Cheetah for nothing.
Well, Cobb’s 1961 book includes a picture of Wagner with the caption, “No, I didn’t call Wagner ‘Krauthead’ and have my lip split by him in the 1909 World Series. That’s a fabrication. Honus was a block of granite. You didn’t fool around with him.” Cobb also commented, that Wagner “Played ball in an easygoing manner, until riled–then look out!”
Good add. Grade A asshat.
Bad guys in hockey: PK ‘slew foot’ Subban and Alex ‘I’ll take your knee off with my knee’ Ovechkin. Ovechkin tends to get a pass since he’s so ungodly talented, but he is a dirty player. When he gets frustrated, he aims to injure.
Baseball: Hal Chase. There are two different stories to tell about him. The first is the one where his contemporaries routinely said he was the best first baseman of his era, and the second is the one where he was the single most corrupt player ever to put on a uniform. The latter is probably the truest of the two. His history of throwing games is overshadowed by the Black Sox scandal, though one wonders why since he was almost certainly neck-deep in that, too.
Football: Jack Tatum and Conrad Dobler dominate this list, though there are lots of others, including modern guys like James Harrison, Albert Haynesworth, Ryan Leaf, and Cortland Finnegan.
Soccer: Where to start? Eric Cantona immediately comes to mind.
Hockey: Lots of goons and pests to choose from, but let’s go with Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi for their intentional assaults.
Basketball: Ron Artest, both for what he did a few years back and for his blatant lie of a name change. Calling yourself “World Peace” after you’ve been a goon your entire career is the basest cynicism I’ve ever seen. Also, the point shaving crew from the early 1950s that destroyed a team (Indianapolis Olympians) and nearly destroyed the league.
just to balance out the assholes from Detroit teams, I am obligated to mention Al Kaline, who was universally respected as a perfect gentleman and is the nicest guy you will ever meet.
What are you saying? Did you find out he wasn’t a good guy? Or you luv him so much, you don’t even want to think about the chance he might not be all that you propped him up to be?
Seven pages of Google turn up nothing negative.
As a kid, yes, I did “luv” the Yankees. I’m 52 now, and far less sentimental about athletes or celebs in general.
I have absolutely no reason to assert that Gator was/is NOT a wonderful guy- I’m just realistic enough to realize that I don’t really KNOW any of the athletes or celebs I once idolized, and can’t validly say which are good or bad people. As I’ve noted, many athletes once regarded as swell guys and great role models (Kirby Puckett, Steve Garvey, OJ Simpson, et al.) weren’t great guys at all. Some were merely flawed, like any other human being, and some were flat out scum.
I retain just enough sentimentality to hope that athletes I once loved were worthy of that love. But it stands to reason that some of them, maybe many of them, weren’t.
Two “good guys” from my Packers: Bart Starr and Donald Driver. Well-respected, both among their teammates and opponents, and both do a lot with off-the-field causes and charities.
If you believe the Chicago media of my childhood, Ernie Banks was the nicest guy ever to play baseball. No idea how much truth there was to that.