It’s easy for a Red Sox fan to hate George Steinbrenner. But what player (or manager, coach, or owner) who was ever connected with the team you root foor do you hate the most?
My choices:
Baseball – NY Mets – Dave Kingman. Stupidest man to play MLB. Had the talent to go to the Hall of Fame if he ever realized that it wasn’t against the rules to hit to the opposite field. The man had strength (I saw him reach the warning track one-handed) and was speedy on the basepaths (when he decided to run), but with Kingman it was either a home run or a strike out. No in between. He lead the NL in HRs with the lowest batting average of any HR leader (.216 or so, IIRC). But everyone pitched him outside, leading to a lot of long outs as he tried to pull it. If he had gone to right field at all, he would have been easy HOF material and a batting average that wasn’t an embarassment.
Honorable mention: Lorinda de Roulet (probably the team’s worst owner, though the Wilpons are pushing it)
Football – NY Jets – Joe Walton. They fired Walt Michaels – who turned the team from a joke into one that was two touchdowns from the Superbowl – to put Joe in. Because they were afraid someone else would hire him away. He was terminally mediocre going from bad season to good (as the schedule got easier) to bad again (as they played more good teams). The team stuck with him far too long.
Baseball: My most hated Cleveland Indian is Keith Hernandez. Hernandez signed a big free agent contract at the end of his career, got hurt early in the season after hitting about .200 for a month and then decided that as long as he was on the DL he might as well go back home to NYC and enjoy himself. He personified for me the stereotypical selfish, greedy, lazy, rich pro athlete. My Met fan friends love him, but I can’t stand him.
Football: Art Modell, obviously, but that’s too easy. I also couldn’t stand Coach Bill Belicheck. His success with the Patriots shows that he learned from his mistakes in Cleveland, where he made every mistake in the book while insisting that he and only he was capable of understanding what he was doing. He wasn’t any genius in Cleveland, that’s for sure, and his personality could only charitably be described as malignant.
Basketball: The Cavs have been more pathetic than hateable, except for the most incompetent owner in sports Ted Stepien, who owned the team in the 1980s. His trades were so bad that for the protection of the Cleveland franchise the league forbid him from making any trades without getting the league office to approve it first.
He also once sent a dead rat to a female sportswriter, cause women are too dumb to understand baseball. Or something like that. Moreover, I heard him talking about it a few years ago on the radio and he didn’t sound sorry at all. What a jerk.
I’m trying to come up with… oh yeah. I’m a Niners fan. Terrell Owens, Terrell Owens, Terrell Owens. I hate the Cowboys as much as anyone, but the whole star thing was so over the line. Embarrassingly, he never even figured out what was wrong with it. The next year against the Cowboys, he wore a tshirt with a picture of himself standing on the star from the previous year. Also, the accusations that he wasn’t getting the ball 100% of the time because Mariucci was racist. Uh huh. Good riddance.
Steelers: Joey Porter, who since being shot in the ass has had a hell of a lot more bark than bite (and whose play on Todd Heap will likely result in a Steeler receiving a return cheap shot).
Pirates: Well, it was Raul Mondesi, and until VERY recently Randall Simon…now, possibly Jason Kendall for his salary driving the team into the cellar, but more than likely Dave Littlefield, “the savior of the Pirates” who for every Fogg/Wells-Ritchie, Bay/Perez - Giles trade has at least 2 Aramis Ramierez - loser ones to his credit.
Cubs: Shawon Dunston. I can’t imagine anyone liking him, but I have no specific reason. He didn’t have the worst attitude, he was a decent player. It’s just that he seems like he should have done more, he always just screwed up enough, and there was just something about looking at him. The individual little irritations add up to one large dislike. I can’t really explain it, but a Cubs fan just feels it.
Have you read Jeff Pearlman’s book “The Bad Guys Won?” It’s a behind the scenes look at the 1986 Mets, and there sure were a lot of jerks on that team. That said, it’s a fun read, especially for Met fans.
For my money, when the Mets brought us Bobby Bonnilla–both times. Although Bonnilla 2, the sequel, was worse. That was tough. Currently, although I’m sick to death of Mike Cameron & Cliff Floyd and their whining, I’m placing my hatred on Fred & Jeff Wilpon.
I thought I’d hate Brian Cox when the Jets brought him in, but I wound up liking him a lot. Go figure.
I just couldn’t bring myself to root for Larry Johnson on the Knicks either. Ooooh…it wasn’t easy rooting for St. John’s (before the explusions) last year either.
Maple Leafs: Dmitri Khristich. What a complete load of dead weight for the Leafs. I mean I’ve stood up for Reichel and defended him against pretty much all my friends. But Khristich was a waste of a second round pick and to make room for him we had to waive Steve Sullivan. I didn’t understand it then and sure as hell don’t understand it now.
Raptors: Vince Carter. 'Nuff Said. And now he wants to be traded? Good luck, buddy. You’ve got no trade value. Carter for Francis? Carter for Marbury? Ha.
Jays: I got nothing really bad to say about anyone. I don’t really follow them that hard. It would’ve been Delgado with his mammoth contract somewhat handcuffing the team. But then he’s doing his whole anti-war protest thing. So I can’t stay mad at him.
Cowboys: (Howdy, Kyla, good pick with Owens) I was going to mention Leon Lett for that unbelievably dumb-ass play againt the Dolphins one certain Thanksgiving, but there are so many better choices. Jerry Jones, Deion Sanders, and Keyshawn Johnson top my list here.
Flyers: (Ain’t that a nice contrast?) Eric Lindros—a good player, and certainly justified in being angry with the organization, but I hate the way the he dealt with it. Plus, we gave up a hell of a lot to get him.
OK, now why hate Kendall? Does he deserve his salary? No. But that’s not his fault. It’s not like he’s been slacking or not playing hard. AFAIK, he plays hard, he works hard, he treats the fans well and is an all around classy guy. Just a bit overpaid is all.
When a player makes an appearance on SportsCenter’s top 25 most hated (or was it controversial?) players of the last 25 years, it’s hard to disagree. John Rocker is certainly not my idea of an entertaining evening. Dan Snyder’s habit of giving coaches a one- or two-year tryout is absolutely maddening. He wants to win, he just doesn’t understand the concept of staying with a coach. I wanna say Garrison Hearst was the one with the lovely bigoted comment a year or two ago for the 9ers.
Well, that’s sorta why I hesitated a bit when I said that…hated probably really wasn’t the right word to say, but there’s a lot of people who blame him for the Pirates’ situation at the moment. As far as I’m concerned, since we’d have to pay $5 million of his salary just about anywhere he goes, we may as well keep him since we have to look at him as a $5 million player, since he is anyway.
Ohh, and thought of my most-hated Penguin of all time: Jaromir Jagr (and I’m sure the Crapital fans will agree with me here…the man was a cancer, plain and simple).
Oh yeah, and so was Deion Sanders, remember? He was only a mediocre baseball player but he always seemed to attract so much attention. Flashy jerk with no substance to back it up.
Canucks - Pavel Bure went from hero to hated pretty quickly. We loved him when the team was doing well and he was scoring clutch goals in the playoffs… but as time went by and he revealed himself to be an ego ridden goal suck who didn’t really enjoy being here; the town turned on him pretty quick. Vladimir Krutov, he came to town in the 80’s with Igor Larionov and was supposed to lead the team out of the wilderness (we had sucked, argueably, since the inception of the franchise). Larionov made a good effort, but the supporting cast wasn’t there. Krutov on the other hand just seemed to have come to North America to eat hot dogs and cash a big paycheque.
Grizzlies - “Big Country” Reeves… never did anything except gain weight and sign a contract so large that the team was unable to sign any good players. Quickly became known as “Sleep Country” after a local matress store.
I’m surprised they didn’t ride Mike Keenan out of town on a rail. I’m fairly certain he’s not safe to walk the streets of St. Louis after trading away Brendan Shanahan, and driving away Wayne Gretzky and Brett Hull.
A pox on that man.
Also, Bill Bidwell, the man in charge of the now-Arizona Cardinals, isn’t held in the highest regard. For what it’s worth, though, we don’t care for him much in Arizona, either.
I’m a Diehard cubs fan, and up until this year it was the easiest choice ever. **Todd ** Hundley, hands down…but, like I said, that was up until this year. I’ve always hated Sosa and Alou, but they’ve made this years team so incredibly unlikable I’m almost ready to root against them. I feel that if they were the team that finally brought a WS ring to Wrigley it’d be tainted and bittersweet. I’d hate to have my brightest day carrying that baggage. I guess I’d rather wait another 98 years than force feed myself these asssholes for another season.
