Alex Rodriguez is playing his final game against the Red Sox tonight. With the Red Sox my favorite team and baseball my favorite sport, you could make a strong case for him as the top sports villain of my lifetime.
ARod was both extremely good (117.9 Wins Above Replacement, 16th all-time) and extremely unlikeable, with starring roles in 2004 in both The Fight and The Slap. Even in the 2004 ALCS when the Red Sox made their historic comeback from down 3-0, ARod hit 2 HRs with an .895 OPS in the series.
Other top candidates:
- Peyton Manning
- Ulf Samuelsson
- Kobe Bryant
- Roger Clemens
Who’s the top Boston sports villain of your lifetime?
Please share widely!
Still can’t believe we lost those two to the weaker Manning brother!
Aaron Boone comes a close second. Sox lose, grandma calls me next day to wish me a happy upcoming birthday and to lament she will never see the team win one in her lifetime. She then dies suddenly on my birthday. The win next year was the best sports memory in any of our lifetimes, but I really wish she had been there to see it and I’ll always blame Aaron Boone.
There are “Formidable opponents” (Peyton, Kobe, Roger later) and there are villains.
There is one and only one true sports villain in my lifetime.
he’d have been a saint around here.
He tried to hurt people. Some hardcore fans might like him, but most regular fans would not.
I think the “guy who gets under your skin” personality is more prevalent in hockey (or at least I’m more familiar with those) and that’s the type of player one likes on one’s own team but not when playing for another. I agree that there are those who go too far (e.g., Claude Lemieux, Ulf Samuelsson).
… of ever having Bill Laimbeer in a Celtics uniform was very close to nil. He could shoot and had a great sense of positioning, but he couldn’t move very fast. The great Havlicek had recently retired and Auerbach was looking to trade for people like Robert Parrish and to draft rookies like Kevin McHale and Larry Bird, players who not only could shoot but who could move and be three steps ahead of the other side. Laimbeer wasn’t a fit for that, even before you take into account his aggressive fouling. He didn’t play in a way that Auerbach would have liked and, as Auerbach was the GM at the time, it was never likely that he would make it on the Celtics. Robert Parrish was a much better center and a better overall player than Laimbeer.
Yes, Laimbeer was a villain, perhaps the villainy-est. But not the only one. I do think A-Rod was (is) amongst the cabal of villainy against Boston. As regards the Celtics/basketball there were others:
— Tree Rollins
— Kurt Rambis
— Dennis Rodman
— Anybody Johnny Most didn’t like.
— Ron Artest (when a Pacer, before ‘Metta World Peace’…)
I also think Phil Jackson counts as a villain for daring to even think he was in Red Auerbachs league. (ref the old cliche re: jock strap)
I used to like Dwight Howard before other players figured out how to play him and, in response, he started throwing the elbows a little too freely and harder than was, strictly speaking, necessary.
And I just plain don’t like Kobe Bryant.
And I do agree that there was a difference between ‘formidable opponents’ and ‘villains.’ Wilt Chamberlain and Magic Johnson were formidable opponents that one could watch play and marvel at their sheer talent and effort.
• Alan Eagleson, Bobby Orr’s agent, who withheld the Bruins’ lucrative contract offer from Orr, and sent him into free agency. Eagleson would later go to jail for unrelated embezzling charges.
• Buddy LeRoux, for attempting to steal the Red Sox out from under Jean Yawkey. Also for mismanaging Suffolk Downs into the ground in the 1980s.
• Haywood Sullivan, for feuding with Carlton Fisk, and tendering a contract offer by mail a day late, which drove Fisk to free agency and over to Chicago for the best years of his career. The 1986 World Series would have gone down differently without Rich Gedman behind the plate.
Shouldn’t he/she be nominating Enos Slaughter? Jack Tatum? George Preston Marshall?
Bucky Dent?
But I can’t appropriate Bucky freakin Dent since it wasn’t my era. The clothesline on Rambis is one of my favorite old school NBA clips, especially contrasted to today which is the era of the flop.
He hit the ball. That was his job. If you want to lay blame for that, blame Torrez for throwing a hittable pitch, or Zimmer for leaving Torrez in too long.
Dent was a pretty good sport about his eventual nickname too.
Even Yankee fans hate him.