All-time screw ups and ultimate great moves

Wally Pipp wins.

 

Snopes wins more.

http://www.snopes.com/sports/baseball/pipp.asp

 

Even so. I bet he regretted asking out of the lineup.

 

He didn't ask out. He was held out -- with a fractured fucking skull.

 

Jack Nicholson negotiating a percentage of the gross of Batman into his contract rather than a flat salary certainly worked out well. According to IMDB, he took home about 60 million for the role.

 

Good move-Lucas finally giving in and casting Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Apparently he didn't want Ford to be known as his version of Scorsese's De Niro.

 

Good: Jaleel White, Jonathan Brandis and Brian Austin Green were cast for the pilot of "Good Morning, Miss Bliss," and the executives didn't offer them contracts for the show afterward.

 

You say potato, he says potatoe.

 

Here's a couple:

Good

*Eli Manning forcing a trade to the New York Giants rather than stick with the Chargers, a move that up until about six weeks ago people still thought was dumb.

*Waylon Jennings giving up his seat on that airplane to the Big Bopper because the Bopper had the flu. The coin flip portrayed in the movie "La Bamba" never happened.

* Ty Cobb investing very early in Coca-Cola and General Motors. He died an extremely wealthy man, which was rare for ballplayers of his era.

* And on the Lucas/Star Wars thing, he also retained the rights to merchandising, which was virtually non-existent before Star Wars action figures, t-shirts, drinking glasses, underwear, etc., etc., etc.

Bad

*On the advice of his brother-in-law/agent, Jody Reed turned down a three-year, $8 million contract from the Dodgers in 1994, only to later sign with the Brewers for $300,000.

* Eddie Van Halen played the guitar solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It" for free because he didn't think the song would be a hit. Eddie will never be hurting for money, but royalties from that song would probably cover a couple years' alimony to Valerie Bertenelli.

* I've also heard Babe Ruth for cash and a loan didn't work out that well for the Red Sox.

 

Correct me if I'm Steak (or Buck) but wasn't Cobb also a serious miser, too? I hear/read he used to collect the soap chips (the very end of bars) from the team shower and bring them home so he didn't have to spend money on soap.

I mean, obviously the Coke and GM investments were key. I just find it amazing that a man of that talent and wealth would gather up used soap.

 

That probably true. It's been said that you don't get rich by giving money away, but it seems Cobb took that to an extreme.

* Just thought of another on the "good" side:

The studio execs who green-lighted "Titanic" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Both were considered huge --- if not foolish --- financial gambles at the time, but both paid off handsomely.