Biggest Sportsperson Disappointment...

Not the end of the thread.

A two-sport, fame-obsessed superstar from Miami whose "advisor" was Scott Boras, a pharmacy major in college. The chances of A-Rod being clean until he said he started using are about as small as the chances of me running a four-minute mile right now. Or ever!

 

Tiger is pretty big. It isn't so much the infidelity stuff, and I think its kind of harsh to try and get him to live up to Ali - but he didn't even really seem to try to use his public platform for anything more than selling merchandise. LeBron tries. Megan Rapinoe tries. It didn't even need to be political - just could have been some social issue or something. Hunger, education, the environment. But if there wasn't a corporate sponsor attached, I don't think he got out of bed.

 

MJ is a candidate here too, then, especially adding into the equation the gambling (which DEFINITELY didn't get him suspended by the NBA and DEFINITELY didn't get his Dad murdered by "two random people" at a "rest stop") and the general assholishness.

 

An interesting sub-thread here could be guys in your market who arrived and were far less than advertised off the field. Mike Cameron is that guy for the Mets. Everyone thought he'd be a great clubhouse guy, but he was a dick and spent the back half of 2004 focused on getting 30/30 for the dogass Mets. (He didn't even get to 30/25)

 

Most of the Braves teams managed by Bobby Cox.

 

I'm with you there. Earl proclaiming that Tiger would be bigger than Gandhi, etc. and then it turns out he was "merely" a phenomenal golfer, nothing more, nothing less. He has done less with more than anyone I can recall in my time. Tiger Woods Foundation?? While sure some kids get nice after school care in LA, but what else?? Look at the tax returns for TWF and its staggering the amount of money that has come in and how its all eaten up by expenses. He could've been Bill/Melissa Gates and instead looks like your typical fraudulent non-profit.

 

Pete Rose. Great ballplayer.
But what a selfish, arrogant asshole.

 

Also, Pete Rose is my No. 2.
But OJ already is listed, so Rose was on-deck.

 

In pure sports term, not how stars turned out as people or anything like that, I must bring up Clint Hurdle. He had an OK career and became a baseball lifer, but when he came up in the early '80s, the unanimous, not consensus, opinion of everyone rookie reporter me talked to in Florida was that he'd be the next Mickey Mantle. I mention this because "disappointment" has a lot to do with the expectations of others as well as what the individual in question. Was it Clint's fault all those opinionators were wrong?

 

It’s looking more and more like Wander Franco will be part of this discussion.

 

Just using on the field performance, Daryl Boston is the first player who comes to mind for the White Sox. First round draft pick, called up to the big leagues in less than three seasons … then flopped in Chicago in 1984, just like the team did in general one year after cruising to the AL West title.

Boston was given multiple chances to win the starting CF job for the White Sox over the next few years — he was a favorite of then-GM Hawk Harrelson (!) — but never really amounted to more than a fourth outfielder in his Chicago career.

He eventually became a hell of a first base coach though!