Most Arrogant Athletes

What he said. I think track and field athletes might be my favorite people to cover.

In my limited experience around them (thank God), I've found many tennis players, with their country-clubbing sense of entitlement, to be insufferable.

 

This is a waste of time. First of all, do you really mean arrogant? Or, do you mean, who treats writers the worst?

Having covered just about everything at the college and pro level, it's impossible to make those kinds of generalizations. People always say baseball, but it's way different for the regular beat writer than someone who pops into the locker room once a year looking for a story. There's good media guys and bad media guys in every sport; jerks, assholes and nice guys at all levels.

Everybody says hockey is the best, but when is the last time anybody besides Jeremy Roenick said anything remotely interesting.

 

NBA players are 1,000X better to deal with than baseball players... On most baseball teams, if there are more than three or four players who are consistently pleasant (among the vets) you're doing well...

As someone else mentioned, hockey players are the best.

 

1) Baseball. Has been, is now, and evermore shall be.
(a distant) 2) Tennis.

 

I once saw 18 of 20 Washington Capitals scoot out the back door after a playoff loss. That pretty much ended the "hockey players are the world's greatest people" thing for me.

 

Not for nothing, but how many players in any sport stick around to answer questions after losing a playoff game/series?

 

never had a problem with MLBers ... minor leaguers on the other hand, IMHO, are cocksuckers.

 

Because it's the media's fault they're not in the majors.

 

That's strange, Tom, because I covered minor league baseball forever and the vast majority (I'd estimate 98+ percent) of the players were great to deal with.

Can't always say that for the managers, but the players weren't the assholes some of them would become when they made the bigs.

 

it's kinda funny we've had reverse experiences. like i said, never had an issue covering the guys in MLB, but when i did my year in the minors, i thought the guys were dicks. probably had plenty to do with the home teams' win-loss records.

 

They come in all varieties in all sports. Dealt with plenty of great guys in baseball at every level. Jerks, too.
In Barcelona in 1992, I was blown off by an EQUESTRIAN!