Poll: Which athlete wasted the most talent?

Thanks for that link, Bob.
I remember the Joe Pepitone quote....I would love to read that article again.

 

The only reason I remember is that his name (or nickname) is Toe. Otherwise, we'd be in the same boat. I remember reading the Gammons article and taking it into my boss, who is a walking Bill James, and saying I bet he screws it up. Other than the talent he had on the field, the deck was stacked against him from the word go.

 

Didn't they also raise the pitching mound that year? When you consider that Yaz won the AL batting title with a .301 average, you know that something out of the ordinary was going on.

 

I don't think it's sad that he's coaching D-II. I read in an article before the season started about him getting into coaching and he said if he wanted to get his feet wet, head somewhere small and start there. He was overhyped up at Wazzu and he wasn't mature enough to handle it, including his short fuse.

Back to the topic at hand, I'm surprised no one has brought up this person: Benoit Benjamin

 

How about Todd Marinovich?

 

How about reading Page 2 of this thread, bum boy?

 

How about Brian Bosworth? Not that he had THAT much talent to begin with.

 

Hey, there was no tougher cop than John Stone/Joe Huff.

 

I dunno about that. Ask him about Vincent "Bo" Jackson.

 

No, MLB lowered the mound from 15 to 10 inches to help the hitters after the '68 season.

 

Again, I pointed out that one of the criteria in the poll (subject line wouldn't let me get that in-depth) was substance abuse, spending time in the big house, etc.

Benjamin was just a lazy bastard.
Same goes for a bunch of other guys who have pissed away talent, specifically Derek Coleman.

Jackson was the most talented of them all, but the damn hip injury ...

 

Tim Worley