Who is the most despicable player in baseball history?

What about Joe Morgan?

 

I turned that guy off on the "Dan Patrick Show" today with Mike Tirico and Scott Van Pelt. What a loser.

 

Ty Cobb is seriously overrated as a bastard. He did a hell of a lot more nice things for people than terrible things but no one ever wrote about that. He was one of the few great players to make more money outside of the game and he is probably the greatest baseball philanthropist of all time.

Babe Ruth was the Terrell Owens of his time and went as far as to punch out an umpire, but he isn't remembered as a bad guy.

How about:
Cesar Cedeno
Dixie Walker
Lenny Randle
and history's greatest monster, Steve Garvey

 

Agreed on Ruth's foibles getting too overlooked -- although, damn, that was a mean left hook he laid on Brick Owens ;D -- but to say Cobb was the greatest BB philanthrophist of all time is a little much.

It's true he frequently helped out older players in need, Mickey Cochrane chief among them, and he did build that grand hospital that sits so out-of-place in Royston, Ga., but he was often still a prick while doing it. And he could be stingy with his money, on the flimsiest whim, especially to his family. Sorry, but I don't think the karmic wheel is back to 0 for Cobb just because he could be generous with all the money he made from Coca-Cola stock.

Anyway, I highly recommend that all those in the Athens/Greenville area make a side trip up to Royston to see the excellent Cobb museum, which does put quite a spotlight on his many philanthropic deeds (and shies away from the other stuff that's been mentioned here.) The museum is connected to the side of the hospital, right in the center of town. Can't miss it. And don't forget to stop by the cemetery -- if you're into that sort of macabre thing, like me -- to visit Cobb's mausoleum, which is massive.

Then again, I'm probably the only person who ever went on vacation to Chicago to see the gravesite of a disgraced White Sox third baseman who'd been dead since 1956. 8)

 

OK then give us your top 5 list of baseball philanthropists:

 

Curt Schilling wonders why his ears just perked up.

 

1. Clemente. 2. Jackie. 3. Cobb. 4. Comiskey. T-5. Ripken, Biggio. (players-only division, otherwise I might include Steinbrenner and Yawkey.)

 

Posting about baseball's greatest philanthropists from his phone at 2-something AM.

you, my friend, have a problem.

 

Let's not forget:
Chick Gandil (greedy SOB and a key Black Sox guy)
Swede Risberg (another Black Sox, one of nastiest men ever)
Albert Belle (as long as we're talking nasty, first cousin of despicable)
Dave Kingman (dead rat in a box to scribe)
Cesar Cedeno (anyone who kills somebody is a leader in this clubhouse)
Denny McLain (how many prison stints?)
Mark Lemongello (didn't he kidnap somebody?)
As for Cobb, prick that he was, at least he financially helped out old ball players like Mickey Cochrane. Barry Bonds presumably will financially help out a steroids-slinging personal trainer who is clamming up to save Bonds' miserable hide.

 

John Rocker

 

Isn't Cedeno killing someone a tad misleading? Didn't a gun accidentally go off when he was trying to wrest the gun from his girlfriend and she was the one found by toxicology reports to have her hand on the trigger?