I thought this would be a good little tidbit to discuss. What are some of the worst examples of sportsmanship you've ever seen? What I mean here is shit coming from teams and coaches directly, not shootings or crimes not related directly to the sport, etc., or tragedies (like Marshall) or purely fan-on-fan interactions (numerous examples). Examples need not be, of course, specific to American sports. Some examples I've thought of:

1. Zidane's head-butt in the World Cup. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I saw that. I don't care what was said to him; for all we know, his doing that could've cost his team the match. I was stunned by what I saw, and being a newb to Soccer when I watched the WC matches and finals, I felt even more stunned after finding out how significant Zidane is.

2. Bodyline. (I've spent the last few days really watching, learning, and strangely getting into cricket of all things) Using a technique that leads to people getting their skulls cracked is hard for me to fathom in a sport that is built on respect - or any sport, for that matter. It's about the same as if a NL pitcher deliberately hits an opposing pitcher doing well when he's up to bat, which furthers my argument that the no-DH rule in the NL is total bullshit. Bodyline was seen as a dirty tactic and was treated so seriously by both sides that political relations between Australia and the U.K. nearly fell apart during a time when Hitler was rearming in Germany.

Similar to this is that game I saw on YouTube involving the "underarm bowling incident" between Australia and NZ, which still produces hilarious fights between YouTube viewers from both countries 25 years later (as, strangely, does the 75-year-old Bodyline incident). Down by six and to their last "at-bat," the NZ hitter had to hit the ball out of the playing field for a tie, which was prevented by the Aussie bowler simply slow-rolling the ball on the ground, which blocked any chance of the six-run play happening. The (American) football equivalent of this is of a team "running out the clock" with a slim lead by having the quarterback kneel with the ball and running out the time, giving the other team no chance to score (which was notably booed in the recent NFL game in London); having seen this in football and other American sports all my life I'm inclined to call this underarm idea mere strategy, but again, it's hard for me to understand how important of a role sportsmanship is in this game. It's argued that the batter wasn't very good, as he would've had to hit the equal of a "home run" to just tie the game with one bowl remaining, but, again, from a U.S. perspective I remember Kirk Gibson's World Series homer with two strikes in the bottom of the 9th, at a time when he hardly had enough strength to even circle the bases after he pulled off the miracle.

3. The Pistons-Pacers brawl. I'm not exactly familiar with in-game interference history with soccer involving players versus fans, but this should be one to rival anything that sport has to offer. After a foul that wasn't that hard with just a few seconds remaining in this basketball game that was well in the Pacer's hands, Ben Wallace and Ron Artest began shoving each other. The game, located in front of several remaining disgruntled fans in the Piston's court, ended up leading to a meltdown of epic proportions - fans tossed bottles, beer cups, sodas, popcorn, chairs, and just about anything else they could get their hands on at the Pacers as they left the court after the game had to be called off with 45 seconds remaining. Artest and Jermaine O'Neal attacked fans who had tossed the items and some who had flooded the court in an unbelievable display of violence, and despite the infamous ESPN commentary after the game, their overpowering of fans who wouldn't have lasted a second (and didn't) in fights versus these oversized guys still seems almost unforgivable, and certainly unforgettable. Bill Walton, the John Madden of NBA announcers, stated the intuitively obvious as usual : "this is a low moment in NBA history." It was the lowest, and with the now seemingly covered-up ref scandal early this year, it's difficult to see how basketball didn't suffer from this like baseball did after the player's strike ten years ago.

4. Buddy Ryan's Bounties. In 1989, the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles placed "bounties" on Dallas Cowboys quarterback Aikman, and their punter at the time, in an unfathomable gesture of disrespect toward a team that was suffering through a rebuilding and one of its worst seasons ever. On Thanksgiving Day, the Cowboys punter was subsequently knocked out with a concussion, and former Eagles players at the time admitted they were paid occasional small bonuses by Ryan if they hit a kicker or quarterback. Two weeks following the game, during the rematch - this time in Philadelphia - fans joined in on the "fun," pelting the Cowboys players with snow, batteries, and beer. Everyone from the cheerleaders to the sideline crew to the players of the Cowboys were hit; a ref was even knocked to the ground after a barrage of snowballs from the fans. The current Governor of Pennsylvania was at that game and admitted to participating in the snowball-tossing events himself.

A decade later, Philly fans again showed stunning disrespect as Dallas receiver Michael Irvin lay prone after a nasty hit on the field for fifteen minutes; the initial thought was that his spine could've been broken and that he would've been paralyzed, but even though it wasn't that bad his career was through due to the injury. During the whole time Philly fans cheered and cheered.

5. Tyson bites Holyfield's ear off during the rematch. What more can be said?

6. Many incidents by Bobby Knight - the chair-tossing, the arm-wringing, the insults, police restraints, confronting players, students, and professional fellow employees on and off the court. The guy is a genius, but a nutbag - at least, though, he's a fun nutbag.

I taught at Texas Tech when Knight became head coach. Since I teach math, the courses turn out to be one of the more difficult subjects for anyone to pass, and I had to routinely file academic notices and send them through the mail for football players.

In 2005, I taught a star player on the TTU basketball squad (I can't remember his name off the top of my head). He was the only person of the two dozen or so kids on sports scholarships that I had to teach where I had to personally hand the required academic reports to Knight's secretary at the athletic center. The student had a history of dancing the line of probation, and started off poorly in class - with rooms of 100+ though, it's tough to keep up with "who's who," especially at a time when I didn't follow college basketball like I do now. Not long before this, there was an incident at the local United where Knight came down on a TTU instructor for merely introducing himself and telling him what a great job he was doing. Nevertheless - and perhaps, given the number of students I had coupled with the fact that it was difficult to keep all of their needs in my office hours, a bit unfair - I scheduled "out of hours" sessions with this guy and made sure he finished my class with a B.

We joked about Knight occasionally, and I'm 99% sure he smelled the fear on me like B.O. from an old drunk, so I'm pretty grateful he came to the extra sessions and worked out his B (he nearly earned an A average after that, in fact). Fearing a phone call from Knight himself, which he had apparently done to other teachers to "check on his players" in the past, probably boosted me to the best tutoring job I'd ever done with an individual student.

7. Doping in various sports. We've seen baseball nearly fall apart (again) over it, Olympic medals returned, careers forever tarnished, and other deserved consequences from this incredibly stupid action. Collectively, I think this is the most bone-headed move in at least recent sports history, moreso than gambling, ref payoffs, fights, meltdowns, and so on. In U.S. sports the attempts to try to "level the scandals" with the referee incident in basketball, stealing calls in football, etc., haven't come close to equaling the damage doping has caused to many other sports throughout the world.

I can think of a few more - various moonings and taunts by T.O. and Randy Moss, bench-clearers in both baseball and hockey that leave bloodied noses a-plenty, amongst other things.

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Tl;dr version: discuss.

#3 is flat out wrong


artest did not do anything other than a foul on ben wallace. ben went after ron and threw him to which artest just went to the scorers table and sat, the laid down. then some asshole took it upon himself to hurl beer at ron. that is what instigated everything. artest may be a headcase, but he is not the reason the brawl started and i felt he was totally justified to go up into the stands and beat that guys ass (even if it was the wrong guy)

as is section b of #4.

Italy's match-fixing scandal that erupted two seasons ago was incredibly bad, as was the match-fixing in Germany, although that one, for the most part, did not involve top level teams and officials.

absolutely not

sorry man, you go to a game and pay for a ticket to watch a game, just cause you bought a ticket does not give you the right to do what was done to artest

The fact he went after the wrong guy removes any justification.
And the whole "he just laid on the scorers" table thing is also a ridiculous simplification. He was being a cocky jackass. Does that mean they should have thrown beer at him? Definatly not, but he wasnt the saint you are portraying him to be. It was an unneeded hard foul... followed by an overreaction.

That guy that got disqualified in the 100m and then laid down on the track refusing to move because he swore he didn't break. What was his name?

I think it was Dwayne Rudd a couple of years ago on the Browns that took off his helmet on the field on the last play of the game, and they called a penalty that allowed the Chiefs to kick a game winning field goal.
I always liked that one.

Jon Drummond - although apparently it was later proven that he did not false start.

Even more boneheaded: Lett's "fielding" of the missed Miami Dolphins field goal on the Thanksgiving game when it snowed through the hole in Texas Stadium. The game was over, but Lett kicked the ball after trying to recover it for some reason, and the Dolphs got it back at the 1 (to Lett's credit, the field was covered and hard to see). And there's always Lett's "Irvin imitation" in the Super Bowl when that Beebe guy knocked it out of his hands as he was trying to return a fumble to up the score 59-17.

Also, this same thing happened last year with the Cowboys; they missed a last second field goal at RFK from a block and seemed destined for OT since time ran out, but a personal foul call moved the recovered ball into field goal range for the Skins and they won it.

As far as the Malice in the Palace goes, yeah I do sort of agree the guy who tossed the beer needed a beatdown, but Artest's hotheadedness was the reason the wrong guy was taken down; just laying there and watching the guy and pretending to be unaffected would've been even better (especially if the police reigned in the beer-tosser).

And 4b is not wrong - it's forever etched in my mind. The Eagles themselves didn't laugh or cheer, but I remember watching that game and seeing the fans themselves cheer. And it wasn't the type of "hey, let's support this guy as he's carted off the field" light cheer you hear from stadiums even if an opposing team member is down, either.

I'm pretty sure this happened in a Game 7 and was the game winning goal. Of course, they won the cup the next year.

i could care less whether you think he was being a cocky jackass or not, he was not doing anything wrong at all and removed himself from the situation so nothing would escalate further.

so sit there and say it was an uneeded hard foul, (cause the game was basically over) is insane. that foul was by no means a normal foul, but i have also seen hundreds more that were harder.

wallace was the true punk in the situation cause he would not let it go

if you could care less, maybe you should.

Peeps. I figure you of all people would recognize how fucking annoying a passive aggressive douchebag move like "see how calm i am, im going to lay on the table" would be , and done entirely to inflame the situation.

Yes, it was an unneeded hard foul- and hundreds more HAVE been harder... but by that same token, plenty of times those hard fouls resulted in an equally unspectacular shove back by the fouled player.

It was a combination of a jackass egging on an angry man, a few rowdy idiots (they didnt come flooding on the floor as mentioned in the post, there were just a couple on the floor) and a (at the time) hated rivalry.

Here's a good book I'd recommend for this thread:
http://www.amazon.com/Worst-Sports-Chum ... 086&sr=1-1

One event mentioned in the book, and one I've heard a ton about but was not around to see, was the Ohio State-Minnesota basketball brawl in 1972. It included a Minnesota fouling OSU's Luke Witte and knocking him to the floor, then when he offered to help him up, he instead gave him a knee to the groin. Also involved was future MLB Hall of Famer Dave Winfield who got a number of cheapshots in on Buckeye players. The event all but ruined Witte's promising career and would eventually drive the great coach Fred Taylor out of basketball after the NCAA and the Big Ten basically let Minnesota get away without punishment.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/contentbe/ ... C1-02.html

kermit washington sucker punching rudy T

ive tried explaining what actually happened w/ irvin to this guy, but he doesnt wanna hear it an enjoys hating philly so dont even try

How about T.O., while on the 49'ers, running to midfield at Texas Stadium and spiking the ball on the star after a TD.

i usually always enjoy his celebrations, but that was kinda fucked up