Top Seven Angriest Baseball Players

It’s hard to let a meltdown by Carlos Zambrano go by without making a Top 7 list out of it. And when trying to think of the angriest guys in baseball, it was hard not to go back a few years on some of them. Not too far—Ty Cobb is not on the list, for instance.

And to take care of the two obvious managers, managers were not allowed to be on the list — no matter how entertaining Earl Weaver and Lou Piniella tirades are. There are also a couple of legendary breakdowns by Hal McRae and Lee Elia, but one angry rant doesn’t make you an angriest person candidate, plus both of theirs were done as a coach and a manager. So many specifics to deal with …this is a very scientific list, and here it is.

7. Todd Stottlemyre

When with the Cardinals, Stottlemyre had the mentality of a perennial 20-game winner who felt like he had a right to be angry because he was so good. He wasn’t, though. It is not that he was a bad pitcher, but he wasn’t nearly as good as someone who directed his anger at batters the way he did. He once threw a pitch high and tight to Rickey Henderson on the second pitch of a game, Rickey was Rickey and talked a bit of trash, and Stottlemyre told him to get on out to the mound, and both benches emptied. Second pitch of the game. It was like when Gerald Williams charged Pedro Martinez after he was hit with the fourth pitch of the night. Both of those guys are underrated angry.

6. Milton Bradley

If Bradley were a writer for WWE, he would more than likely script a lot of matches to have referees taken out inadvertently with chairs or flying forearms. He doesn’t get along with umps very well, tearing his ACL arguing with one in 2007, getting suspended for getting too close to one this year. Bradley is like that couple you hang with that have uncomfortable fights right in front of you, when he’s confronting an umpire, you feel like he really might tear the guy’s face off. Carl Everett is a good comparison sans non-dinosaur believing.

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5. Albert Belle

There’s plenty of good Albert Belle stories, enough that an entire anthology of them should be put together because there are surely many more out there: throwing a baseball into the stands at a fan, taking a bat to Kenny Lofton’s boombox, taking a bat to the clubhouse thermostat, chasing down Halloween eggers in his car, pointing at a teammate who didn’t score on a single since he could have gotten an extra RBI. Belle was scary. His defining moment was probably after the White Sox asked for his bat to be checked for cork. He hit a massive bomb afterwards, and pointed to his flexed bicep and screamed to the dugout “It’s right f***ing here!”

4. Kenny Rogers

When he threw the cameraman down, you didn’t get the Milton Bradley “this is uncomfortable and this guy may kill him” feeling, it was more of a “wow, this guy is a total douche” feeling. Still, you have to have some anger issues to do what he did. And he showed how much anger is really in him during the 2006 ALCS when he screamed obscenities after every strike that he threw a Yankee for an entire game.

3. Michael Barrett

He’s in here because he shouldn’t totally escape blame for what he got himself into. He famously decked A.J. Pierzynski after he plowed him over at home plate and scored, and he also wasn’t completely innocent in the altercation. Just because he got into it with two notoriously angry and pricky guys doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anger issues himself.

2. Carlos Zambrano

However, it was still Big Z who beat the living tar out of Barrett. And he surely hasn’t been innocent. He had an obsessions with Jim Edmonds when he was with the Cardinals, screaming at him as he rounded the bases after Edmonds absolutely destroyed one against him in 2004 (which incorrectly in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune said that Edmonds stared that home run down, he didn’t), then hitting him twice in the same game. He has done the “yell at the fans when getting booed” routine walking off the mound. And then there was Wednesday’s toss the ball in the stands and scream at the ump deal. It’s like he’s taking all kinds of possible angry material and combining it into one, Shang-Tsung like angry baseball player. But still…

1. Rob Dibble

He was the originator of launching the ball into the stands at a fan, and he threw it as hard as he could. He threw the ball as hard as he could at Doug Dascenzo after he attempted a bunt down the first-base line. And he fought his own manager on video in the clubhouse.

The Top 7 is written by Jason Major. He got angry after the Marlins won the World Series twice over. Email him at [e-mail].

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