Superstar Athletes Who Kept Finishing Second

Jack Nicklaus won an astonishing 18 golf majors, but did you know he also came in second 19 times? People don't usually remember the person who came in second place, but plenty of sports superstars have stood on that silver podium over the years. 

And though the runner-up is often dubbed the "first place loser," remember, just reaching the finals of a major sports competition is an incredible feat in and of itself. The Buffalo Bills of the early 1990s may have lost four consecutive Super Bowls, but how many teams have even reached four Super Bowls at all? (The answer is 13). 

Still, second place can feel devastating. Some of these legends faced more heartbreak than others.  

Jack Nicklaus

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Jack Nicklaus holds one of the most amazing records in sports. The legendary golfer won 18 majors, including six Masters and five PGA Championships. He also came in second 19 times. 

Second place can be heartbreaking, but it's also not so bad when you have 18 major victories to go with it. Nicklaus' impressive runner-up total is one of the reasons people think he will always be better than Tiger Woods. Woods has just six second-place finishes.

Dale Earnhardt Sr.

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Dale Earnhardt Sr. won a lot of races throughout his storied career. The NASCAR Hall of Famer won 76 Sprint Cup (then, Winston Cup) races and seven championships before his death at the Daytona 500 in 2001. It was actually that same race that had eluded the racing legend for 19 years.

Earnhardt finished second in the Daytona 500 four times. It took him 20 tries total, but he finally captured the long-awaited victory in 1998.

Phil Mickelson

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Phil Mickelson is an impressive golfer. He has won five majors, including three Masters. He hasn't won every major—still missing a U.S. Open—but he does have a second-place finish in each of them.

In April, Mickelson completed a golf cycle, of sorts, when he finished second to Jordan Spieth in the Masters. That brought his career major runner-up total to 10.

He kept things positive and told reporters why he generally does well in big events: "It's not my motivation to go out and try to grind out wins week after week. I want to zero in on our four or five biggest events, and I've been fortunate in that I've been able to get some of my best golf out of those events," according to the Associated Press, via Fox Sports.

LeBron James

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Sure, there are guys who have lost in the NBA Finals more times than LeBron James, but he probably doesn't like his name climbing up the list.

Part of getting to a lot of championships, sometimes, is also losing. James has now been to the NBA Finals six times, including five consecutive appearances. In fact, he and James Jones are the first players since the legendary Boston Celtics of the 1960s to make it there five years in a row.

James will go down in history as one of the greatest ever—no doubt about it. However, he recently told reporters, "I'm almost starting to be like, 'I would rather not even make the playoffs than to lose in the Finals.' I would hurt a lot easier if I just didn't make the playoffs and I didn't have a shot at it," according to Nick Birdsong of Sporting News.

Ken Rosewall

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There have been a few tennis players who lost the Wimbledon final four times or more, but Australian Ken Rosewall famously came in second four times and never won (data from the Guardian). 

According to Craig Hunt of Tennis Sydney, part of the reason Rosewall never won might've been because he was not eligible to play at Wimbledon for a period of time before the Open era—a period of time that included some of his prime years.

He may not have won at Wimbledon, but Rosewall still had a consistently brilliant career, becoming the oldest man to win a Grand Slam in the Open era. He was 37 years old when he won the Australian Open in 1972, 19 years after he won his first Australian title in 1953. 

Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers

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Much like the Buffalo Bills of the early 1990s, the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s and '50s had a tough time jumping the gap from second to first.

From 1941-53, the Dodgers made it to five World Series, and they lost all five. Jackie Robinson was around for all of those close calls but the first one, but he was also around for the team's first championship in 1955.

Luckily for Dodgers fans, the span of second-place finishes was not meant to last—the team has won six World Series titles in franchise history. 

Jerry West

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Jerry West is a Hall of Famer. The basketball icon was a 14-time All-Star and the only player in NBA history to win the Finals MVP despite playing for the losing team. 

West's Los Angeles Lakers made the Finals an incredible nine times during his career, but they lost eight of those nine. Not only that, but he never won the regular-season NBA MVP award, despite coming in second in the voting four times.

Kevin Durant

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Kevin Durant has to get a mention here because he spoke specifically about this topic in an April 2013 issue of Sports Illustrated.

According to Ben Golliver of SI.com, Durant said, "I've been second my whole life. I was the second-best player in high school. I was the second pick in the draft. I've been second in the MVP voting three times. I came in second in the Finals. I'm tired of being second. I'm not going to settle for that. I'm done with it."

Durant didn't come in second that year, but unfortunately his Oklahoma City Thunder took things in the other direction, failing to make the Western Conference Finals. However, he did come in first in MVP voting the very next season.

Shirley Babashoff

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Shirley Babashoff is one of the great American swimmers. She set her first world record at age 15, and overall, she eventually set six world records in individual events and five in relays.  

Despite all her success, Babashoff never won an individual Olympic gold medal. She competed in the 1972 and '76 Olympic Games, winning eight medals total. Her two golds came in relay events, and she took silver in six individual events. 

It should be noted, however, that Babashoff's chances at gold were likely impacted by what was later revealed to be widespread doping among the East German women in 1976. Her former coach, Mark Schubert, told Brent Rutemiller of Swimming World magazine, "She was the only one that had the guts to speak out back then. If anybody had the right to speak out, it was her because she was the one that was cheated out of Olympic gold medals."

Karl Malone and John Stockton

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Karl Malone and John Stockton are widely regarded as some of the best NBA players to never win a championship—though they did have a few opportunities. 

Stockton and Malone are both Hall of Famers now. They went to two NBA Finals together as teammates with the Utah Jazz, back-to-back in both 1997 and '98. Malone tacked on another second-place finish in 2004, as he finished up his career with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Raymond Poulidor and the Tour De France

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Anyone with the nickname "eternal second" is obviously going to make the cut here. According to the Cycling Hall of Fame, French cyclist Raymond Poulidor competed in the Tour de France 14 times, coming in second three times, third five times and never winning.

In his early days, part of the problem for Poulidor was five-time champion Jacques Anquetil, who was also in the field. The two rivals eventually became friends, and according to John Carlin of the Guardian, Anquetil told Poulidor before dying of cancer, "My friend, you will come second to me once again."

Jim Kelly and the Buffalo Bills

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There was more than one superstar on the Buffalo Bills of the early 1990s—Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed and Bruce Smith are all NFL Hall of Famers. And all of them kept coming in second, literally, four times in a row. The Bills lost each Super Bowl from 1991-94, the first one in particularly devastating fashion.

It had to be painful, getting so close and never winning it all. However, Kelly told Mike Lopresti of USA Today in 2011, "People always ask, would you rather win one time or go four times and lose. It's a hard question. But to be honest with you, I would rather go four times and lose."

Elgin Baylor

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Elgin Baylor was there for each of Jerry West's eight second-place finishes in the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, he narrowly missed the one title West did win in 1972, having retired earlier that same season.

Like West, Baylor is a Hall of Famer. An 11-time NBA All-Star, he certainly deserved a title. West told Hoop magazine of Baylor in 1992, "He was one of the most spectacular shooters the game has ever known. I hear people talking about forwards today, and I haven't seen many that can compare with him," according to NBA.com.