Top 20 Drunkest Athletes of All Time
Alcohol and sports go hand in hand. That's why at a ball game, the beer guy is usually as popular as any player in uniform.
Even in beer pong alcohol rarely helps athletes actually perform better. Worse yet, it can ruin careers or at least cost teams wins, if their stars are suspended by the league.
Unless were actually partying with them, most of us don't want to see pro athletes wasted....it hurts our team's chances. That makes these 20 examples unforgettable, for the wrong reason.
No. 20: Braylon Edwards
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After being forced out of Cleveland for a nightclub fight in 2009, Edwards should have done his best to stay away from trouble, considering he was on probation with the law.
Nevertheless, his recent DUI brought on a maelstrom of problems for the already harried New York Jets front office. Edwards is one of the league’s most talented players, as he showed in Monday night’s win over the Dolphins. Let’s hope he can stay away from more alcohol-related problems in the future.
No: 19: Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell from the Movie Semi-Pro)
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According to the Flint Tropics great owner/coach/power forward, when Moon nabbed 30 rebounds in a game against San Diego, he was wasted on Amaretto stone sours. Andy Richter backed that up.
After all, according to the sweet voice of “Love Me Sexy,” “there’s nothing in the rule book that says you can’t play drunk.”
No. 18: Miguel Cabrera
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Cabrera has had a few alcohol related run-ins, including an incident in September 2009. With his Detroit Tigers trying to clinch the AL Central, Cabrera reportedly got drunk in between games during a key series with the Minnesota Twins.
The next day, the Tigers lost to the Twins (although Cabrera had two hits) and the two teams finished the season with identical records. The Twins defeated Detroit in a one-game playoff to earn the AL Central title. Cabrera reportedly went into rehab and is believed to have turned his life around.
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No. 17: Roy MacAvoy (Kevin Costner in Tin Cup)
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Urged on by his caddy Romeo, who looks a lot like Cheech Marin, Roy “always plays better when [he's] wasted.” Thus the get-drunk-on-tequila-the-night-before-Round-1-of-the-US-Open strategy was born.
Four hours before his 7 am tee time, MacAvoy passed out face first on the floor. He shot a wonderful 83 that day. And when Romeo informed us that MacAvoy “doesn’t handle the hooch like you used to” we all knew that was not the first time, MacAvoy played a round either drunk or hungover.
No. 16: Sam McDowell
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McDowell was a great pitcher for the Cleveland Indians throughout the 1960s, leading the league in strikeouts five of six years and earning an ERA title in 1965.
But at age 30 his career fell apart, and two years later he was out of the game. Alcohol was a main factor in his downfall, and, as he later admitted, he was “a violent drunk, the biggest drunk in baseball.”
The Cheers character made famous by actor Ted Danson, Sam Malone—a former big league pitcher who struggled with alcohol—was based on McDowell.
No. 15: Jayson Williams
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The once-acclaimed New Jersey Nets rebounding guru has been involved in a host of legal problems since leaving the game in 1999. In 2009 he was arrested for assault at a North Carolina bar, and earlier this year he was arrested for a DWI. The saddest incident, though, came in 2002.
At his home, his limo driver was shot, and the subsequent murder and manslaughter investigation implicated Williams. He was ultimately sentenced to five years in prison. It’s hard to believe that alcohol wasn’t a part of that tragedy.
No. 14: Matt Leinart
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Leinart’s NFL career has been a bust thus far, and the online pictures of him partying and drinking have suggested that he spent his off-seasons poorly.
Perhaps being the Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback in Hollywood has its drawbacks. You learn how to party with Paris Hilton, but not how to earn a starting job in the NFL.
No. 13: Joe Namath
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No one could ever confuse Joe Namath for being a buttoned-up choir boy. As far back as his career at the University of Alabama, Namath violated the team’s no-alcohol policy, and he was suspended by Bear Bryant for the final two games of the 1963 season.
The flashy lifestyle he led certainly suggested that Namath knew how to party. But his infamous “I want to kiss you” moment with Suzy Kolber on the sidelines of a Jets game in 2003 brought his addiction to the forefront. Soon he was in rehab.
No. 12: David Feherty
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Although the Irishman was a fairly good golfer during his playing career, he is better known as the whimsical commentator for CBS.
Feherty recently revealed his battles with depression and alcohol. And though he is now sober, he admits to downing a lot of whiskey over the years. If he’s that clever and hilarious as a sober, on-air-network broadcaster, imagine how much fun he was off-camera with a few drinks in him.
No. 11: Charles Barkley
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Although Chuck has made a lot of mistakes off the court in his career, he remains a likeable figure.
Still, when he was arrested in 2009 for a DUI, that probably was not the first time he drank a little too much. And since the 6’6, 250-pound “Round Mound of Rebound” probably just gets a buzz off of a 6-pack, he must have drank WAY too much that evening.
No. 10: Jim McMahon
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The former NFL quarterback was arrested in 2003 for DUI, but that alone doesn’t get him on this list.
When the Bears reached the Super Bowl in 1985, the game was played in New Orleans. There he stirred up some interest in a game that everyone knew would be a blowout.
He mooned journalists when they inquired about his injured buttocks; he taunted the league commissioner with his “Rozelle” headband and was (falsely) accused of calling the men of New Orleans “idiots” and women of New Orleans “sluts.”
Didn’t hurricanes and hand grenades on Bourbon Street have to be a part of that?
No. 9: Max McGee
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The night before Super Bowl I, McGee earned the most famous hangover in sports history. Prior to the Packers-Chiefs game at the Los Angeles Coliseum in January 1967, McGee snuck out of his hotel room and went partying along the Hollywood strip.
Because he was just a backup to Boyd Dowler, McGee didn’t plan on playing very much, so he spent the entire night out.
The entire Packer team—who by kickoff knew that the veteran didn’t return to the team hotel until 6 am—cringed when Dowler was hurt early in the game and McGee had to take his place. Nevertheless, McGee didn’t let down his teammates or head coach Vince Lombardi. He caught 7 passes for 138 and two touchdowns, including the first in Super Bowl history as the Packers won 35-10.
No. 8: Babe Ruth
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Everyone knows that Ruth’s appetites were insatiable. Alcohol was just another, alongside home runs, hot dogs and women.
There’s something somewhat legendary about Ruth’s alcoholism, aside from it coming during the era of Prohibition. For one, player’s off-the-field lives weren’t as scrutinized as they are today. Furthermore, it seems to have had no effect on his career. Would he have hit 1,000 career home runs if he didn’t drink? Probably not.
No. 7: Oksana Baiul
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We don't generally associate the graceful sport of figure skating with hard drinking and partying. So when Baiul, the 1994 Gold Medal winner at the Lillehammer Olympics, was arrested for DUI after crashing her car into a tree, we took notice.
One incident doesn’t necessarily make you a “drunk” but on that one night, she certainly fit the criteria.
No. 6: Wade Boggs
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One of the greatest non-sports related sports myths is Wade Boggs nationwide beer adventure. During his playing career, he reportedly drank 64 Miller Lites on a cross country team flight.
To build up that level of tolerance—and love for beer—he must have had quite a bit of practice at drinking.
No. 5: Lee Trevino
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The finest tee-to-green player of his era, Trevino was well known as a hard partier. In his autobiography, They Call Me SuperMex, he recounts many episodes of heavy drinking: once he drank five scotches during a rain delay at the Atlanta Golf Classic. Another time, he got so drunk before going on the Tonight Show, that Johnny Carson was visibly shook.
Although Trevino struggled with staying sober troughout most of his professional career, it didn’t hamstring him nearly as much as you’d expect. He was a consistent winner on the Tour for the better part of three decades and then became one of the most dominant Senior Tour players of all time.
He continues to play and play even into his 70s, although maybe his putting stroke would have been a bit steadier without all those scotches.
No. 4: Ben Roethlisberger
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Alcohol seems to be a pattern with the Steelers' star quarterback. No one really knows what happened the night in Georgia last March, the incident that caused his 4-game suspension this year. But alcohol was reportedly a major factor.
Even as far back as his second season, Roethlisberger made headlines across the internet when photos of him at a party, apparently extremely intoxicated, surfaced on the internet. That example did not set off a major media storm, but perhaps it should have raised some red flags.
No. 3: John Daly
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Like many of us duffers, John Daly seems to think that golf and alcohol go hand in hand: no other sports have carts driving by the field of play offering Bud Lights.
To his credit, Daly has slimmed down and it seems that he has sobered up, at least on the course. Still, one of his most famous headlines—aside from winning the PGA in 1991 and the British Open in 1995—came in 2008. That October, he passed out drunk at a Hooters in North Carolina and cops brought him to the local police station (he wasn’t charged with anything).
No. 2: Mickey Mantle
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Mantle was known as a hard drinker during his career and by the time he was in his early 60s, his liver began to fail. He entered Betty Ford in 1994. By the end of his life, he began urging people not to look at him as a role model.
Mantle is one of the game’s true icons but his drinking problem remains, sadly, one of his other legacies.
No. 1: David Wells
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Wells resembled the guy sitting next to you at the corner bar: overweight, big mouth, unkempt facial hair. You half expected to see him on the mound at Yankee Stadium with a lit Marlboro hanging out the side of his mouth.
There was little to suggest that this was a guy who didn’t like his alcohol. Still, Wells managed to shock most of the baseball world, long after he retired. In his book, “Perfect I'm Not! Boomer on Beer, Brawls, and Backaches & Baseball” Wells claimed that, during his 1998 perfect game against Minnesota, he was “half drunk.”
If he pitched that well while still half drunk, imagine how many times other teams hammered him while he was still hammered. Boomer lost 157 major league games. You do the math.
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