25 Most Bitter Athletes in Sports History

In our American society, there is perhaps no more revered and coveted profession than professional athlete.  And it is a strange paradox that there are some athletes who get to play professional sports for a living and somehow manage to emerge bitter from the experience.

Somehow, sports history is replete with the names and faces of those men who graced the television sets of our nation and came away from the experience miserable.  Some of these guys are amongst the greatest players to ever play their respective games.

Here is a look at 25 of the best.

25. Eric Lindros, Philadelphia Flyers

Eric Lindros began his hockey career by refusing to play for the team that drafted him, then spent his time in the NHL as a dominant, healthy player who spent progressively less and less time on the ice due to injuries.

Thought by many to be potentially one of the greatest players of all time, Lindros had an embittering career.

24. Rick Barry, NBA

From a Sports Illustrated profile in 1983:

In sum, Barry was so good that he awed people. But he was so uncompromising that he antagonized them, too. He couldn't understand why the game didn't come as easily to others as it did to him. And for 15 years, in the NBA, the ABA and on CBS he told them so—in private, in public and in no uncertain terms. He had no patience for mistakes, no tolerance for mediocrity.

"He was such a perfectionist," says Butch Beard, who played with and against Barry. "He wanted the game to be perfect. And when it wasn't, he would jump all over you. He didn't mean it maliciously, but it could be very intimidating."

Barry excused his behavior by telling teammates that as hard as he was on them, he was harder still on himself, but some didn't buy it. "He had a bad attitude. He was always looking down at you," says the Celtics' Robert Parish, an erstwhile Warrior teammate of Barry's. "He was the same on TV," says the Sonics' Phil Smith, another former Warrior. "He was so critical of everyone. Like he was Mr. Perfect."

23. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Boxer

"If I am bitter, then I have a right to be bitter," said the former boxer. "What you're seeing is a man who has been without his wife and daughter for nine-and-a-half years for crimes he did not, would not and could not commit."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918176-2,00.html#ixzz1MqlzYLZx

22. Dick Williams, Major League Baseball

How do you get fired after leading your team to back-to-back World Series championships?

Simple.

Let's just say that Mr. Williams' first name was more appropriate than ironic.

21. Lance Armstrong, Cyclist

Alex Wong/Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 24: LIVESTRONG Founder and Chairman and seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong (L) and cancer survivor Tracy Elliman (R) of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, listen during a news conference at the National Press Club March

People better stop saying I was doping! . . . .People better stop saying I was doping! . . . People better stop saying I was doping! . . . . 

20. Rasheed Wallace, Portland Trail Blazers/Detroit Pistons

Rasheed Wallace is one of those guys who carried every slight, whether actual or perceived, with him on every play, in every game.

And he is one of those guys who was better for his bitterness.

19. Goose Gossage, Hall of Fame Relief Pitcher

Wanna get really bored listening to former major league pitchers complain about how easy today's pitchers have it?

Listen to this guy for a minute.

18. Barry Bonds, San Francisco Giants

David Paul Morris/Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -APRIL 8: Former major league baseball player Barry Bonds arrives back at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Court House for a second time April 8, 2011 in San Francisco, California. The jury is deliberating the case

He came into the league with a "kiss-my-ass" attitude and left with that attitude intact.

Barry was second-generation bitter, as his father carried a bit of a torch as well.

17. Rafael Palmeiro, Major League Baseball

Win McNamee/Getty Images

BALTIMORE - AUGUST 12: Rafael Palmeiro #25 of the Baltimore Orioles watches from the dugout as his team plays against the Toronto Blue Jays August 12, 2005 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland. Palmeiro was named in the Mitchell Report t

Only way Rafael Palmeiro gets into the Hall of Fame is by getting in line for a ticket like the rest of us.

16. Donovan McNabb, Philadelphia Eagles

Hey Donovan, thanks a lot for leading us to five NFC Championship games!

Now get the hell out of Philly, scumbag!

(You'd be bitter, too).

15. Latrell Sprewell, NBA

We cut and pasted this picture from our dictionary.  It was next to the word "bitter."

14. Terrell Owens, NFL Wide Receiver

Terrell Owens has never played for a coach he respected or a quarterback who was good enough for the privilege of playing with him.

13. Chris Evert, Tennis

Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova first faced off when they were each in the womb, with Martina taking the match in an exciting third set tiebreaker.  It would establish a pattern that would dog Evert's entire career. 

12. Zinedine Zidane, French Soccer Player

In one of the most glorious career-ending moments in sports history, Zinedine Zidane head-butted an opposing player who had just insulted his sister in the 110th minute of the 2006 World Cup Final.  

Zidane never apologized to the opponent, saying he would rather die, and never played another game.

11. Karl Malone, Utah Jazz

Karl Malone is bitter over how his career went.  If I had been one of the greatest NBA players of all time and never won a championship despite being tantalizingly close three times, I would be bitter too.

10. O.J. Simpson, Buffalo Bills

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

LAS VEGAS - DECEMBER 05: O.J. Simpson smiles as he arrives in court for his sentencing hearing at the Clark County Regional Justice Center December 5, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Simpson and co-defendant Clarence 'C.J.' Stewart were sentenced on 12 charge

Hey, O.J. Simpson... 

Way to blow a perfect life.

9. Pete Rose, Cincinnati Reds

Yes, you are an all-time great.  Yes, you belong in the Hall of Fame.  Yes, what all the steroid junkies did was worse than what you did.

But you did it, you knew it, you lied about it and you got busted.

Shut up already.

8. Jim Kelly, Buffalo Bills

Actually, it does not appear as though Jim Kelly emerged from his four straight Super Bowl losses with the Buffalo Bills as a bitter person.  But he has every right to be.

7. Andy Roddick, Tennis

We did not have Roger Federer's ear during his epic 77-game Wimbledon final win against Andy Roddick in 2009.  But if we had, we might have said this:

"Hey, Roger, you know Andy's never won Wimbledon, right?  And you have won it five times, right?  Can we give a brother a break here?  He's playing his effing heart out, you know?"

6. Barry Sanders, Detroit Lions

Greatest Running Back of All Time is a two-man conversation:

There is Jim Brown, and there is Barry Sanders.  Everyone else is merely very good.

Playing his entire career in Detroit caused Sanders to retire out of despair when he was walking distance from the all-time rushing record.

Talk about bitter.

5. Albert Belle, Indians/White Sox/Orioles

Jamie Squire/Getty Images

4 Jul 2000: Albert Belle #88 of the Baltimore Orioles swings at the pitch during the game against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in New York, New York. The Orioles defeated the Yankees 7-6.Mandatory Credit: Jamie Squire /Allsport

Albert Belle was one of the greatest physical specimens ever to grace the baseball field.  He was also one of the greatest horse's asses as well.

In 1995, Belle obliterated the American League—go look it up—and finished second in the AL MVP voting to a clearly inferior Mo Vaughn.

When a degenerative hip chased Belle from the game at the age of 33, hardly anyone noticed he was gone, or certainly, they did not miss him.

The number of players in the Baseball Hall of Fame who are inferior to Albert Belle is too great to count.

But none of this is why Belle was bitter.  

He was born that way. 

4. Ty Cobb, Detroit Tigers

Ty Cobb was so bitter that he is lucky they did not change the word "bitter" to "cobber."

He was so bitter that when a bunch of his dead teammates found a magical afterlife-baseball field in Iowa, they voted unanimously to not invite him to come play.

3. Dan Marino, Miami Dolphins

How many times does Dan Marino, one of the most physically dominant quarterbacks of all time, have to hear that he is the greatest quarterback of all time to never win a ring, or that he cannot be in the greatest quarterback of all time conversation because he did not win a ring, before he effing shoots somebody?

2. Roger Maris, New York Yankees

Chasing one beloved Yankees immortal and competing next to another, Roger Maris enjoyed one of the greatest seasons of all time in 1961, and all he had to show for it was hair falling out in patches, boos from the home crowd and an unrivaled bitterness that would never be soothed.

And frankly, you would have been bitter, too.

1. Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers

Jackie Robinson was a great man.  A great and noble man.  A great, noble and transcendent man.

But ask anyone who played with him, against him or around him during his time with the Dodgers: he was a bitter man, especially in the early days when he had to grin and bear the hostility of an ignorant and unwelcoming nation.

Unlike a lot of these guys, Jackie was entitled to be bitter.  And frankly, Jackie was better because he was bitter.

And we're all better for it.