biggest jerk you ever met in person (in sports field) and why

[Tim]

When you have time, if you have any stories, let's post our story of the biggest jerks we have ever met and why. (Later we can do the nicest guys too.)

Biggest jerk -- this is so easy. Rob Dibble. I went to a Reds' luncheon in 1990 (the day after opening day when the Reds were off). This was a business owners' luncheon and my boss took me. Keep in mind now, the purpose of this event was to have lunch with key Reds players and then have a 15-minute autograph signing at the end. The Reds were all seated behind a table -- about 20 of them -- and at the end, they opened it up for autos. I had two balls with me -- I wanted to get Eric Davis and the Nasty Boys. I got Davis first since the line was long and I didn't want to get shut out. Turns out it only took about three-five minutes. Then I go to Charlton since no one was in his line. Got to Dibble's line with ten minutes left. Only one guy in front of me. Dibble signed for him, then it was my turn. I handed him the ball and he took it, but then decided to place it down and just slowly turn his head from left to right and ignore me completely -- he then would grab his right arm like he had a sore shoulder from pitching or something (nothing in the news about it at all), and look from left to right again. He was moving in slow motion, and he acted like signing a ball was going to cause him tremendous pain. I just stood there dumbfounded for nine minutes. Finally, with no time left, he slowly and reluctantly signed it, and didn't even hand it to me -- he let it drop in place. What a complete and utter a**hole. I will end this story with the second nicest person I ever met. With no time left, I ran over to Randy Myers' spot. Even though there was no time, he looked at me and motioned for me to come over. I said something about wanting to get the Nasty Boys on one baseball. He took the ball, smiled, signed, and handed it back and said something nice -- like be seeing you buddy. I got the ball back and looked at it, and he not only signed his name, but he also wrote "Nasty Boys" and underlined it. Really cool thing to do, and it saved the day from my really having a sour taste in my mouth.

Not sure why I thought of this now, but decided to share with all of you.

[go_steelers07]

These 2 are/were not big superstars.......

I went to Junior High School with Danny Fortson. (played with the Sonics, Nuggets & i forget who else). at 14 years old he was already 6'5" tall, but not very coordinated. i can remember doing drills with him to help his hand-eye coordination when dribbling the ball. for three years we palyed BKB together and i tutored him in school until he went off to a High School in Pittsburgh so he would have more exposure to college scouts. anyway, he was back in town a few years ago to visit relatives and i ran into him at a local bar. all of his cousins remembered me, but Fortson blew me off. i couldn't beleive it.... JERK!!!

Now, Doug West is from Altoona and is a very, very nice guy. i've met him numerous times during summer BKB leagues in this area.

[andrew13]

kordell stewart. total idiot.

[Chops]

Greg "The Bull" Luzinski. He was signing autos at a card show back in 1988 or 1989. You had to hand your item to an assistant who handed it to Luzinski. After he signed it he handed it to another person who gave it back to you. He wouldn't even look at you. I was 14 at the time and it still disgusts me. I'm a Phillies fan and believe me the bull wasn't that good of a player. DH playing in the NL. Next time I go to see the Phillies I might just look for him at that stupid bullpen of his and give him hell!

On the other hand, I've acquired several autos from HOFer's at shows over the years and always received a handshake and/or thanks. That's all most people ask for, a little personal interaction. Off the top of my head Willie Stargell, Brooks Robinson, Richie Ashburn and Stan Musial were all very gracious.

[andrew13]

nicest was Chris Duffy and Josh Sharpless. they were at a local mall and i had on a flogging molly hoodie and duffy started talking about how much he liked them, the i haded sharpless a bowman heritage card of himself and he'd never seen it and was was like a little kid seeing his own card and reading it then joked with duffy about the back of it. i actually cut the conversation short because i felt bad about holding up the line. both of the guys are a few years older than me and seemed to have a great time. kind of a shame both had bad years.

capps was also kinda a idiot. he didn't seem like he wanted to be there and pouted both times i saw him at the mall.

[Dobber2330]

Easy one - Will Clark -

It was 1989 and after being at Wrigley for a Cubs Giants game a friend and I hooked up with a bunch of folks that were related to Robby Thompson (played for the Giants at that time) We got to wait in the area where the players come out after they are done in the locker room and go to the bus. After about 25 minutes or so players start to trickle out and Clark (who was the hottest thing going at the time) walks out. I walk up to him with a card and a sharpie and he puts his right arm out and brushes me to the side. Ahole then stops to talk to some folks that were waiting for him, walks to the bus and never signs a single autograph. I still hate that pud to this day....

[bigroger1980]

bob hamelin, anybody remember him? was at a oklahoma city/louisville redbirds game, kept asking him for his auto all day while they where just playing catch, he never signed blew us all off and to top it off , some kids where ttring to get a ball from him, well all he did was play keep away kept throwing the ball off the concrete wall to see if anybody could get it , when knowbody did he just left! with out saying a word

[frozenntimesports]

Never had a real bad encounter. The worst I guess was Ed Kranepool, and he said he didn't want to sign because he was at a card show on Long Island and didn't want to get mobbed, but he did take a picture with me.

The best was Dainus Zubrus and Alex Ovechkin. They were visiting the coliseum last season and I happened to be out there with a few of my friends. I couldn't get a sitter so I took Kara with me, figuring that at 1 1/2 years old she was ready for her first hockey game (she liked the hot dogs at the coliseum).

My friends are autograph hounds and the weather was OK so I didn't mind waiting for them. The Isles came out pretty fast and then one of my buddies said he knew where the visiting team usually exited. So we go to this side entrance and there were about twenty fans, mostly Capitals fans hanging out there.

Slowly but surely the Caps started coming out. Kolzig was a real treat, he signed and took pictures with folks. Chris Clark was too. He asked my buddy if he was sure he wanted him to ruin his card... funny guy.

Ovechkin came out with a couple of interpreters and was talking to fans. I heard him say a few times "No, I'm only going to talk in English here". Pretty nice eh. Zubrus, who had a rough game, came out behind. I had this card of Zuby in a Flyers uniform but Zuby was more interested in my digital camera. He started talking about his cameras and why he liked this model over that one. I didn't have the heart to tell him I had borrowed the camera from my brother and had no idea what he was talking about.

Long story short, I have a picture of Kara and I taken by Dainus Zubrus. He and Alex both signed her jersey too (I had gotten her a little Islanders jersey before the game). Didn't seem to bother them that it was the other team's jersey.

100% class acts on both of them. I hear AO is a little tougher to get a signature from these days, but that makes sense given he is one of the big stars in the NHL, and if the NHL wakes up they will market him as much as Sid because this guy has the personality to be the face of hockey, Crosby hasn't shown that yet (but this isn't a bash Sid post).

Also, AO may not be the funniest person in the world, but he sure seems to think he is. While signing autographs he was telling jokes and screwing up the punchline and laughing hysterically. The kind of laugh that made it impossible not to laugh with him. Not sure if his jokes will improve as his English improves.

Go see a Capitals-Islander game and hound for autographs after if you can, you won't find a better group of players. Not one sour-puss among them that day.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by andrew13

kordell stewart. total idiot.

why is that?

[Tim]

I guess I will do nicest now as well then.

Ran into Ted Klusewski in a Florida restaurant one night, and he was done with his meal and we were told we had a one-hour wait, so we just started talking -- we all sat down in fact -- and he just chatted with us about BB stories from the old days -- for the entire hour! It wasn't until our name got called that we departed. What a super classy guy he was.

[Munsonmanor]

I'll have to say, I've had almost all good experiences from the shows and games I've attended. Some of my better ones were Dave Winfield (got a picture of him with my at the time infant son), Terry Bradshaw, & Johnny Bench. My all-time favorite was Ted Williams. It was either 97 or 98 he did a show in Chantilly. He couldn't sign on a ball, but I got one on a picture. He joked with me about all the damn Yankee fans that were there, commented on my Red Sox jersey I was wearing, and got to talk baseball for a few minutes. Of all the players I have met, he has been the only one that sent chills up my spine. I also had good experiences when I lived in Salem, VA for 2 years. At the time, the high Single A Salem Avalanche was affiliated with the Coloroado Rockies. It was 2000 & 2001, and the 2000 team was STACKED. It had current major leaguers Juan Uribe, Matt Holliday, Chone Figgins, & Josh Bard. I have autographs of all except Figgins. The 2001 team had Garrett Adkins. I took my son to his first game that year and I have a picture of him with Adkins and with Ray Durham's younger brother (played for the opposing team from Winston Salem which was an affiliate of the White Sox at least then, not sure now). Can't really say that I've had a bad experience. I've always been courtious with them and they always treated me well in return.

[BAMBAM]

Larry Bowa was signing at a local Burger King's grand opening back in the late 70's. I think it was 1979 because I had him sign a 79 Topps card. They had a section of the sitting area roped off and he was signing one free auto per person for about an hour. I was only 10 but I remember this pretty well because of what happened. Back then it wasn't like today where there would be a line out the door for someone like Jimmy Rollins signing for free. We got there with about 1/2 hour to go and the line moved pretty fast so my Dad treated my brother and me to whoppers. They cut off allowing people in line with about 10 minutes to go in his hour and the second his hour was up he got up and left. There were about 15 or 20 people left in line that would have took him about an extra 10 minutes to sign for but he left. Even though we got his auto, my Dad was pretty po'd about him leaving those kids and their parents standing there empty handed. My Dad was a pretty big guy and I think he would have wrung Bowa's scrawny neck if he had the chance that day.


Best two players I've ever met were Tommy Soderstrum and Charles Barkley. Tommy talked to me and my buddy Marty for quite awhile outside of the old practice rink in Vorhees one day after practice. We were pretty close to the same age at the time and we b.s.'d about everything from playing, to partying, to girls. He was saying how he gets alot better looking class of women over here in the US than in Sweden because of him playing for the Flyers. He said over in Sweden it didn't seem to matter much to the ladies and didn't help him hook up with any smokin hot women because of the fact he was a professional hockey player. Not wanting to seem like some groupie looking for a famous friend, I didn't say anything about going out partying together or anything but I think he was down to Earth enough to hang out if offered.
Barkley was funny as hell both times I met him out on the town. I think he gets a bad rap because he speaks his mind but I appreciate the brutally honest people like him alot more than the phonies who talk out of their butts.

[seamonster]

Never had any bad experiences.....

The best was Hank Aaron. He played in an old-timers baseball game at the Hooser Dome when I was around 10 or 11. There was a card show at the Hyatt the next day and I got there early before the show opened. My friend and I were eating breakfast, passing the time until the doors opened and I looked up the escalator and Hand Aaron was coming down....Being a stupid, awe-struck kid I grabbed a baseball and ran up the escalator he was coming down. I asked him for the autograph and he just started laughing and was happy to sign......I thought that was pretty cool

[Mavisbike]

well i have 2 bad experiences and 0 good ):

first i use to like wrestling when i was young and went to a local WCW thing. Ray Mysterio Junior was getting into his limezine after the game and i asked him to sign my program guide thingy. he took it somebody started talking to him. and he got in the car forgeting about my guide. i was about 9 at the time and he stole my guide......

The other was Barry Bonds at a pirates/giants game.. I saw him in town in-between the double headers at a nearby starbucks.. i asked him for his autograph on my wallet while i was standing inline and he passed everybody..

he said he was to busy got his capacino thing and left.. i felt pretty stupid.