Saddest decline of a professional athlete.

timetosaygoodbye wrote:

Looking at Tom Brady last night, it occurred to me that lots of great ones have not known when to hang up the spikes, gloves, balls, whatever.. Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson come to mind. Who you got?

It ain't over.

Kenny Powers!

Kobe Klanker was nearly the WORST shooter in the NBA the last couple years he tried to pad his stats while still jacking up more shots than everybody else in the league. Since he was never more than average as a shooter, it was not surprising he ended so poorly. He gutted the Historied Lakers so much it took LeBron to bring them back to glory.

Greg Welch one of the greatest triathletes ever . I felt he had a few great races ahead of him until ventricular tachycardia shut him

down. Silver lining - he went out on top.

Gordie Howe - Mr. Hockey . Playing way past his expiration date . Playing for a Syracuse minor thirty seconds .

He would always bad mouth Gretzky’ s WHL as not counting towards the all time scoring list.

Steve Howe no relationship to Gordie - baseball pitcher . Most of us know how that ended.

Honorable mention Matt Harvey along with numerous young ones that come up and blow up after two years and their arms are dead at 23 from throwing everyday of their since they were 4.

Wille Mays playing outfield for the Mets was a sad way to go out for an all time great.

Coevett wrote:

Pretzel Man wrote:

This

Ken Shamrock was a sad case too. The UFC/MMA might never have taken off without him. He was one of the few early stars who actually was an athlete and looked like it too, rather than a scrawny bjj guy or chubby aging wrestler type.

At least BJ can be excused because he's clearly delusional. He still seems to think he can get back to the top, rather than it being simply a case of fighting for money (he was never even fighting for money). Shamrock simply whored his creaking body out for cash and humiliated himself for dollars (and likely threw a few fights as well).

The Chuck Liddell comeback fight with Tito was obscene.

You can change that to Ken Shamrock IS a sad case too. Although he hasn't had an MMA fight in three years, he's still wrestling professionally at age 55 and did some matches with Impact this past September.

huh69 wrote:

Ronda Rousey

Rhonda Rousey didn’t decline, she just wasn’t very good. As women’s MMA expanded, it drew in new talent. She just got left behind.

Info wrote:

Good one.... how about Albert Pujols. Went from hall of fame greatest hitter in game with high HR, high OBP, high Batting Average, Doubles, etc. Now he doesn’t walk and hits .250 (thus has a horrible on base percentage), he hits very few doubles and can’t run. He can still hit some HR,s and manages some RBI’s..... but nothing to justify that huge 10 year contract and batting 3 or 4th in the line up. He is hurting the Angels.

I agree. There are without a doubt several players in the Angels minor league system that are superior to Pujols. But he is being paid an absurd amount of money, so he’s in the lineup. Pujols looks like a heck of a nice guy though.

The first two names that came to mind were Henry Rono and Willie Mays.

Gonna have to go with Anton?

Coulda typed that 10 years ago. Melo's a bum-always has been.

bob here wrote:

Feels like Carmelo is just hanging on hoping for a playoff chance.

joedirt wrote:

Here is a more meaningful stat: The combined records of the teams they have beaten is 48-72. The combined record of the teams they have lost to is 18-6.

I don't care about the NFL, but a criticism like this is hilarious. This is more "meaningful" than you intend, starting with it means they have won most of their games and lost very few. It also means they only lost to very good teams. The only negative seems to be that for the most part most of the teams they beat were not very good, which is generally to be expected of teams that lose.

In re: Rickey Henderson - he certainly hung on too long, but he was playing good baseball into his 40s. At 40, hit .315, at 42 had 25 stolen bases.

No mention of Solinsky?

Tonya Harding

Rosie Ruiz

Rogers is also a huge whiner, I'd argue even more than Brady.

In 1999 and 2000, Noah Ngeny won Olympic gold at 22. Set a world record in the 1000m. Ran the 3rd fastest 1500m ever. Ran a 3:43 mile.

The future looked bright.

Then the following year he had a car accident and when he came back he could only run 3:38 in the 1500m

Great HS sprinters who disappeared

Obea Moore

William Reed

Clinton Davis

Roy Martin

It's not just HS female distance runners who sometimes fade into obscurity.