Dumping Them Out: Random Athletes
Welcome back to another episode of Dumping Them Out. I'm not feeling especially creative today, not that this blog is every especially creative, but I'm just going talk about random athletes until I've reached an acceptable word count.
Dock Ellis: Gun to my head I would say Dock Ellis is my favorite historical athlete. I didn't even learn who he was until 2015 when Netflix put out a documentary about him. The main thing he's famous for is throwing a no-hitter while on LSD. As soon as I finished the documentary I ordered a Dock Ellis jersey online. The next day took a street dog home from work and named the him Dock.
God Shammgod: I wish he'd have made it in the NBA so bad. He invented the coolest crossover in the game. I could watch hours of highlights worth of people doing the Shammgod crossover. I like to imagine a hypothetical scenario where I'm able to pull it off in a game of pick-up. Not being able to dribble with my left hand might be a problem, but Magic Johnson couldn't do it either and he made it work.
Barry Bonds: Greatest baseball player of all time. Sure, the steroids helped, but Bonds on steroids was arguable the best athlete of all time. His on-base percentage was over .500 for 4 years straight, and over .600 in 2004. HBO is in the process of making a documentary about him. Apparently it's being made by the same people who did The Last Dance, so that sounds pretty neat.
Evil Knievel: I'm not sure if Evil counts as an actual athlete, but what a bad ass. What a cool name. What an American. He invented dare deviling as far as I'm concerned. One time he just strapped himself into a rocket and launched himself over a canyon. He was kind of like a G-Rated version of Jackass. I had a memory of him dying during one of his stunts, but that's not true. He died of diabetes and a lung condition.
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Ty Cobb: Everybody knows Ty Cobb for being a giant asshole. He was said to be super racist and nasty and would try to injure his opponents. But I just learned that the reason everybody thinks that is because basically just one author who didn't like him wrote a book that slandered his character. Crazy how back in whatever year that was all it took was 1 book to ruin your reputation. Apparently he was actually a pretty chill dude.
Shoeless Joe Jackson: Speaking of old-timey baseball players, I wish we could go back to giving people nicknames like "Shoeless Joe". or "Cannonball Titcomb" or "Pickles Dillhoffer" or this mystery minor league player who was just named "Beer"
Oliver Miller: I remember one time back in the day when Dave and Big Cat were talking about playing basketball, and Dave referred to Big Cat as Oliver Miller. I had never heard of Oliver Miller before, so I looked him up. I laughed out loud when I saw his picture.
Muggsy Bogues: While I'm on basketball, I figured I'd mention the polar opposite of Oliver Miller, which of course is Muggsy Bogues. Aside from being teeny-tiny, the two things I know about Muggsy Bogues are that he somehow got onto the cast of Space Jam, and Michael Jordan called him a midget and it ruined him mentally. Seems like if you're that small you shouldn't be shook by somebody calling your a midget. That should have been an every day occurrence that he was very used to by that point.
Tie Domi: Remember that time Tie Domi (all-time stupid fucking name), pulled a fan over the glass and beat the piss out of him in the penalty box. What a psychopath.
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Upon further review he didn't really pull that fan into the box. The fan kinda did it to himself. He did squirt him with water I guess, but that didn't seem as bad as I remembered it. He's still a dick though.
Karim Abdul-Jabbar (football player) - The dude just up and changed his name to Karim Abdul-Jabbar in 1995. You can't do that. That's like one of the most unique names in all of sports, and it belongs to one of the greatest NBA players of all time. I understand it's a religious thing, and basketball Kareem changed his name too, but still, that seemed like super weird move for football Karim.
Kristie Moore (Olympic Curler): I remember watching curling one of Canada's curlers was 5 months pregnant. It makes sense that you could curl while pregnant. It's not overly strenuous. I just remember thinking, "Damn, this doesn't bode well for people who want to call curling a sport."
Dick Trickle (NASCAR) - Very funny name
John Rocker: I love a good unstable athlete. John Rocker was as unstable as it gets. Any given pitch was liable to be thrown a full 20 feet outside. He once gave a wild quote about New York City in an interview. I don't even think I'm allowed to type out, but here's the link to it.
Bill Lee (Baseball) - I just learned about Bill Lee right now. If you Google, "Weirdest athletes", Bill Lee is on everyone's list. His nickname is "Spaceman". From what I gather he's got a little Bill Walton in him. Just a crazy old pot head who says weird things.. Apparently in 2022, at 75 years old, Bill Lee was pitching for the Savannah Bananas. During the game he had a heart attack and had to be helped off the field. I also found a video of him chugging a beer before coming out to pitch for the Bananas
I really need to get to a Savannah Banana's game. What a production.