Welp, I suppose this is as good a time as any to post my thoughts on collecting cards of "problematic" athletes. This has been in my idea queue for a long time, but it's taken a while to articulate, because ..
1) Everyone's moral compass is different. Fans and collectors have wide-ranging opinions on gambling, PED use, recreational drug use, and politics. I'll do my best to respect that here. Generally speaking, it's rarely a good idea to admire blockheaded sportsballers for their morals. Charles Barkley cautioned against this over 30 years ago:
and 2) I've been fearful that researching this post will uncover some very objectionable things athletes have done that I had not been aware of previously. But I'll put on my big boy pants and push forward because, honestly, if I only collected cards of morally perfect people ... I would have very, very few cards.
except you, Kristen 😜
We cheer for - and collect cards of - athletes for myriad reasons. There's nothing wrong with choosing favorites based on non-athletic factors, just as there's nothing wrong with collecting the greats (or everyone who played for your favorite team) regardless of their flaws off the field/ice/court.
In this post, I will discuss some red lines many collectors (including myself) draw when it comes to PC players. And then I'll explain how futile it is to even attempt an 'ethical' collection of professionally superhuman yet very morally human athletes.
Murderers. Actual murderers.
Among the infamous: O.J. Simpson, Rae Carruth, Jim Tyrer, Aaron Hernandez, Tommy Kane, Javaris Crittenton, Dan Serafini, and probably a few more. (Athletes who committed involuntary manslaughter could also be included here - even if the victim's family forgives them, you don't have to.)
I have one O.J. Simpson card in my collection and I'm not unhappy that someone sent it to me. I'm surely not going to spend any of my own money on his cards but - like the Pro Football Hall of Fame - I'm not removing what's already there. For those who use their collections as a chronicle of sports history, the "Juice" is an essential figure and not just for unaliving Nicole and Ron. Eight players have rushed for 2,000 yards in a season but only Orenthal did it in a 14-game season.
Rae Carruth was an up-and-coming receiver for the expansion Carolina Panthers - until he murdered his pregnant girlfriend. I was working for a card shop at the time, and the owner took all the Carruth cards in his inventory, put them in a pile, and kept them behind the counter. Occasionally he'd draw jail bars across the cards but he refused to leave them out for sale. Who would want them?
I do not have any Aaron Hernandez cards - not even in completed sets. I don't have a Jim Tyrer card, either. Tyrer was the subject of a blog post I wrote a couple years back. He might make it to the Hall of Fame one day, which is hard to imagine even considering the circumstance.
Predators (not the team from Nashville)
Among the infamous: Lawrence Taylor, Karl Malone, Mike Tyson, Wander Franco, Roberto Alomar, Ben Roethlisberger, Ray Rice, DeShaun Watson, Justin Tucker, Mel Hall, Chad Curtis, Trevor Bauer... you could even include Kobe Bryant, Roger Clemens, and Tiger Woods here among countless others who have mistreated women in some type of way.
Here's where things get dicey. It's easy to exclude murderers or attempted murderers form any card collection. It's practically impossible to completely exclude powerful, wealthy men who have behaved inappropriately around women. Your favorite team has at least one such jerk on their roster or in their history (my Packers binders are full of Brett Favre, Mark Chmura, and even a few Darren Sharper cards.)
Not only do I have Lawrence Taylor cards in my collection, I have this exact card and his RC - which I thought long and hard about buying because he's not just a rapist he's a Trump-loving rapist. But before you accuse me of being intolerant let me emphasize that I bought LT's Rookie Card - and Roger Clemens's - over the past year. Because I'm becoming a cardboard completist and I've got to have all the greats from the 1980s and '90s represented, even if it creeps me out.
A dishonorable mention to Adrian Peterson, Josh Hamilton, and the sub-section of athletes who have endangered children and spouses in domestic disputes that were not specifially SA-reated. Peterson was a secondary PC guy, which I demoted after he beat his child with a tree branch. He's another legendary running back with a 2,000-yard season and a lot of great looking cards - including his RC which I bought a few years ago as "retail therapy" during a low point in my life/work career. I've got Hamilton's RC, too. (side note: my All-Time Teams series really illuminated just have many "bad guys" the Texas Rangers have had. Yikes!)
Lawbreakers (mostly) non-violent crimes
Among the infamous: Pete Rose, Lenny Dykstra, Denny McLain, Raul Mondesi, Michael Vick, Ray Lewis, Plaxico Burress, Paul Hornung, Alex Karras, Art Schlichter, Calvin Ridley, Marvin Barnes, Gilbert Arenas, Bob Probert, Theo Fleury, Ed Belfour... technically Muhammad Ali. (Recreational drug users can be included here, if you want to be a narc.)
This is kind of a catch-all category for any non-SA offense. Denny McLain was my father-in-law's favorite athlete, my wife met him at a card show and got his autograph. (Since they've both passed it's now property of my mother-in-law) I don't have a whole lot of Packers autographed cards but Hornung is one of the few. On one hand, it's reasurring to see that he and Alex Karras received the same gambling suspension in 1963 that Calvin Ridley did in 2022 (a one year ban).
On the other hand, gambling is much more ubiquitous these days, and this list is going to get a lot longer in the coming years. I'm still baffled at Emmanuel Clase for destroying a potential Hall of Fame career to make a few thousand bucks on a prop bet.
Cheaters, Thugs, and other Poor Sports
Among the infamous: PED users*, Albert Belle, Juan Marichal, Pascual Perez, Milton Bradley, Tom Brady, Vontaze Burfict, Ndamukong Suh, Bill Romanowski, Dennis Rodman, Latrell Sprewell, Kermit Washington, Ron "Metta World Peace" Artest, Dale Hunter, Dino Ciccarelli, Marty McSorley, Todd Bertuzzi, Raffi Torres, and anyone who injured your favorite player - intentionally or otherwise.
Oh, and these guys:
Pro sports are hyper competitive. Players can understandably lose their cool in the heat of battle. But there are limits to what the average sports fan will accept. Beating a racist POS over the head with his own helmet? You're good, Garrett. Stepping on defenseless players forcefully and repeatedly? F-U, Suh.
If you're a fan of those old school hard-hitting teams and players, that's fine with me - as long as you're consistent. What Jody here is saying is, Bobby Clarke intentionally injured Soviet star Valeri Kharlamov with a wicked slash and was hailed as a hero. So why didn't Tom Wilson do this to Matt Boldy or Matthew Tkachuk? When Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson brushed back batters, it was "gamesmanship", but when Pedro Martinez and Madison Bumgarner threw inside they were "threatening player's' careers". If Azeez Al-Shaair's name was Jack Lambert, would fans think differently about this hit?
This is a really nice card, if I do say so myself. I pulled it out of a retail exclusive super box thing. I'd heard they were case hits but maybe they're easier to pull in super boxes? Anyway ... I hate it. Because it's Manny Machado.
What did Manny Machado do? He's a future first-ballot Hall of Famer, and already a top 20 third baseman of all-time. He's no angel, but he seems to have matured and hasn't done anything egregious in about a decade.
Yeah, but... he injured Dustin Pedroia and effectively ended his career. I wil never respect this man.
*PED users could be its own section, but this topic has been litigated to hell and back by even the most casual sports fan. There are guys who cheated and apologized, guys who were never caught but are generally understood to have used PEDs, and a bunch of guys in the gray area of "they probably used something, but we'll never know what, and they're already in the Hall of Fame so... I guess we should let the rest of them in?? "
I'm a hardline anti-cheating guy - but I semi-collect Nelson Cruz, I'll defend David Ortiz to the death, I saved a good portion of my Sammy Sosa PC, and I recently bought a Mark McGwire rookie card. Just because I don't want them in Cooperstown doesn't mean I don't want them in my collection.
Among the infamous: Star players from your favorite team's hated rival, players who left your favorite team, players who insulted your city, players who have openly supported causes you oppose(and vice versa), any player with an attitude or style that you just do not like.
Obviously, this category is 100% open to interpretation [that's why it's the lowest tier]. Your list will be different from everyone else's, even fans of the same team. Maybe you're a Yankees collector who respects the history of the Red Sox and Dodgers enough to keep their cards. Maybe you're a hard-liner who wouldn't want Papi or Pedro cards if they were free. I can't disagree with either approach but if you're discarding these, send some my way 😉
As a Packers fan, I'm supposed to hate the Vikings, Lions, and especially the Bears. But I don't. I'd love to have more cards of Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, and Fran Tarkenton. Randy Moss and Adrian Peterson were harder to admire off the field but they were freaks of nature between the lines. As a Red Sox/Devils fan, I've got no love for New York teams. But John Rocker can fuck all the way off.
Which brings me to a fairly recent phenomenon - deciding who to cheer for or against based on players' political views. I hate this. I hate knowing that Gabe Kapler was the only member of the 2004 Red Sox who didn't vote for a war criminal. I hate knowing that the guy who chose to come to Boston specifically to beat the Yankees and end the curse - then sacrificed his ankle to do so - is a fraudster, fascist, and collector of Nazi paraphernalia. I hate that you can tell, with about 95% certainty, which current players support the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It's not that I don't care, it's just that keeping a mental rolodex of such things is exhausting. I can't keep track of every criminal or creep already in my collection - and now I'm supposed to judge who to collect based on the movement of a moral compass? Where doyou draw the line?
Me, trying to decide how much mysoginy and regressive behavior to tolerate before acquiring cards.
I'm sooo tired of the discourse around Team USA hockey, and therefore tired of hockey in general. But I'm not exactly excited for the start of baseball, either. If Team USA wins the World Baseball Classic, is Aaron Judge gonna party with Kash Patel and then claim "It's not poliical! Stop making it political!"
If you're wearing a national team jersey, it's political.
If you're openly supporting a politician, it's political.
If you're chering against your own country's national team because you disagree with their politics...
Ex-NHL star Jeremy Roenick calls out 'hypocrites,' Team USA critics
On Monday night, Roenick joined "Jesse Watters Primetime" to voice his opinion on those not giving a full-throated endorsement of the United States' hockey team. Calling them "hypocrites" and pointing to the "politicization" of the sport.
“Sports is not supposed to be political. It’s supposed to unite the country. We’re all supposed to get together and believe in one thing. I think 99% of Americans on social media was loving it," Roenick said.
“And then you turn around and see the politicization of the sport, and it’s just not right,” he continued. “The hypocrites are coming out in droves and it’s unfortunate we can’t take the greatest moments in sports and all celebrate it. It’s a real shame.”
Hypocrites, you say...
I'm 99.96% certain that J.R. was on board with cheering against Megan Rapinoe and the U.S. women's soccer team. Hell, U.S. women's soccer players were smug about Rapinoe's career-ending injury.
This is the same guy that embarrassed America as part of the sore loser squad who trashed hotel rooms in Nagano (ya know who else was on that team? Keith Tkachuk). This is the same jackass that made inappropriate comments about his NBC co-worker Kathryn Tappen. Being a narrow-minded blockhead is just par for the course. After all, they're not scholars or clerics. They're just really, really good at one thing.
Do you cheer for or collect certain players based on their off-the-field conduct? Do you have any 'red lines' that cause you to blacklist certain players from your collection?
Enough political talk here. It's time to prepare those 'players by-position' posts I promised.
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