7 Terrible Sports Achievements (That Will Never Be Equaled)
Not all sports records are glorious. For every quarterback with the most touchdown passes, there's one with the most dogfighting convictions. For every jockey with the fastest time, there's one covered in the most equine ticks. This is an article about seven men who achieved greatness in failure, and feel free to take your time reading it because none of these these records will ever be broken. Hit By the Most PitchesHughie Jennings
Hughie once took a ball to the head in the 3rd inning, and he was so tough that he waited until the end of the game to fall into a, no bullshit, three day coma. He has every record for being hit by a pitch by any measurement of time. He once got hit by three pitches in a single game, and he almost remembered one of them. In the 1896 season, 51 balls smashed into Hughie. That might seem like a normal number if you're producing a turn of the century drama starring Phil Collins' mouth, but when you're talking about high-velocity objects impacting on a human body, it's kind of crazy. Speaking of crazy, when he traveled to away games, Hughie saved time by leaning into the grill of speeding trucks heading that direction. He had so many concussions that opposing first basemen were coached to sing sweet songs to him, knowing that if he fell asleep he'd die.
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The Houston Astros' Craig Biggio was only two behind Hughie when he retired in 2007, but with our technology, getting hit by balls is not quite the medical marvel it was in 1918. Back then, they didn't have machines to jam cerebrospinal fluid back up your nose. In 1918, when a doctor saw that many bruises, all he did was ask you what you did to make your husband so upset and add that if you're quite through wasting his time, he has a waiting room full of horses with actual injuries.
Longest Prison Sentence(s)Clifford Etienne
Before he used his new-found freedom to become a shitty professional thief, Clifford became a decent professional boxer. Coming into his 20th fight, he had a perfect 19-0 record with 13 knockouts. And to Clifford's credit, Fres Oquendo had to knock him down seven times before he stayed there. After the loss, Etienne seemed to be OK, winning five more fights from 2001 to 2003. But I guess he had 49 seconds to kill one night, so he spent them in front of Mike Tyson whose right hand exploded the part of Clifford's brain that knows what legs do:
Following that loss, Clifford was never quite the same. Two years later he suffered back-to-back losses and he decided if he wasn't good at boxing anymore, he could at least still be good at cocaine. So in 2005, on a hot summer night in Baton Rouge, Clifford Etienne got rob-a-payday-loan-store high and robbed a payday loan store. His getaway vehicle was a stolen car with a family still inside it, and he ended the night by shooting at police. If only the instructional video on dealing with that situation had been released a day sooner.
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NFL defensive end Robert Rozier got out of prison for petty crimes, killed seven white people to get into a black supremacy cult, went back to prison for that, testified against the cult's leader Yahweh ben Yahweh to get out of prison, then got put back into prison for spending his time in witness protection committing check fraud. After all of that, Robert Rozier's conviction totals are still trailing behind Clifford Etienne by 142.5 years. Etienne is that much worse than that.
Most Worst Records in an NFL CareerBrett Favre
During his long, long career, Brett also accumulated some unwanted records. He has more fumbles than any player that will ever play (166). He threw more interceptions than any player will ever throw (336). He lost more post-season games than any quarterback will ever lose (11). He was sacked 525 times, and that's not entirely his fault, but no one will fucking beat that, ever. That's nine more than John Elway took and Elway didn't give a shit. When John Elway is standing in lava with a football, he will stay there and sink until you're open. If Weekend at Bernie's 3 was set in the NFL, it would be less stupidly gruesome than a future quarterback trying to break Brett Favre's Number of Times Sacked record.
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Most Lost FightsReggie Strickland
Peter "The Professor" Buckley retired in 2008 with 300 fights. That's 63 fewer fights than Reggie, but Buckley's 256 losses were right on his tail. The two men have a lot in common besides their losing boxing records. For instance, most of their internal organs have been blended into a nutritious juice. They each feel that getting new concussions is the best way to tell your current concussions that you're disappointed in them. And they each did independent scientific research on how many hematomas you have to stack on top of each other before a human face simply stops trying to heal.
Worst Shooting Game of All Time*Tim Hardaway
Hardaway's 0 for 17 record will stand forever because the first rule of basketball is that when a player has missed 16 shots in a row, you stop giving him the ball and suggest to his parents that there are openings on the ballet team. Not passing the ball to Hardaway would have probably been Plan A that night if he wasn't the guy in charge of passing the ball. And it's not hard to imagine why he kept shooting it. I'm not an offensive coordinator, but when you've missed all your field goal attempts for a half hour, the most wide open guy on your team is going to be you every single play.
** During that overtime an angry Barry Bonds was in the parking lot, rage fucking the axle off the Golden State Warriors' bus.
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There are eight NBA players who were two baskets away from the record (0 for 15), but the only one who's done it in the last 40 years was Sacramento's Rodney McCray in 1988. The Miami Heat's Chris Bosh was one basket away from the record earlier this year when he went 1 for 18 in a game. Better luck next time, deadeye.
Longest Hitless StreakBill Bergen
This very year, baseball fans looked on in morbid fascination when they realized Craig Counsell of the Brewers might actually beat Bergen's timeless failure. He struggled to the plate 45 straight times without a hit. No one has tried so hard for such an extended period of time with zero results since the TSA.
Craig's big at bat came on August 5th when, with a 6 run lead in the 9th inning, his coach thought it'd be funny to let him tie the dubious record as a pinch hitter. Ha ha, try to figure that shit out, future historians! Unfortunately, Craig failed to fail and hit a single. Sorry to let you down, future historians.
Crap, we might have a tie. The Society for American Baseball Research has gone through its records and realized that a misread numeral might have had it wrong for the last century. They claim Bill Bergen only went 45 at bats without a hit. To lovers of vintage tragedy, this is a lot like finding out that Hitler had the proper number of testicles. So technically this record has been equaled, but someone had to go in with White Out and literally rewrite history to do it.
I guess we can break the tie with Cubs pitcher Bob Buhl. He didn't have a hit for the entire 1962 season and then some to go 0 for 88. But screw that. Counting a pitcher in your batting statistics is like counting your priest in your sexual conquests.
Most Technical FoulsNot Rasheed Wallace
Please don't confuse those with with the "Rasheed Wallace Rule" PizzaPapalis added when Rasheed was traded to Detroit that states "four pounds of marijuana is not a valid topping choice even if the customer brings it in his or herself."
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To chase the record, Rasheed would have to find a job as a head coach in the NBA, which is about as likely as him finding a calm drug sniffing dog in his house.
