Greatest athletes whose careers ended early thread. I'll start
>Brien Taylor, pitcher for the New York Yankees
>drafted 1st overall out of HS in 1991
>was breezing through the minor leagues as the 2nd best prospect in the league behind Chipper Jones
>1993 he gets into a fight while trying to defend his brother
>falls on his shoulder and tears it so bad that the doctor tells him it's the worst he's ever seen
>was never the same after that and never ended up even getting to the MLB
sad stuff
Len Bias
Jerome Brown
Marcus Lattimore
Jonathan Football
retired at age 30 with almost 2400 strikeouts, including 3 Cy Young Awards and 300+ strikeouts for 3 of his last 4 seasons
He never had any potential. He's a fucking manlet with no accuracy or arm strength.
All he had to do was properly exercise and stay healthy.
he would have easily broken the HR record.
greg oden
People also seem to forget that if Ted Williams hadn't served during WW2 he would've had over 3000 hits and 600 home runs.
Had Grant Hill stayed healthy he might've been the best forward of all time
his rookie cards were like $2 in the overproduced 90s. The gold-leaf cards were even more.
he was so hyped. i always wondered what happened to him. you can be the best AA or AAA prospect and never be a star in the majors. it's a little sad.
dude's legs weren't the same size. he was never going to amount to anything, be real
Can you please post the stories for those of us who have no idea who these people are?
Thanks Sup Forums
Andruw Jones was the GOAT centerfielder from age 19 to late 20s and it was sad to see him as a fat strikeout machine in his early thiries although never 5get his 3 homer game against the faggot Angels
True. He had 350 homers before he turned 30. All he had to do was not be a fat fuck and control his plate discipline then he would've been a hall of famer
Would CC Sabathia be the greatest pitcher of all time if he was at normal weight?
>not be a fat fuck and control his plate discipline
Underrated pun.
Pete Ladd. Blew out his arm at 22 and then became Weird Al.
Tony Conigliaro
An obvious one
having that extra obesity behind his throws is the only thing that's made him serviceable the last 5 years
If only he had suppressed his violent tendencies he could have been a millionaire.
Hard to feel sorry for him.
His career probably turned out for the better it sounds like.
>tfw
>tfw it's better for your legacy to have a career destroying injury rather than a career hindering one
Hill is only put in the all time lists by people who really know what they're talking about. meanwhile bo jackson is the goat to every 5 year old
how about Bartolo Colon
The fat is likely responsible for his loss of velocity and command. For a big frame like that he doesn't need much weight anyway
Bo was obviously extremely athletically gifted, I'll give him that. The problem was that he played 2 sports and didn't start playing football until his late 20s. Even if he hadn't gotten the injury he would've burned out in less than 5 years with nowhere near hall-of-fame worthy stats
I think that's what he was saying
FUCKING THIS
If Griffey wouldn't have had problems with his hamstrings he would be the undisputed goat
>Marcus Lattimore
He's already got a HC job at a private school in Columbia. He won the state championship with their middle school team that hadn't won a game in three years and got immediately promoted.
I cry errytime.
CC at his lowest weight has had his worst years.
When he started losing weight he started to decline.
He was just a guy with a very short, but INCREDIBLE, peak. That third of a season when he was first traded to Milwaukee where he single-handly willed that team into the playoffs was like nothing i've ever seen. He was pitching on three days rest every week for the end of the season. He got fucked out of a Cy Young because he wasn't in either league for the entire year
>drafted by Pirates at age 19
>join minor league team
>throw a 27-strikeout no-hitter while suffering from stomach ulcers
>next start throw a 24-strikeout two hitter
>throughout season strikeout 281 batters in 169 innings
>become propect sensation
>called-up to major league team by August
>stomach ulcers get worse
>tear rotator cuff
>have to serve brief stint in Army
>released on medical discharge
>rejoin majors
>flame out after two years due to injuries and medical condition
>end career as a literally who
>jose fernandez
inb4 cocaine jokes
Does Bo Jackson counts?
I saw a 30x30 and they pretty much depicted him as the closest thing to a Super Human to have played
he killed himself and two other guys. absolutely no sympathy for this asshole.
It was sad seeing the most dominant manlet of our time have to deal with injuries. Pedro would've easily had 4000 strikeouts and 300 wins
Don't think he quite fits the thread criteria m8
>implying he won't be a hall of famer
he'll get in eventually even if he's not voted in by the writers
>Lynch pin of the Soxs "Impossible Dream" season in 1967
>Then youngest player to hit 100 homeruns at 22
>Massachusetts native and primed to be face of the franchise
The guy was gonna be a legend, right up there with Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth maybe. At the very least he was gonna be one of the franchise legends like Williams or Yaz but he took a fastball to the eye socket and never was the same. He eventually died at like 45 because of it.
He was gonna be the greatest, he really was
Marcus Lattimore would have been the goat.
All those USSR athletes who got cucked by mother Russia.
Shawn Kemp, could've been bigger than Jordan certainly had the skill set
>David Wilson
Giants fans will know who this is
Cannot forget Dwight Gooden, the drug addicted phenom
>tfw I used to have tons of Hardaway stuff when he was with the Magic
>1997 rolls around
>gets injured
>mfw 8 year old me lost interest in apehoop
>fathering 7 children with 6 unique women
now that's impressive
That's the average nig these days
WW2 and Korea, user. Ted was John Glenn's wingman.
But he is genuinely considered the GOAT by a lot of people
>When he started losing weight he started to decline.
True, but given his family medical history, if he hadn't lost weight he'd either be a potted plant in the stroke ward of some nursing home or dead in the ground.
...
>There are people who think coke is a safe drug
>All he had to do was properly exercise and stay healthy.
Exercise, eat right, stay healthy, and stay off the juice. Like Nomar's wrist tendon issues, Griffey's hamstring problems are 'roid related.
Colon's good only because he's fat. Fat don't tear
ITT: people who don't know the meaning of "greatest who never were"
are athletes who never were. All-time greats like Ken Griffey Jr., Sandy Koufax, and Pedro Martinez all had incredibly accomplished careers of their own and yes, without injuries they may have been even better, but it doesn't matter.
it was genetic, though. He has unusually strong tendons in his arms at the expense of a slight weakness in his rotator cuff, which is why he had so much trouble with it over the years. It also allowed him to give his pitches an extra break that made them so deadly.
as a side note, the dude also has massive hands. I think I saw him palm 6 baseballs at a time once.
>Griffey
>roids
innocent until proven guilty
he got busted for cocaine trafficking
this nigga right here. him and darryl could've been 1st ballot HOF'ers easily but coke is a hell of a drug.
gooden could've been the goat. his best year, 1985, he put up the best year for a pitcher ever in the live ball era.
1.53 ERA, 24 wins, 16 CG, 276.2 IP, 268 SO, 229 ERA+, 2.13 FIP, and check this shit: 12.1 WAR NIGGA. 12.1!!!! AT 20!!!! he led the league in all of these stats.
he had some good years from 86-89', but was shit after that, fucking shame.
Greg cook
Even the most anti-road baseball journalists and historians believe Griffey was clean.
>greatest hitter of all time already
>WW2 and Korea vet, flew a ton of combat missions
>hated the fucking press
>never comfortable in the spotlight
literally /ourguy/
Is it true that the Marlins retired his number after he killed two people?
How could anyone not remember? My favorite pitcher to watch growing up by far
>every time he stepped on the mound his presence was known, hitters feared him, he was electrifying and fun to watch
>had well over 200 strikeouts every season he stayed healthy, which wasn't many
>In my humble opinion he had the potential to be the greatest pitcher of all time
>m.youtube.com
He didn't kill them it was an accident
>driving a boat while drunk and high on cocaine
>crashing it into a jetty at full speed with others on board
that's manslaughter senpai
Goat? Probably not. But he played very comparably to Derek Watson, arguably the best SC RB before Lattimore. Except Watson couldn't stay out of trouble because he's a stupid nigra.
youtube.com
Of course before that, we had DUCE Staley and Troy Hambrick
Some other college football stars who had amazing potential that was never utilized
>Maurice Clarett
>Michael Vick
>Marcus Vick
>Ricky Williams
>Pacman Jones
>Chad Pennington
Mark Prior. He and Kerry Wood really could've been two all time greats. Fucking sucks.
>comparing Vick to any of those guys
he fucked his own career up, don't blame his teams. also pennington was good until injuries ruined him, and pacman jones has been a good player for a while now. a much better name would have been reggie bush
You forgot
>Got arrested for drug dealing
That's the whole point of this thread. Players who never utilized their full potential due to numerous injuries, arrests, death, etc.
Denner was supposed to be the next great dribbler, but he died in a car crash, strangled by the seat belt (you shouls still use it, though, he probably didn't wear it right)
>Jerome Brown
>A never were
get out of here
Tim Tebow.
vick still had a great career. and you specifically said " college football stars who had amazing potential that was never utilized", which is bullshit for like half those guys.
The scary part is, Marcus had 10x more upside than his brother. Unfortunately he just happened to also be 10x the nig that Mike was
Second favourite player next to Gary Payton on my favourite team growing up. Now the team doesn't even exist and I have to see these commercials when I watch seahawks games.
youtu.be
Don't expect people to own up to mistakes on anonymous mongolian shipbuilding imageboards
What do you expect from a nigger?
Future All-Star coming through
Bo put up some of the best stats I'm football after taking a year off, never attending training camp, the first 1/4 of the season, etc.
Putting zero work onto football and he was one of the best running backs in the league.
In baseball his fielding and arm were amazing. There wasn't a ball he couldn't get to.
I think you seriously don't understand how good Bo was at football. Also, he played for a shit team with a shit line
Yeah. Remember when he was the hot prospect and his cards were always "going up" in the Becketts.
Griffey never touched steroids
>Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got.Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.