OT: Favorite Pro Athletes as a Kid

[8893]

Pretty sure I remember him demanding a trade after a story by Dick Young.

Seaver - youngest sons middle name. Young wrote a hit piece for GM Grant who was later run out of town for the terrible trade. I switched from a Mets to a Red Sox fan after the trade cuz I was so mad.

Yeah I wasn't so much mad at Seaver as much as just sad at the whole ordeal. I was 11 years old and that was the end of my innocence as a sports fan, and my introduction to the reality of rooting for laundry. I remained a Seaver fan--I still have the SI with him on the cover in a Reds hat right after the trade--and a Mets fan, but just a more jaded one. My father grew up in Brooklyn and was a Brooklyn Dodger fan but he abandoned them when O'Malley moved them to LA and he never forgave O'Malley. He adopted the Mets when they came into existence and that's how I ended up a Mets fan. But after the Seaver trade I began to allow myself to like players on other teams, which at that time meant Freddy Lynn, Yaz, Johnny Bench, pretty much the whole Pirates team.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

MLB, Hank Aaron
NFL, Bob Lilly
NBA, Russ and Hondo
PGA, Arnie and Ray Floyd

 

[UCFBfan]

Football: LT and Mark Bavaro
Bball: Penny Hardaway (still rock his jersey today) and Bigcountry Reeves (got that Vancouver jersey as well). In high school my friends nicknamed me Bigcountry and the name has stuck, even today.
Baseball: Don Mattingly (Not a Yankees fan anymore but growing up in Jersey I followed them) Daryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden were also on the list.

 

[Excalibur]

Who were yours?

For context, I was born at the end of '76.

BASEBALL: Wade Boggs. Hit .368. Drew chai (חַי) in the dirt before every AB, which in my eyes basically made him Jewish. But I still haven't forgiven him for riding a frickin' horse in Yankee Stadium, as memorialized in the biopic/unintentional comedy film "Joe Torre: Curveballs Along the Way": ).
(Unfortunately, the scene depicting the rando they got to play Boggs riding a horse is not included in that clip.)

Obviously, there was another baseball player that I was a fan of, but I was in college when he came on the scene.

FOOTBALL: LT, the best defensive player in NFL history. Sure, he's had some personal problems. Still the best defensive player in NFL history. Lawrence Taylor: Top 10 career plays

As few people know, I've also been a Raiders fan since I was about 5, when I made my grandparents buy me a #46 black and silver jersey. Todd Christensen wasn't my guy, but Marcus Allen was. Then Tim Brown and Bo. This was on my wall for years:

BASKETBALL: Larry Bird. Obviously. Top 10 plays of Larry Bird's Hall of Fame NBA career | ESPN Archives

RIP my #2 guy, Reggie Lewis.

HOCKEY: For 4-5 years, peaking with their title, I was a gigantic Rangers fan. Then the lockout, then I went to college, and the Devils took over, and I basically haven't followed hockey since. Back then, Darren Turcotte was my man, until they traded him 7 months before they won the Stanley Cup (what they call in the sports world "getting Nomared"). That whole '94 team was great, but I guess I liked Leetch the most, since he was a CT guy.

TENNIS: Any kid that ever flung a tennis racket looked up to McEnroe. I also liked Goran Ivanisevic. Best serve.

Thanks for stealing my list — Boggs, LT, Bird.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Football: LT and Mark Bavaro
Bball: Penny Hardaway (still rock his jersey today) and Bigcountry Reeves (got that Vancouver jersey as well). In high school my friends nicknamed me Bigcountry and the name has stuck, even today.
Baseball: Don Mattingly (Not a Yankees fan anymore but growing up in Jersey I followed them) Daryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden were also on the list.

Loved Bavaro

 

[UCFBfan]

Loved Bavaro

Being the tallest kid on my class basically every year, I always seemed to feel like him when playing pick up football with friends. Big and tall and grabbing passes.

 

[Husky pride]

Phil Rizzuto

 

[TRest]

Bob Gibson
Wilt
Bobby Orr
Ron Johnson/Brad Van Pelt

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Baseball: Carl Yastrzemski
Basketball: Wilt the "Stilt" Chamberlain, The Dr. Julius Erving. In his prime I believe The Dr would have cleaned the clocks of Jordan, Bryant, James and anyone else. Only player i know that played all 5 positions in a game.
Football: Bob Lilly, defensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys back in the "Doomsday Defense" days. Head coach Tom Landry. Inventor of the Nickle and Dime packages. was the only coach I ever saw that incorporated a tactic on offense where the O-linemen did not immediately go into a three point stance but would bend at the knees, then stand up straight as the backfield shifted, then went down into their three point stance in an effort to disguise the backfield alignment prior to the snap. Have never seen any other team do that. Pure genius.

Likes to the nth

 

[Chin Diesel]

Yeah I wasn't so much mad at Seaver as much as just sad at the whole ordeal. I was 11 years old and that was the end of my innocence as a sports fan, and my introduction to the reality of rooting for laundry. I remained a Seaver fan--I still have the SI with him on the cover in a Reds hat right after the trade--and a Mets fan, but just a more jaded one. My father grew up in Brooklyn and was a Brooklyn Dodger fan but he abandoned them when O'Malley moved them to LA and he never forgave O'Malley. He adopted the Mets when they came into existence and that's how I ended up a Mets fan. But after the Seaver trade I began to allow myself to like players on other teams, which at that time meant Freddy Lynn, Yaz, Johnny Bench, pretty much the whole Pirates team.

For me it was Rams trading Dickerson and Sixers letting go of Barkley.

Red Sox are the only pro sports team I've followed all my life.

 

[August_West]

Joe Namath ( I cried when he went to the rams)
Clyde Frazier
Rod Gilbert
Ed Giacomin
Barry Beck
Dwight Evans
Carlton Fisk
Jim Rice

 

[Huskybass]

Fred Lynn
Gary Carter
Elvin Hayes
Walt Frazier

As an adult:
Tom Brady
Marshall Faulk
Barry Sanders
Andrew Benintendi
Mookie Betts
Dustin Pedroia
Chris Sale
Max Scherzer
JBJ
Kemba Walker
Shabazz Napier

 

[arch]

Baseball:Gil Hodges
Football:Y.A. Tittle
NBA:Walt Frazier
NHL:Brad Park
Golf: Dorf

 

[Chin Diesel]

Joe Namath ( I cried when he went to the rams)
Clyde Frazier
Rod Gilbert
Ed Giacomin
Barry Beck
Dwight Evans
Carlton Fisk
Jim Rice

A few years too young to see Joe Willie and Snake Stabler in their primes. But I definitely would have rooted for them over Staubach, Bradshaw and Griese.

 

[Deepster]

MLB- Kevin Mcreynolds
NBA - Pippen and Jordan duh!
NFL - Mike Singletary
CBB- Donyell Marshall

Kevin McReynolds?! Of all the characters of that Mets era, why him?

 

[Magic32]

Basketball- Magic Johnson
Football- Earl Cambell
Basebal- Don Mattingly
College Basketball- Earl Kelly ( was also a big fan of Harold Pressley even though he was Villanova)

 

[Mano]

MLB: Donnie Baseball when I was really young. Bernie Williams in my teenage years.

BBall: Ray Allen all through college and into the Milwaukee and Seattle years. Not that I dislike the Celtics but I just stopped following the NBA all that closely around then.

Soccer: Ryan Giggs. Solskjær. Van Nistelrooy.

Hockey: Theo Fleury but that was a long time ago.

Largely my fandom for particular players and teams has been killed by fantasy sports.

 

[PomonaHusky]

Nice Thread!
Started following sports in the late 60s as an 8 - 9 year old.
Baseball: Hank Aaron (Still a Braves fan)
Football: Roman Gabriel & Jack Snow (Still a Rams fan)
Basketball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Oscar Robertson (Huge Bucks Fan)
Hockey: Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, and Tony Esposito (Still a Blackhawks fan)

 

[Tyler2Rings]

I idolized thos late 90s Yankees teams. Bernie, Paul oneill, Jeets, etc.

For some reason my favorite player was Shane Spencer. He was signing autographs at Westfarms mall one time and my dad took me. The line was wicked long so we just walked by and my dad yelled and pointed me out to Shane from across the hall. I'll never forget getting waved at by shane spencer of all people haha

 

[GAlawyer]

MLB - Don Mattingly
NBA - Erving/Moses Malone/Barkley
NHL - Francis/Turgeon/Dineen
Tennis - Andre Agassi
Golf - Payne Stewart
Bowling (on TV every Saturday!) - Marshall Holman

 

[Siv]

"Bullet" Bob Hayes

 

[Lynyrd]

Roger Staubach ... period

 

[Jaker]

I was more of a Terry Bradshaw fan

 

[scotty0330]

MLB- Kirby Puckett
NHL- Ron Francis broke my heart when he was traded to Penguins
NFL- Andre Tippett the other #56 OLB
NBA-Magic Johnson

 

[HuskyHawk]

George Brett tops the list for me. Moving to Manchester from KC in 1971 I became a Red Sox fan and loved Rice, Lynn and Yaz, but Brett was my favorite player.

Magic Johnson, easily my favorite basketball player ever. So much joy in playing the game and did amazing things.

John McEnroe, loved his game and fiery approach.

Football I loved Jack Youngblood and Russ Francis. For some reason I rooted for the Rams and the Pats. Both of those guys were tough as nails.