I get a kick out of reading Bleacher Report’s various lists. And when they created a slideshow list of the 100 worst athletes in sports history, yeah I had to take a look at it. Of course, I know that any time Bleacher Report creates one of these lists, it’s usually in a “click to the next screen” format, so as to increase the number of click-throughs and pageviews to the site. Well-played, Bleacher Report. Well-played.
And as I parsed through the list that Bleacher Report created – draft picks that never panned out, overhyped “can’t-miss” players that never lived up to the hype – I noticed something.
There were three people who played minor league sports in the Capital District on that list.
Wow.
There’s a former Albany Patroons center, a former Albany River Rats goaltender, and a 1940’s Schenectady Blue Jays pitcher on this list.
The former Albany Patroon – well, at the time they were the Capital Region Pontiacs – was 7’5″ center Chuck Nevitt. Nevitt, also know as the “Human Victory Cigar” because the coach wouldn’t put him in the game unless there was no way the opposing team could come back from a double-digit deficit, lumbered through the 1992-93 season in Albany with lethargic numbers. The man drew more fouls than a rooster in a chicken coop. In fact, Nevitt actually has an NBA championship ring with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1984-85 season – mostly because he was keeping the end of the bench warm that year.
The former Albany River Rat – a goaltender named Andre Racicot. Or maybe you know him by his nickname, “Red Light Racicot,” where in his NHL debut, he faced six shots and let in three goals. After his NHL career fizzled out, he played in the minor leagues, including two games for the Rats in the 1995-96 season, where he averaged 2.00 GAA.
And the former Schenectady Blue Jay? That was pitcher Tommy Lasorda. Yes, he was a manager of champions with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but as a pitcher in the Philadelphia Phillies’ farm system, he only showed flashes of brilliance. Probably his most memorable game in a Schenectady uniform took place in 1948 against the Amsterdam Rugmakers, where he struck out 25 men in a 15-inning game. Before anybody gets worked up, he also walked twelve men and plunked another, and barely won 6-5. And this was in the Canadian-American League, about fifteen rungs away from the majors.
Although if I were to add a few players to this list who have worn Capital District sports gear, I might add former Albany Firebirds punter Gary Gussman (for some reason I thought Scott Norwood was playing in Albany in disguise), Capital District Islanders goaltender Danny Lorenz (I seem to have this memory of Lorenz actually making the NHL, but I still think it’s just a midnight snack-fueled nightmare), Byron Lomow of the Albany Choppers (look, I had to pick ONE guy from the Choppers, he was the short straw) and Albany-Colonie Yankees pitcher Brien Taylor (what a fireballer for the AC’s, what a bust after getting his arm wrecked in a barroom brawl).
What say you?
Chuck The Writer 
I am not from the Capital District. I am actually from Southern California and was a proud season ticket holder when Tommy Lasagna was coaching those awesome Dodgers.
Are you saying that the Capital District is sub-par in their attempts at producing high caliber athletes?
Wouldn’t the coaching staff be partly to blame?
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Mark – actually, no I wouldn’t. Lasorda was a fantastic manager – those World Series rings prove that alone – but his pitching was out of control.
In fact, the Capital District has produced many high-caliber athletes, both homegrown (Olympic gold medalist Jeff Blatnick, basketball player Sam Perkins, hockey goaltender Guy Hebert as three examples) and those who passed through the Capital District in their minor league journeys (Ralph Kiner, Doug Drabek, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera as some baseball examples; Phil Jackson, Mario Elie, George Karl, Jamario Moon in the basketball coaching/playing category; Adam Oates, Joe Juneau, Steve Sullivan as some hockey examples). The list Deadspin created listed what they considered the 100 worst athletes. It just happened that three of those 100 had Capital District ties in one form or another.
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You forgot Pat Riley.
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Right, Pat Riley as one of the best to come out of the area, not as one of the worst.
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To me just geeting to the league is an accomplishment. Not everyone is going to be a superstar. I really don’t like “worst lists” anyway. It seems some people like to put down what they can’t do.
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How about our local Judo Olympian, Nicholas Delpopola, that is currently the only olympian (out of 10,000 or so) to be kicked out of the London 2012 games for testing positive for weed? Way to put Burnt Hills on the global map!
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The list is by Bleacher Report, not Deadspin.
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Also, the Albany Firebirds had a punter??
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James – fixed it, thanks.
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