To quote another Dave Chappelle character, Cocaine is one helluva drug. And so is crack (or so I've heard). We all know that crack is wack, but some of our greatest athletes have enjoyed a toke off the pipe from time to time. In every case, it no doubt affected their careers and lives negatively but who are we to judge? We all have our addictions that are slowly killing us; smoking, sex, Indian food. Whatever your poison is, none of us could play at half of the level that these guys did sober as a judge, never mind while battling substance abuse. Craaaack.
5) Shawn Kemp
As far as I know, Shawn only dabbled in cocaine and not in it's poorer cousin, but we had to have at least one basketball player on this list. Imagine if the Reign man had played in today's NBA, with his ridiculous highlights and with Twitter and YouTube. He probably would be married to Lady Gaga right now or something. Instead, he developed a "booger sugar" habit, got as fat as Betty Draper and had a million babies. That's probably better than being married to Lady Gaga I guess.
4) Josh Hamilton
The man known as "The Natural" because of his seemingly innate ability to hit a baseball really far and he's White, is tearing up the majors these days, most notably with his ridiculous 4 home run, 18 RBI game last night against the O's. What if's are dangerous, but what if he'd spent his early twenties as a productive player instead of sucking the glass pipe and stealing chicken fingers or whatever it was he was doing. He'd probably finish his career with 900 home runs and go down as the greatest player ever. Even so, he's still well on his way to the HOF, but we'll never know.
3) Darryl Strawberry
Despite his own battle with the rock, Darryl was available to resurrect his career with the other New York baseball team. Before winning a Series with the Yanks, though, Strawberry was one of the brightest young stars in the game with the Mets. His career took many different turns including cancer, but it's a toss up between his crack head status or his NY playing career being his lasting legacy. Either way, Daaaaarylllll is another sad case of wasted talent.
2) Doc Gooden
I could have probably just made this list "THE 1986 NEW YORK METS" and been done with it, but that would be boring. Gary Sheffield's cousin was one of the fastest rising phenoms in sports history (look at his numbers, he had more complete games his rookie season than an entire roster would today), yet also had his career derailed by blow and it's many forms. Eventually, he'd also find his way to redemption with the Yankees before messing up his life a couple more times. Now, he seems sober, I guess, and recently made the talk show circuit with his book about his wild days (including the story of how he was doing lines in a Long Island housing project during the Mets' victory parade).
1) Lawrence Taylor
If we just did a list of the top 5 greatest New York athletes of all time period, L.T. might top the list, which makes it all the more impressive that he could also top this list of crack heads. Of all the sports, I would think football would lend itself most to the crack head lifestyle. You take a couple hits before kickoff and run around like a maniac, ready to rip the heads off of your opponent. I'm surprised more players haven't tried some crack before games. At the very least, it would ease the pain of having a 350 pound man jam his helmet into your shoulder blade. L.T. lived fast, with lots of drugs and hookers, and he's still around to tell the tales as well as have sex with hookers. Lawrence Taylor, the number one crackhead athlete of all time.
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