Top 5 Down Syndrome Athletes

The Cleveland Indians were in town to play the Yankees a couple weeks ago, and were easily swept out of the Bronx. As unsurprising at that might be the way the Yanks have been playing lately, there was one nice surprise: the return of Shelley Duncan! You might remember Shelley taking New York by storm a few years ago, cementing his legacy as another semi retarded looking White guy who caught lightning in a bottle for a few weeks with the Yankees (see Bubba Crosby, Shane Spencer, etc.). Where does Shelley rate in the all time down syndrome looking athlete hall of fame?

5) Timofey Mozgov

Remember Timofey? He had one good game for the Knicks and was then shipped off along with about half of the team for Carmelo Anthony? His claim to fame is that his last name is now a verb thanks to this. To be fair to Timmay, a lot of these eastern European guys look like their mother chain smoked when she was pregnant with them because she probably did, but Timofey is especially "special" looking. Blake Griffin should be ashamed of himself.

4) Shelley Duncan

There's Shelley. As I mentioned earlier, he belongs to that revered group of White guys who came out of apparent nowhere to have exciting shortlived careers with the Yankees. As exciting as those guy's shining moments were though, imagine if an actual dude with down syndrome were to somehow make it through the Yankees farm system and have a positive impact on the team. If he hit one home run, the hype around it would make Linsanity seem like the attention given to a WNBA preseason game. Mike Lupica would puke from excitement. Down Syndrome is so much cooler than being Chinese.

3) Chris Kaman

I've already written about this zombie looking creature before. You might have seen Chris suit up for the German men's basketball team a few years ago. He might only be like 1/8th German, but his looks are 100% mongoloid.

2) Shelden Williams

Shelden seems like a nice guy, and he was a hard worker in his couple months with the Knicks. Kind of like a less annoying Jared Jeffries. Of course, these are all descriptions you would give to someone who actually has Down Syndrome. Fortunately for Shelden, his large misshapen head wasn't enough to scare off Candace Parker. For now, Shelden holds the title of weirdest looking former Blue Devil, and seeing as how that list includes Mike Dunleavy Jr., Carlos Boozer and Cherokee Parks, that's saying something.

1) Sam Cassell

On the Sopranos, Johnny Sack once said to Paulie Walnuts "In the museum of noses, that is the mona lisa". Well, if Johnny was a Nets fan in the late 90s (and he might have been) he probably saw the Mona Lisa of down syndrome athletes, Sam Cassell running the point. Sam's worn a lot of hats in his basketball life: rookie contributor to championship team, wily vet, assistant coach. But all of those titles pale in comparison to his rightful position as head retard of the NBA. He easily could have starred in the Special Olympics but, being the hero that he is, instead played in the NBA. I kid Smilin' Sam, of course, but I'm just bitter about what he did to the Knicks in the 94 Finals. Ugly bastard.