Athletes — they're just like us, only better. Though perhaps not always on an ethical level. Well, unless you find hedonism ethical, which you probably should. Men of such appetites should be regaled as adventurers of spirit and spirits, who dare to face the demons and then attempt to drown them with Jack Daniel's. These nine athletes who reigned high as f--k in the '90s (and beyond), are those better men. They just needed a bump, belt or bongload to keep on being better. We salute them for their effort, and invite any of them out for a drink on us if they are indeed still alive and drinking.
John Daly
![hardest partying 90s athletes, john daly]()
Sure, there were better pro golfers in the '90s, but no one you'd rather hit the links with. Especially not when Daly was 23 and drinking at least a fifth of Jack a day, usually while wearing neon flowered pants. Anybody who excels at hitting golf balls teed up in a woman's mouth is someone who has had too much to drink. Yes, Daly earned the right to wear the pants and the party-in-the-back 'do, but he also made golf look fun...right up until he started visibly trembling his way around the course. Just look how cool that mulletted stud looks after winning the '95 British Open with one of his early wives on his arm as a streaker darts by advertising his bum as the 19th hole. Daly made those kind of shenanigans seem OK around a stuffy golf course. Perhaps that's because he got so used to playing drunk that he couldn't really do it as well sober. Unfortunately, sobriety is kind of enforced after you get arrested for passing out in a Hooters parking lot.
Darren McCarty
Speaking of enforcing, it's odd that an enforcer of McCarty's caliber was more of a weed guy than a cokehead. But McCarty the One Man Party — aka the bane of Claude Lemieux's existence — tested positive for ganja some 30 times throughout his illustrious career. In his Pulitzer Prize finalist book entitled "My Last Fight: The True Story of a Hockey Rock Star," he describes his addictive plight: "I'm a weed and alcohol guy. But if cocaine was around, I used it, primarily as a means to sober up after being drunk. I called cocaine 'the equalizer.'" Wise words from the lead singer of heavy metal band Grinder, and the winner of Kid Rock's "Rock 'n' Roll Most Improved" award.
Vin Baker
![hardest partying 90s athletes, vin baker]()
Back in the '90s, Vin Baker could ball to the tune of four consecutive All-Star games. Along the way, people started calling him Vin and Tonic. Eventually, he spent all of his 100 or so million dollars of earnings and ended up broke and working at Starbucks after he sobered up. Then again, he was also recruited by Dennis Rodman to conduct "basketball diplomacy" for Kim Jong-un's 30th birthday, so maybe he wasn't actually 100 percent off the sauce.
David Wells
![hardest partying 90s athletes, david wells]()
On the eve of his perfect game in 1998, Wells only got about an hour of sleep for a day game start. But that's what happens when you play in the Bronx and stay up partying with the cast of "Saturday Night Live" into the wee hours. But hey, he showed up. "I just stayed away from everybody in the clubhouse, drank a lot of coffee, tried to mask the smell, and I think I was blowing about 4.2 at the time," said an older, wiser, still drinking David Wells in a riveting interview. No word on how many times he tried to recalibrate such a magical reaction, but I wouldn't bet against a guy who wouldn't say no to a spineful of cortisone before a start, as the description to his book, "Perfect I'm Not," can attest. It also says that 'Ol Boomer had a habit of trying to get girls in the stands to show him their knockers. Yes, I bought the book.
Dennis Rodman
![hardest partying 90s athletes, dennis rodman]()
In the David Wells interview just discussed, somewhat incoherently, Wells compares his perfect hurl to when Rodman enjoyed one of his "greatest games" after enjoying the "after party." I can't be sure what Wells is actually referring to, but odds are pretty good that Rodman is well aware that there ain't no party like the after party, and that the after party don't stop. I think Rodman may actually think his entire post-Pistons life has been the after party. How else can you explain the boa-heavy getup above? Or "Double Team?" Or his ambassadorial efforts in North Korea? Of course, he did blame the drinking when that diplomacy thing backfired. But that didn't stop the party. This year, for his 54th birthday, Rodman had a "huge porn star party" with some of the best in the biz including Katie Morgan, Tasha Reign and Teagan Presley.
Andre Agassi
![hardest partying 90s athletes, andre agassi]()
When you start doing meth, plummet from the top of the rankings and lose a wife as hot as Brooke Shields, that's when you know you're partying too hard. But apparently Agassi had the wild streak in him all along. As a nine-year-old shark in Vegas, he hustled $500 bucks off Jim Brown by beating the Hall-of-Famer in a match. When he was a teen at the Bollettieri Academy, he "consumed gallons of whiskey" while chewing Jack Daniel's-soaked Skoal and Kodiak. By the time he first started to blow up in 1992, Agassi was so hungover during a Davis Cup match that he had to wear a pair of Oakley wrap around sunglasses to shade his bloodshot eyes. The founder of Oakley got so much business from the move, he sent Agassi a Dodge Viper in appreciation. No word on whether or not that Viper had an acid wash paint job, but whoa, that would be rad.
Charles Barkley
![hardest partying 90s athletes, charles barkley]()
There's plenty to say about Sir Charles's brilliant buffoonery, but perhaps the story of him getting pulled over for a DUI sums it up best. First, Barkley asks the arresting officer if he saw that girl walking away. He then asks if he thought she was hot. The officer did. So Barkley bragged that he "was gonna drive around the corner and get a b**w job." He went on to further explain that he got one of the greatest BJs of his life from her the week before. None of which, surprisingly, saved him from getting arrested. Back at the cop shop, Barkley told one of the officers that in exchange for getting him out of the DUI, he'd tattoo his name on the officer's ass. But after realizing he was in the wrong, he quickly righted himself by saying that he really meant "I'll tattoo your name on my ass." Still, he didn't get out of the DUI. Sheesh, some cops have no sense of humor.
Ryan Leaf
![hardest partying 90s athletes, ryan leaf]()
Leaf's draft partner Peyton Manning most certainly cannot be considered just a '90s athlete, since much of his greatness is still pending; Leaf's glory days were undoubtedly the ones leading up to the 1998 draft. While a few NFL teams pegged him pre-draft as a "party boy," unfortunately if you're a Bolts fan, San Diego wasn't one of them. After quickly exiting from the NFL as the league's biggest bust ever, things didn't get any better. Burglary. Controlled substance. Criminal possession of dangerous drugs. He actually got a coaching job somewhere in Texas, but got busted trying to bum prescription drugs from one of his players. He was then arrested for breaking into a player's home while looking for narcotics. Yes, Leaf's long and obnoxious party past has gotten him a rap sheet longer than Manning's entry in the NFL record book.
Bob Probert
![hardest partying 90s athletes, bob probert]()
You don't become the Detroit Red Wings most penalized player without a little bit of rocket fuel. Well, a lot in this case. "Bruise Brother" Bob — may he rest peacefully in a big huge pile of blow — had a $42,000 a year coke habit back in the day. This couldn't have been much less than his salary at the time, seeing as goons often got paid in fake teeth and Molsen Ice back then. In 1989, Probert spent three months in the clink for smuggling 14 grams of cocaine into the U.S. from Canada, eh. International drug smuggling and only three months? Good lawyer. After Propert retired, he somehow skated assault charges which were levied after he parked his Bimmer on the side of the road, jumped out and started a fight over drugs. During which time, he had to be tasered and stun-gunned by several police officers. But Probert's lawyer wasn't done there. He later got his client off of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer charges. Unfortunately, a heat wave and years of abuse stopped big Bob's ticker too soon. Hopefully his lawyer is still kicking ass somewhere, though.
John Daly
Sure, there were better pro golfers in the '90s, but no one you'd rather hit the links with. Especially not when Daly was 23 and drinking at least a fifth of Jack a day, usually while wearing neon flowered pants. Anybody who excels at hitting golf balls teed up in a woman's mouth is someone who has had too much to drink. Yes, Daly earned the right to wear the pants and the party-in-the-back 'do, but he also made golf look fun...right up until he started visibly trembling his way around the course. Just look how cool that mulletted stud looks after winning the '95 British Open with one of his early wives on his arm as a streaker darts by advertising his bum as the 19th hole. Daly made those kind of shenanigans seem OK around a stuffy golf course. Perhaps that's because he got so used to playing drunk that he couldn't really do it as well sober. Unfortunately, sobriety is kind of enforced after you get arrested for passing out in a Hooters parking lot.
Darren McCarty
Speaking of enforcing, it's odd that an enforcer of McCarty's caliber was more of a weed guy than a cokehead. But McCarty the One Man Party — aka the bane of Claude Lemieux's existence — tested positive for ganja some 30 times throughout his illustrious career. In his Pulitzer Prize finalist book entitled "My Last Fight: The True Story of a Hockey Rock Star," he describes his addictive plight: "I'm a weed and alcohol guy. But if cocaine was around, I used it, primarily as a means to sober up after being drunk. I called cocaine 'the equalizer.'" Wise words from the lead singer of heavy metal band Grinder, and the winner of Kid Rock's "Rock 'n' Roll Most Improved" award.
Vin Baker
Back in the '90s, Vin Baker could ball to the tune of four consecutive All-Star games. Along the way, people started calling him Vin and Tonic. Eventually, he spent all of his 100 or so million dollars of earnings and ended up broke and working at Starbucks after he sobered up. Then again, he was also recruited by Dennis Rodman to conduct "basketball diplomacy" for Kim Jong-un's 30th birthday, so maybe he wasn't actually 100 percent off the sauce.
David Wells
On the eve of his perfect game in 1998, Wells only got about an hour of sleep for a day game start. But that's what happens when you play in the Bronx and stay up partying with the cast of "Saturday Night Live" into the wee hours. But hey, he showed up. "I just stayed away from everybody in the clubhouse, drank a lot of coffee, tried to mask the smell, and I think I was blowing about 4.2 at the time," said an older, wiser, still drinking David Wells in a riveting interview. No word on how many times he tried to recalibrate such a magical reaction, but I wouldn't bet against a guy who wouldn't say no to a spineful of cortisone before a start, as the description to his book, "Perfect I'm Not," can attest. It also says that 'Ol Boomer had a habit of trying to get girls in the stands to show him their knockers. Yes, I bought the book.
Dennis Rodman
In the David Wells interview just discussed, somewhat incoherently, Wells compares his perfect hurl to when Rodman enjoyed one of his "greatest games" after enjoying the "after party." I can't be sure what Wells is actually referring to, but odds are pretty good that Rodman is well aware that there ain't no party like the after party, and that the after party don't stop. I think Rodman may actually think his entire post-Pistons life has been the after party. How else can you explain the boa-heavy getup above? Or "Double Team?" Or his ambassadorial efforts in North Korea? Of course, he did blame the drinking when that diplomacy thing backfired. But that didn't stop the party. This year, for his 54th birthday, Rodman had a "huge porn star party" with some of the best in the biz including Katie Morgan, Tasha Reign and Teagan Presley.
Andre Agassi
When you start doing meth, plummet from the top of the rankings and lose a wife as hot as Brooke Shields, that's when you know you're partying too hard. But apparently Agassi had the wild streak in him all along. As a nine-year-old shark in Vegas, he hustled $500 bucks off Jim Brown by beating the Hall-of-Famer in a match. When he was a teen at the Bollettieri Academy, he "consumed gallons of whiskey" while chewing Jack Daniel's-soaked Skoal and Kodiak. By the time he first started to blow up in 1992, Agassi was so hungover during a Davis Cup match that he had to wear a pair of Oakley wrap around sunglasses to shade his bloodshot eyes. The founder of Oakley got so much business from the move, he sent Agassi a Dodge Viper in appreciation. No word on whether or not that Viper had an acid wash paint job, but whoa, that would be rad.
Charles Barkley
There's plenty to say about Sir Charles's brilliant buffoonery, but perhaps the story of him getting pulled over for a DUI sums it up best. First, Barkley asks the arresting officer if he saw that girl walking away. He then asks if he thought she was hot. The officer did. So Barkley bragged that he "was gonna drive around the corner and get a b**w job." He went on to further explain that he got one of the greatest BJs of his life from her the week before. None of which, surprisingly, saved him from getting arrested. Back at the cop shop, Barkley told one of the officers that in exchange for getting him out of the DUI, he'd tattoo his name on the officer's ass. But after realizing he was in the wrong, he quickly righted himself by saying that he really meant "I'll tattoo your name on my ass." Still, he didn't get out of the DUI. Sheesh, some cops have no sense of humor.
Ryan Leaf
Leaf's draft partner Peyton Manning most certainly cannot be considered just a '90s athlete, since much of his greatness is still pending; Leaf's glory days were undoubtedly the ones leading up to the 1998 draft. While a few NFL teams pegged him pre-draft as a "party boy," unfortunately if you're a Bolts fan, San Diego wasn't one of them. After quickly exiting from the NFL as the league's biggest bust ever, things didn't get any better. Burglary. Controlled substance. Criminal possession of dangerous drugs. He actually got a coaching job somewhere in Texas, but got busted trying to bum prescription drugs from one of his players. He was then arrested for breaking into a player's home while looking for narcotics. Yes, Leaf's long and obnoxious party past has gotten him a rap sheet longer than Manning's entry in the NFL record book.
Bob Probert
You don't become the Detroit Red Wings most penalized player without a little bit of rocket fuel. Well, a lot in this case. "Bruise Brother" Bob — may he rest peacefully in a big huge pile of blow — had a $42,000 a year coke habit back in the day. This couldn't have been much less than his salary at the time, seeing as goons often got paid in fake teeth and Molsen Ice back then. In 1989, Probert spent three months in the clink for smuggling 14 grams of cocaine into the U.S. from Canada, eh. International drug smuggling and only three months? Good lawyer. After Propert retired, he somehow skated assault charges which were levied after he parked his Bimmer on the side of the road, jumped out and started a fight over drugs. During which time, he had to be tasered and stun-gunned by several police officers. But Probert's lawyer wasn't done there. He later got his client off of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer charges. Unfortunately, a heat wave and years of abuse stopped big Bob's ticker too soon. Hopefully his lawyer is still kicking ass somewhere, though.