Flak Magazine: Kick Out the Sports! 02.02.04

It's official: Eleven years after Magic Johnson announced he contracted HIV from too much sleeping around on the road, the athletes-as-sex-fiends joke is officially funny again. Or maybe just ridiculous. In the past week, three of the biggest non-Super Bowl stories in sports have been the release of a sex tape involving Hall of Fame basketball player Julius Erving, the appearance of a Cleveland Indians pitcher in a gay porn flick and allegations of sex parties for football recruits at the University of Colorado.

While names and locations may change, athletes' pursuit of a little off-field action has been a topic of discussion for a long time. (And with the copious number of groupies available, little pursuit is required.) To give some perspective on this, here are the most notorious sexual athletes ever, at least in the United States:

1. Wilt Chamberlain. When you think of Chamberlain's skills as a prolific scorer, do you think 31,419? Or 20,000? The latter, of course. For while Chamberlain retired in 1973 as the then-leading NBA career scoring record of 31,419 points, it was his 1991 autobiography's announcement that he bedded 20,000 women (a claim he later recanted) that made him the all-time leading scorer. By the way, Chamberlain computed his number assuming an average of 1.2 women a day since the age of 15, but what if he had sex more than once with at least one-quarter of those women, that's... that's... that's testament to one of hell of a short refractory period. No wonder his nickname was "The Stilt."

2. Shawn Kemp. When you think "Baby Daddy," you think Shawn Kemp. That's because Kemp, with his seven illegitimate children, was the most extreme example in an infamous 1998 Sports Illustrated story about NBA players' stunning inability to find a condom when it mattered. Kemp isn't sports' most prolific shooter — ex-San Antonio Spur Willie Anderson and boxer Evander Holyfield each have at least nine illegitimate children. But any sports fan knows that having bigger stats doesn't mean you have as big an impact. In the Baby Daddy world of sports, Anderson and Holyfield are stats-happy Dan Marino to Kemp's champion Joe Montana.

3. Babe Ruth. Because sportswriters of the times never wrote about Ruth's legendary excesses, we'll never know exactly how many times the longtime home run king made it to the other home base. However, it is clear Ruth is an early example in sports of how fame and money can turn some schlumpy-looking guy named George into a Babe.

4. Bo Belinsky. This early-1960s-era Angels pitcher had the highest starlets-bagged to on-field-performance ratio ever. Belinsky was an L.A. sensation as a rookie when he pitched a no-hitter, but he was better known for shagging the likes of Mamie Van Doren and Playboy playmate Jo Collins. Aided by his love of the ladies, his career tanked quickly. He did, however, inspire the likes of Jose Canseco and Dennis Rodman to pursue hot B-list babes as a means to extend their celebrity.

5. Steve Garvey. Schadenfraude was never so popular in baseball as when it was learned that former Dodger Garvey — a presumed good guy — was instead a dopey husband who, while his wife complained about no sex life at home, was busy planting his seed in other women. There's a junior high school in the Los Angeles area named after Garvey — no word on whether it was built in anticipation of teaching his many children. It's appropriate that Garvey ended his career as a Padre. Garvey seemed like the most pathetic poon hound in baseball until the arrival of...

6. Wade Boggs. It was bad enough when Boggs, a married man, got hit in 1988 with a million-dollar palimony suit by his mistress, Margo Adams. (The suit was settled the next year.) But then Boggs had to go do a Barbara Walters interview where he blubbered about how he was a poor, downtrodden sexaholic. Oh, yeah, a man wanting sex with anyone he can has a disease.

7. Julius Erving. There's a strong argument that whatever Michael Jordan did — dunking, showmanship, catting around on your wife — Dr. J did it first and better. While Jordan's most notorious dalliance involved a lounge singer, Dr. J's most notorious dalliance managed to help piss off the whole of women sportswriterhood. In 1999, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel revealed Erving had fathered tennis player Alexandra Stevenson with a woman who had been a freelance sportswriter for the New York Times — Exhibit A in the minds of those athletes who believe female sportswriters want into locker rooms just to hook up with a big, dusky hunk.

8. Deion Sanders. He found fame as one of the few people to play two pro sports (football and baseball), but in a 1998 book, Sanders whined that his fame led him in a downward spiral as he tried to find satisfaction with, as he put it, "Delilah and Jezebel," instead of Jesus. Hey, Deion, if you're not busy with Delilah and Jezebel anymore, can you give me their phone numbers?

9. Joe Namath and Paul Hornung (tie). Namath's "Broadway Joe" exploits, status as Party King of New York in the '60s and early '70s, playing around with Ann-Margaret, etc., could have put him a lot higher in this list. But the former Jet slipped with his pathetic "I wanna kish you" denouement with ESPN sideline reporter Suzy Kolber. Hornung has to get a mention because he built a career as a playboy in Louisville, Ky., South Bend, Ind., and Green Bay, Wis. That, my friends, is talent.

11. Wendell Ladner. In the early 1970s, a hairy beast of a guy could become a sex symbol, and in the old American Basketball Association, Ladner did just that. As told in Terry Pluto's excellent ABA history, "Loose Balls," a poster of Ladner wearing nothing but his Kentucky Colonels basketball shorts sold out in a day. In the book, former Colonels publicity director Dave Vance tells the following story of when Ladner visited the doctor about a discomfort in his groin area:

The doctor said, "It looks like you've been having sex too much." Wendell said, "You think so?" The doctor said, "How many times a day do you have sex?" Wendell said, "I don't know, three or four times." The doctor said, "Wendell, that's too much." Wendell said, "Well, it's never with the same girl."

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.