The 20 Greatest Deleted Sports Tweets of All-Time

Had you been pitched Twitter back in 2006, you'd be forgiven for thinking the idea was monumentally stupid. The concept of 140-character messages, followers, hashtags, and people volunteering their thoughts on everything makes little sense on paper, but apparently blows the hell up in practice. With the site's ninth birthday going down last week, we're using this opportunity to bring you the biggest screw-ups the sporting world has seen. Well, before they were deleted and the athlete involved pretended it never happened.

When you have access to the world from an app on your phone, bad things are bound to occur. In fact, we're surprised there aren't more of these considering how easy it is to whip out your cell and sound-off. In the heat of the moment, if you screw up, you can always reconsider and 'delete'. But if you're famous, odds are someone already captured it. It's the curse of actually having followers.

That's what we're bringing you today—a set of poorly thought-out tweets that didn't quite get axed in time. They're entertaining when they happen to someone else, just not when they happen to you. But odds are you're not on this list, so enjoy. Here are the 20 Greatest Deleted Sports Tweets of All-Time:

Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com

Groupie Kat Stacks asked Carmelo if he "tasted like carmel," which in turn pissed off his wife Lala Vasquez. Lala, evidently wise to Kat's game, checked back by tweeting: “I AIN'T THE ONE. I’m only going to tell you ONE time.” Then Melo put the above bounty on Stacks, took a picture of five grand, and quickly deleted his account. Afterward he claimed he was hacked, apparently unaware that most people don't carry five thousand bucks on them. (It really didn't matter anyway because Vasquez tweeted he was "on a twitter roll.")

Canadian football player Nik Lewis stepped in it during the 2012 CFL Playoffs when he claimed he scooped up OJ's gloves on eBay. The reaction was as swift as the public's wrath. Simply put, people were outraged at the suggestion that a player could afford Juice's gloves on a Canadian Football League salary.

At first, Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall wondered how anyone could hate Bin Laden without hearing him speak. What that means, we're not sure. Apparently if you have a bunch of people killed but can explain where you're coming from, you're alright in Rashard's book. A few moments later it became clearer as he tipped his hand and went full truther, managing to stop himself before asking his followers if they "JUST BELIEVE EVERYTHING THE GOVERNMENT TELLS YOU?!" He apologized, the world moved on, and Champion dropped him from a million dollar endorsement contract. Why do people use Twitter, again?

Above is the reaction of Olympic gold medal swimmer Stephanie Rice after the Australian Wallabies bested the South African Springboks in a rugby contest. Like Mendenhall it cost her some free checks (and a loaner car) from Jaguar. As a female swimmer in Australia we have no doubt she'll be able to quickly makeup for the lost income.

When you google "Cardale Jones," the first suggestion you get is "Cardale Jones tweet." It's not, "Cardale Jones Ohio State," or "Cardale Jones NFL," or even "Cardale Jones fucking laser arm." Just one tweet that he did one time. If you thought winning the National Championship would've changed that, well, you just don't understand the immortality of public outcry.

Yuri Wright was a four-star high school cornerback who had scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Michigan and Alabama. Unfortunately his lack of any sort of filter imploded his recruitment. Many scholarships were revoked and he signed his letter of intent to play for *shudders* Colorado, whose string of nine consecutive losing seasons show why they'll sign any four-star they can get.

When it comes to picking either the weed or the tattoo in this picture from Michael Beasley, we're honestly more concerned about the tattoo. Unfortunately that's not how the NBA saw it, a few days later he was checked into rehab.

Is retweeting cheating when it comes to this list? Maybe. Who cares? All Hulk Hogan wanted to do was connect with the Hulkamaniacs of the world, but he got blindsided by a wolf in sheep's clothing instead (actually dude didn't even try to hide it). This RT is truly confusing. Hulk clearly read "retweet" since he obliged. Maybe he just really thinks this guy is the right one for his daughter.

When Jason Collins came out as gay, wide receiver Mike Wallace threw this tweet out there because (apparently) he somehow made it to the age of 26 without anybody ever explaining to him what "being gay" actually means.

Considering how his first full year in the pros went, he might want to head back. And to think this drama was all just over a parking ticket.

Drafted out of the second round in 2008, wide receiver Devin Thomas never quite caught on in the NFL. After two disappointing seasons with the Redskins, Mike Shanahan and Co. cut Thomas halfway through season three, just days after teammate Brandon Banks tweeted this pic of Thomas sleeping in a meeting. Thomas left with a passive-aggressive shot at both the elder Shanahan and his son Kyle (the team's offensive coordinator) saying "Maybe they just don't want a big-play receiver who can do everything." After saying he'd take Mike's advice to focus on football to heart, he accumulated three catches for 37 yards over parts of four seasons before retiring. Turns out he was sleeping through games too.

We have no idea why Troy Aikman thought typing DM in front of @Mari_Marrow would send her a direct message. But he did suffer 10 concussions in his career, so we guess we do have an idea, actually. Anyway he spelled her name wrong, so it's doubtful this went anywhere. If nothing else the brief embarrassment seemed to disprove a statement Skip Bayless made in his 1996 book Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth About the “Win or Else” Dallas Cowboys,where he claimed Aikman was gay. So, if nothing else, Skip Bayless is wrong about something. Again.

If it's the night before the semester ends, and you got a final paper due, and you haven't yet begun, then toss a copy and paste out there and hope your professor is lazier than you are. Otherwise, it just gets you in trouble (case in point, above). We wonder if Nokia still ponied up the endorsement check?

ESPN recruiting analyst Gerry Hamilton made the same faux pas as Jackson, but 100 times worse. If nothing else it means Hamilton is just a normal guy, which is surprising because we assumed those ESPNU weirdos simply jacked it to game film.

Squeaky clean, professional, and good at what he does, Ray Allen is the prototype for professional athletes both on and off the court. If you just told us this message was from an NBAer, it'd take us 1,000 guesses before we uttered Ray Allen gave up and said this is stupid. Even if you've seen He Got Game 100 times, you probably still can't picture Ray Allen having sex. (Not that you would, but whatever.) Anyways he claimed he got hacked. But we all know he didn't.

It's hard to think anybody in the organization could've made a worse call than this one. But then the Seahawks two-minute drilled their way to the one-yard-line and, well, you know the rest.

After the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake (and subsequent tsunami) killed roughly 16,000 people in Japan, six-time WNBA All-Star Cappie Pondexter gave her perspective with all the eloquence and thoughtfulness of someone with a 12th century understanding of fault lines and seismic activity. She followed that up with the cultural sensitivity of General Patton. Later she (kind of) apologized with an explanation that sought forgiveness while simultaneously doubling down:

For many years we always heard that growing up in MJ's shadow must have been tough on his kids. After all, they had some crazy expectations that couldn't possibly be lived up to. But then you realize that son Marcus has money to burn on pornstar escorts, and suddenly you don't feel bad at all. Later he posted an accidental dick pic, before temporarily deleting his account.

You trained all your life, you've officially become world class, now all you have to do is go one more week without making a racist joke and posting it on a public forum that people literally check every minute of every hour of every day. That was the reality for Greek triple/long jumper Paraskevi Papachristou who sent out the above tweet five days before the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics. A few days later she was barred from the events, making her just one of many people to sink her own career in 140 characters or less.

In any event, happy birthday Twitter. May you bring us more of these self-implosions in the coming years.