Trolling in Person: The Craziest Heckling Stories We Could Dig Up

There's something to be said about having the conviction to do things in person. I don't often find myself defending muggers, but the mugger has a certain drive that is admirable if, you know, you don't mind guys with batons and pepper spray telling you what to do everyday for roughly five-to-ten years.

Think about it. The mugger has the initiative to go out, buy a gun/knife and then park himself in a subway, alley, or near an unlit ATM, risking being caught by the cops in order to secure a very modest sum of money. Contrast that with the identity thief who steals your savings with the stroke of a keyboard, all before having his morning coffee. One put his butt on the line, the other got the same result (or likely better) from a comfortable spot behind a computer monitor.

So it is too with the world of hecklers. We now live in a world where you can create a fake account to troll any player for anything: A loss, an injury, their work ethic—it doesn't matter. Where's the honor in that? Today we pay tribute to those of you who went about your harassment in the right way: by going to a game, getting drunk, and telling a guy you fucked his mom to his face the back of his head. You maladjusted degenerates are the real MVP, not just guys pissing Kevin Durant off by making "the real MVP" memes. It's Trolling in Person: The Craziest Heckling Stories We Could Dig Up (Part One):

Note: There are a million stories involving the intersection of athletes, fans, alcohol and (sometimes) tasers. Not sure what that says about society, but it means that this is simply part one of (some yet-to-be determined amount). Unless of course nobody reads it. Then it's part one of one.

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

When: 2008-2011

Where: Los Angeles, Calif.

Donald Sterling has such a long history of being a terrible person that we did a list about it, it was called something creative....oh yeah! Donald Sterling's History as a Terrible Person. Outside of his casual dropping of n-words, and his failure to deliver on an eight-figure pledge to the homeless, Sterling also took it upon himself to heckle one of his own players, point guard Baron Davis. This is fairly light compared to his other misdeeds, but it still manages to be incredibly dickish at the same time. In addition to telling Davis he was "out of shape," questioning his shot selection, and asking why he was in the game, Sterling also called him a "bastard" and "the devil." This led to severe anxiety for Davis who said:

Eventually Sterling got his, and by that of course we mean two billion dollars. So it wasn't really a happy ending. Also it happened three years after Davis left.

When: 2001 (A.K.A. the year he set the single season home run record)

Where: Milwaukee, Wis.

Barry Bonds was the best player of his era when he was natural, on steroids he was the best player of all-time. Apparently when juicing he was so fucking good that he could simply hit home-runs at will. A mix of Wisconsin teens found that out by heckling him mercilessly when the Giants visited Milwaukee's Miller Park in April 2001. When a player for the Brewers tagged a bomb in the bottom of the fourth, the young hecklers (seated down the left field line) screamed "Top that, Bonds." At that moment the notoriously cranky legend turned, nodded, and seemingly accepted their challenge. In the next half-inning he hit a three-run homer in the exact same path, only 100+ feet farther. Then he walked back out to his position, and pointed at the spot as if to say "take that 15-year-olds." Anyway, the Brewers pitcher who served it up was Jimmy Haynes, who went on to lose 17 games that year, probably (in part) because his own fans were motivating the competition.

When: 1975

Where: Toronto, Ontario

In 1974, George Foreman was on top of the world. He was 40-0, and had fought off challenger after challenger (including Hall of Famers Ken Norton and Joe Frazier) to unify the heavyweight belts. Then he rumbled in the jungle with Muhammad Ali, and got knocked out in the eighth round to experience defeat for the first time. Unable to deal with that blemish, Foreman went into a deep funk and dealt with it with both grace and dignity. No....wait. He took it out by pounding five scrubs consecutively to reaffirm his status as a bonafide hard ass. Calling the fight sideshow was Howard Cosell, along with the man who beat him, Ali. Instead of being professional (assuming that was possible in this environment), Ali screamed advice to Foreman's opponents (skip to 10:08) and generally mocked Foreman, as if his dignity wasn't already on the ropes. Eventually Ali left early (with no warning or anything) because that's about the amount of respect the champ had for the spectacle. It's still unclear if he was even on assignment, or if he just showed up to scream at George.

When: 1912

Where: New York, N.Y.

Possibly the biggest jerk-off to ever put on (and then sharpen) a pair of cleats, Ty Cobb may've reached the summit of assholery when he entered the Polo Grounds crowd to beat a man (Claude Lueker) who had a sum total of two hands one hand and ten fingers two fingers. While it's often tactless to beat up a disabled person, Lueker was not entirely sympathetic, peppering Cobb with insults all day. The one that set Cobb off was being called a "half-n*****," because he was a racist, and that's the type of thing that would anger a racist. The resulting melee ended in a suspension for Cobb (the best player in the league, at the time), and a protest from his teammates. They refused to play, and their replacements were beaten as bad as.......oh I got it! as bad as Ty Cobb beating a disabled guy. This whole event led to the formation of the players union. And now you know the heartwarming origin of the MLBPA.

When: N/A

Where: Durham, N.C.

Call the Cameron Crazies "innovative," call them "passionate," call them "intense," it's up to you. But their willingness to go the extra mile for clever antagonisms of visiting players is what separates them from their contemporaries. It's also what makes them colossal dicks. If you're a student at Duke who knows nothing about basketball (but wants to be part of the tradition) simply show up, grab a cheat sheet, and in no time you should be just as grating and insufferable as a seasoned vet...

When: 2003

Where: Durham, N.C.

Meet Speedo Guy, a man whose short-lived burst of semi-fame came and went in 2003 when he temporarily became the craziest of Cameron Crazies and went Michael Phelps (plus 5,000 beers and no swimming) behind the backboard as UNC shot free-throws. Would you believe he went on to become the Pastor of his own church in Tennessee? You would if you watched the video above. You'd also know that he stole his brother's girlfriend and married her. Seems like there's an even more interesting story there, but they just sort of glossed over it.

When: 2009-2015

Where: Vancouver, British Columbia

If you scour YouTube comments (or twitter accounts where every tweet is @ someone) you likely come to the conclusion that acts of trolling are only perpetrated by irate loners who can be set off by even the most innocuous acts/statements/anything. The Green Men of Vancouver prove it's possible to annoy without the need to drunkenly tell a guy what part of your body he can suck. Unfortunately their greatest hits will have to suffice for now life as they announced they were retiring in 2015. Seeing as how the Canucks were eliminated in the first round, that makes us think they've finally hung up their full-bodied spandex for good. If you see a Canadian flag halfway down a pole, now you know why.

When: Unofficially 1987-2005

Where: New York, N.Y.

One thing professional athletes are astounding at is there ability to shrug off the jeers and taunts of total (often relentless) strangers whose vendetta stems only from the fact that they're on another team. If you haven't witnessed an athlete ignore a heckler in person, just search for it on YouTube. There's some remarkable patience being displayed. One of the few athletes that truly embraced his heckler was Reggie Miller, who seemed to save his best performances (the best performances of a Hall of Fame career, we might add) for Madison Square Garden and a courtside sitting Spike Lee. Embedded above is a 1994 Playoff performance where Reggie interacted with Spike after every field goal. You'd think a point could be made after, I don't know, the first one. But that's not how Reggie rolled that day. That of course came one year before Reggie's eight points in nine seconds display (another time when Spike had the best seat in the house from which to watch helplessly). We broke that down literally two days ago.

When: Started "wooing" in either 1958 or 1959.

Where: Chicago, Ill. (and sometimes Milwaukee)

When I was in college I walked into a McDonald's and my eardrums were immediately filled with the piercing screech of a human smoke alarm shouting over and over, when I turned the corner he was waiting in line in a full Cubs uniform, everybody there acted like it was normal. This was in late-November, everybody who knows anything about the Cubs knows they don't even play in October. If there's one video on this list you should click, make it the one above just to get a feel for the world's most obnoxious heckler human being. This is not an outlier, or an exception, this is his shtick. And everyone laughs and ignores him (including me, I didn't say shit) but in that man lies a soul who's lost control of his mouth and is trapped in the prison of his own head, tormented, with every day worse than the one before, pondering how the hell he could possibly convey distress anymore, and wondering why nobody ever stops and does something about it.

When: N/A

Where: NBA arenas nationwide (Mainly Washington D.C.)

You know you've made it as a heckler/terrible human being when you have your own Wikipedia entry, and that's an honor (suspect as it may be) that is held by Bullets/Wizards superfan Robin Ficker. Ficker has so many exploits that we probably could've done a countdown of his best. Isiah Thomas threw a shoe at him, former Jazz coach Frank Layden (a man who once won the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award) spit on him, and the Warriors once drenched him with Gatorade in unison. His prowess and reputation around the league made him the first (so far as we know) professional heckler when, in 1993, Charles Barkley flew Ficker to Phoenix to sit behind the Bulls bench and heckle Michael Jordan during the Finals. Ficker came loaded with props to mock MJ's just-coming-to-light gambling exploits, saying:

He was kicked out before the end of the first quarter.