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Gorgeous. Rich. Totally Insane: Crazy Women And The Jocks Who Love ‘Em.
By Jay Busbee | June 11, 2007
[UPDATE: There’s now a sequel post! Read through this and click on through for more craziness!]
Major League Baseball makes you wait five years after retirement for induction into its Hall of Fame. But when you’re talking Athletes’ Lunatic Ladies, immortality’s only a six-pack and a Saturday night away.
Pro sports is rife with tales of unbelievably hot chicks going totally batshit crazy in fits of jealousy or rage. It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg question: did the money and fame send these women over the edge, or — if things had broken a bit differently — would they be taking a steak knife to a boyfriend who’s a night manager at Applebee’s?
We’ll leave that kind of speculation for the 2am stoned dorm conversation, and stick with the facts, naming the Pantheon of lunatic chicks that Mrs. John Daly has just joined. We’ll start small, with the ladies who stood up a little too enthusiastically for their men, and work our way up to the Big Fiery Explodo Finish. Ladies, please pass through the metal detectors en route to the stage, and note the large ALLEGEDLY banner that hangs over all:
10. Christina Fernandez Rice: Griped about her husband Glen’s lack of playing time in the 2000 NBA Finals. Glen himself stayed quiet about the whole matter, but his scoring that season was doubtless hampered by the fact that he said nothing but ”shutupshutupshutUP” through clenched teeth for weeks.
9. Brenda Warner (right): See above. Had her own radio show, and used it to call out the Rams for not playing her husband more. The Rams decided to sack the ex-bag boy (ha!), at least in part because of the headaches his wife caused…which, as you’ll see, is something of a recurring theme on this list.
8. Tami Anderson: After she divorced point guard extraordinaire Kenny Anderson, she drove around in a Hummer with the license plate HIS CASH. Why didn’t she just pull a Phil Leotardo on the poor bastard and be done with it?
7. Janet Jones: Nearly tanked her husband Wayne Gretzky’s career by allegedly participating in an underground gambling 
ring. (Allegations that she wore a tie bandanna around her head and shouted “Di di mau!” during Russian roulette games remain unproven.) Still claims to be an ’80s movie star, though no one alive can recall seeing her in any flick ever.
6. Anna Benson (right): Another hottie who took the “we had to burn the village to save it” approach with her husband Kris, hectoring the Mets enough that they dealt him to Baltimore to get rid of her yappy-but-fine ass. Threatened to sleep with the entire Mets team, including grounds crew, if Kris ever strayed from his vows (though we bet she’d call out the name of her website in the throes of passion). Knowingly ironic — her self-proclaimed theme song is Kanye’s “Gold Digger” — she simultaneously celebrates, subverts, and embodies the sacred feminine as…aw, just quit teasing and show us your rack, willya, Anna?
5. Tawny Kitaen (right): Gets a free pass from male juries for everything up to and including murder thanks to her Jaguar-hood gymnastics from the Whitesnake days. Tested the bounds of that theory by allegedly kicking the ass of husband/pitcher Chuck Finley. Of such crime reports are teen fantasies made.
4. Joumanna Kidd: The ultimate in psychotic XGFs, she’s threatened to rain hellfire down on Jason Kidd and the Nets organization. (Of course, if Kidd is half the skeeve she portrays him as, she may have a point.)
3. Jackie Christie (right): Even Caligula didn’t cut off a guy’s goods this efficiently. Followed her husband, onetime NBA star Doug, on road trips, forced him to wave to her on pretty much every possession down the court, and call
ed their marital bliss “tulumptuous,” whatever the hell that means. After finally leaving the NBA behind, Christie now comes off the bench for the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA.
2. Sherrie Daly: Did what John hasn’t been able to do for years now: made the cut. [UPDATE: Ms. Daly’s spot in the Pantheon is now under review.]
1. Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopes: She’s passed on now, which is sad. But she set the all-time standard for crazy girlfriend behavior when she torched former Falcon receiver Andre Rison’s house in 1994. People laughed when he took her back, but damn, you don’t want that kind of lunacy out wandering loose, now do you?
Also receiving votes: Mia Hamm, derided as the “Yoko who broke up the Red Sox” (only until the 2004 World Series; now everybody’s pretty cool with it all); Christine Donovan, who may or may not have forced her husband Billy to make a complete and utter ass and permanent joke of himself; and the unnamed wife of the unnamed Chicago athlete who may or may not have had sex with multiple teammates of said athlete, forcing him to retire and then return several years later. (Our lawyer advised us to keep proper names out of that one.)
Okay, that’s that. Anybody we forgot? We’re going to keep this post away from Ms. SGS lest she begin getting ideas.
[By the way, newcomers to SGS — welcome. Bookmark us, add us to your favorite places, grab the RSS feed above, check out the Best Of SGS there to the right. Don’t be a stranger after this post.]
[Check out Part Two of what’s turning into a full Crazy Sports Wives miniseries by clicking here.]
Topics: Divas, Best of SGS |
June 11th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Clearly you are not educated in the later Police Academy movies. Like the one that played on HBO Comedy a couple weeks ago. She was the second billing in the program description from my digital cable provider, which made me say, “Wait, isn’t that Wayne Gretzky’s wife with the gambling problem?”
June 11th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Get out. Really? I tapped out of the Police Academy movies after #4. After the seventeenth time the noise-maker guy made machine-gun sounds into a bullhorn and everybody scattered, I started thinking, “Why…it’s almost as if they’re out of ideas!”
June 12th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Bravo, Jay, bravo. Great list. Although I’d have Tawny Kitaen a little higher. She did attack Chuck Finley with a shoe.
Take a minute to look up Cecil Fielders’s wife, she might make the list. They lived in my hometown for bit and she was a character. The divorce papers say “hitting him with a broomstick, stabbing him in the side with a fork, threatening to get a gun and shoot him”. And she was a pillar of the community as well, if I remember right.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Jay,
Janet Jones was the female lead in The Flamingo Kid starring Matt Dillon back in the mid 80s. She also had a part in the film version of A Chorus Line.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Yeah, I did remember the Flamingo Kid one, but I kind of wish I didn’t…so I tried to scrub it from my mind, much like the lyrics to the theme song to “Alice.” No luck…stuff like “There’s a new girl in town and she’s LOOK-IN’ GOOD!” will be with me till I die.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Don’t forget Antonio Davis’ wife. She has had a few altercations in arenas.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:10 am
[…] SportsgoneSouth gives us: Gorgeous. Rich. Totally Insane: Crazy Women And The Jocks Who Love ‘Em. [SFW] Pro sports is rife with tales of unbelievably hot chicks going totally batshit crazy in fits of jealousy or rage. It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg question: did the money and fame send these women over the edge, or — if things had broken a bit differently — would they be taking a steak knife to a boyfriend who’s a night manager at Applebee’s? […]
June 12th, 2007 at 10:18 am
JD–That’s right, completely forgot about her. Between her and Mrs. Fielder, we’ll need a supplemental post.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Janet Jones was in that real bad gymnastics movie….can’t remember the name of it. She looked good in her outfit, although they had a ’stunt’ doing the ’stunts’.
I agree, Tawny could be a little higher, but there’s no doubt about #1 !
And good ’subliminal message’ about the ‘Ryne-ette’ , for that could certainly be another addition to this list…..
June 12th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Two misses here, but an otherwise solid list. #1 - Antonio Davis’ psychopath of a wife, Kendra.
http://deadspin.com/sports/nba/kendra-davis-unsafe-at-any-speed-152527.php
Chris Pronger’s uppity wife Lauren, who forced the Oilers to trade him because the city of Edmonton wasn’t up to her living standards.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=2499755
June 12th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Please someone clue me in to who the unnamed wife of unnamed chicago athlete who was banging his teammates is? My only guess is Jordan based upon the retirement and come back.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Michael Strahan’s wife accused him of being gay, then sold all his stuff at a yard sale. A Giants fan that bought a TV from her remarked that “now I can watch Strahan on his own TV.” Poor Michael
June 12th, 2007 at 11:30 am
How about Robin Givens getting Mike Tyson to admit on national television that he hit her and then filing for divorce a few weeks later. One of the best set ups of all time.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Could it be Sammy Sosa’s wife?
June 12th, 2007 at 11:36 am
that bad gymnastic movies Janet Jones was in was called American Anthem…costarring Mitch Gaylord
June 12th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Am not familiar with the unnamed chicago athlete story/rumor. Can I find this on the web somewhere? I’m going to look. I’ll be back and lay it on you if I find it.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Ryan Sandberg is the unnamed chicago athlete. His wife f*&ked everyone on the Cubs.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
the mystery chicago athlete wore number 23 and had it retired. he’s not jordan. he hates dave martinez. he’s a hall of famer. he’s my childhood idol and i therefore hate his whorish ex and dave martinez. and maybe rafael palmeiro.
June 12th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Craig Hodges’, former Bulls player, wife one-upped even Lisa Left-eye Lopez, instead of trying to burn down his house, she tried setting him on fire. That’s #1 in my book.
June 12th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
If you doubt the Craig Hodges’ wife story, here is a link to the article.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1DB103BF933A15751C1A967958260
June 12th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Mystery athlete is R–e S——g.
And it’s why the Cubs traded future ‘roider Raffy away…
June 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Don’t forget former Panthers’ RB Fred Lane’s wife who killed him. (http://espn.go.com/nfl/news/2000/0822/699183.html)
June 12th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
That settles it. We absolutely need a second round of this post.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Should we blame the wife of the mystery athlete or Mr. Palmiero, who was also rumored to have slept with teammates’ wives in Texas and Baltimore (Mrs. Bobby Witt and the wife of a certain Orioles Hall of Fame shortstop)? Ironic in that he eventually did ads for Viagra.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
What about the two wives who swapped husbands on the yankees in the early 80’s. Dennis Eckersley’s wife left him for his best friend & teammate. Warren Moon’s wife hit him with a frying pan & the kids called the cops on her. Jose Canseco had two crazy ones, the first that wanted to wear a red dress in the world series against the reds & the second who posed in playboy & wrote a tell-all book (including that his testicles were like little marbles).
June 12th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
How did Kenny Anderson marry that idiot from the Real World. It was so obvious she was a gold digger.
June 12th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Now this may be too old for many of you, but how about Spider Sabich and Claudine Longet? I expect if you dig through more than a few decades, there is enough to fill a book.
June 12th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Mark, fill us in. Who were they?
June 12th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Mark has a great idea for a book - crazy sports wives since 1900.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Vladimir “Spider” Sabich was an Olympic and professional skiier back in the late ’60s/early ’70s. He was “accidentally” shot (in the back as he toweled off after a shower) by his girlfriend Claudine Longet, a sometime singer, dancer, and ex-wife of Andy Williams. She got away with a verdict of “negligent homicide” and only had to spend 30 days in jail.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:01 am
Come on! What about Nick Harper’s wife stabbing him in the knee a few days before the Pittsburg - Indy playoff game in January 2006! …and he couldn’t juke Big Ben on the fumble recovery to get into the end zone b/c of it!
June 13th, 2007 at 8:30 am
The Yankees were Fritz Peterson and Stan Bahnsen.
One of the swaps worked and one didn’t. Where are they now?
June 13th, 2007 at 8:36 am
How about Rod Brind’Amour’s wife? Apparently the reason he was traded to the Hurricanes was because she was fooling around with Eric Lindros. This messed the Flyers up pretty badly, and was rumored to lead to the huge falling out between Clarke and Lindros a year later.
June 13th, 2007 at 9:15 am
How about the nutty wife of former ‘Skins owner Jack Kent Cooke? I know it’s a one-off, but I recall her driving through Georgetown with an illicit lover hanging onto the hood of her Jaguar.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:11 am
That was so awesome.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
There was a similar menage a trois involving the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late 1980s…Al Iafrate’s wife left him for a teammate…can’t recall which one it was….in the days before the internet this stuff was easier to keep under wraps….
June 13th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
[…] Sports Gone South.com recently ranked the 10 most insane wives/girlfriends in sports. The list is freaking hilarious and includes some real winners like Brenda Warner, Joumanna “my kid’s got a forehead like a drive in movie theater” Kidd and Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopez. […]
June 15th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
The Yanks involved in the family…not just wife…swap were Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich and it happened in 1973 not in the 80’s.