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:
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Melo's Reward
20 Years is Too Soon
Hear Him Out
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?
10,000 Miles From Pittsburgh, Another Endorsement is Lost
Viral Tweets Never Die
Yuri Wright Doesn't Understand People Read This Stuff
Bottom Right Corner
Hulk Completely Skips the First Sentence
Mike Wallace Shakes His Head
You Know, In Hindsight College Wasn't So Bad
No Time For a Nap
Not Troy's Smoothest Pass
DeSean Jackson Can't be Bothered to Even Half-A** It
Copy and Paste, Part Two
Before Damian Lillard Was in the NBA, He Was a Troll
Apparently nobody was more let down by LeBron's performance in the 2011 Finals than Weber State standout Damian Lillard. A year later, Lillard was drafted by Portland with the sixth overall pick. Now they're contemporaries. If nothing else it's provided LeBron with the rare opportunity to take on one of his (many) Twitter trolls. When these tweets were finally unearthed, Lillard fessed up and apologized saying "Me and LeBron are cool. We've talked about that. And he knows that I respect him a lot. I'm a huge fan of his."
Ray Allen's Christmas Eve Gift
When Metaphors Go Wrong
Geology as Explained by a WNBA All-Star
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:
"I wanna apologize to anyone I may hurt or offended during this tragic time. I didnt realize that my words could be interpreted in the manner which they were people that knw me would tell u 1st hand im a very spiritual person and believe that everything, even disasters happen 4 a reason and that god will shouldnt be questioned. But this is a very sensistive subject at a very tragic time and I shouldnt even have given a reason for the choice of words I used. If youve lost respect for me thats totally fine but please dont let me or my words lose the respect of u the WNBA and what it stands for."