Most Annoying Major League Baseball Players Of All Time

Ah, baseball. America's national pastime. There's nothing quite like it—the crack of the bat, the smell of roasted peanuts, and the roar of the crowd. Let's face it: as great as the sport is, some baseball players are just really, really annoying. When you mix money, arrogance, and testosterone together, you either end up in a war or in center field at a Major League ballpark. Here's a look at the players we love to hate: the most annoying players in Major League Baseball history.

The smarmiest man to ever walk the face of the Earth, Alex Rodriguez just has one of those faces everyone wants to hit. It was already bad enough when he was just the consensus best player in the world. Back then, it seemed like his smugness, while infuriating, might actually be justified. Now, we know it was at least partially due to a regimen of dope that would make Snoop Dogg envious. That somehow makes his rote recital of canned platitudes even more infuriating. Yeah, nobody likes cheating jerks, but you know what we really hate? Cheating jerks who don't own up to it. Give me Jose Canseco any day; he might have been a fraud, but unlike Rodriguez, at least he didn't act like a fraud too.

Manny Ramirez was so consistently annoying over the course of his career that he even got a catchphrase specifically aimed at explaining why he was such a knob. "Manny being Manny" doesn't actually excuse his actions—it's just akin to a verbal eyeroll. What else are you going to do with a dude who seems completely oblivious to everything going on around him? Strangely enough, Ramirez would zone out when it benefited him most, leading some people (including yours truly) to believe that whole wide-eyed spaceman thing was mostly just an act he put on to get away with things other players would get suspended or cut for. He didn't quite get away with doping himself to the gills, of course. But that's just Manny being Manny, right?

Rickey Henderson is the kind of guy who likes to speak about himself in the third person—because when you're Rickey Henderson, personal pronouns just aren't good enough for you. Henderson isn't shy about telling everyone how great he is, such as the day when he eclipsed Lou Brock for the all-time base stealing record and humbly pronounced that he was "the greatest of all time." He is also notoriously selfish as a player, usually worrying more about padding his stats than winning the game. Rickey might be the greatest base stealer of all time, but Rickey is also arguably the greatest egotist of all time. He would undoubtedly agree.

All great players need at least a touch of arrogance about them, because you don't get to the top of your game without supreme self-confidence. And then there's Barry Bonds, who might have taken this idea just a little too far, as he apparently figured that the more arrogant he was, the better he'd play. Just as his home run total and his steroidal physique were wildly inflated beyond human norms, so was his incredible ego, the only difference being that The Cream and The Clear didn't cause his ego to shrivel up or cause bacne. His hometown San Francisco Giants fans still love him to the end, but that's basically the best argument in the world against the legalization of marijuana.

When teammate Jonathan Papelbon was caught on camera trying to choke Bryce Harper in the Washington Nationals dugout, baseball fans around the country had one question: why didn't Papelbon finish the job? At the age of just 23 years old, Harper is already considered by many to be the best player in the game today—and the sport's biggest jerk. His arrogance is legendary. Despite his undisputed skills on the field, he's probably best known for berating reporters with his signature line, "that's a clown question, bro." We're getting all choked up just thinking about the day he retires.

Given his history, I'd have to say that Pete Rose has one of the most ironic nicknames in baseball history. After all, "Charlie Hustle" didn't just spend his entire life hustling the game itself with shady backdoor deals and underhanded gambling schemes, his hustle on the field often fell into the category of "false hustle." Take the 1970 All-Star Game collision that effectively hurt Ray Fosse's career, which Rose claimed was just a hard-nosed, old school attempt to win the game. Fosse wasn't blocking the plate, and the throw hadn't arrived yet, but Rose saw a chance to take a cheap shot and act like a tough guy. He's also spent the last three decades trying to lie his way back into the game. Enjoy the view of the Hall of Fame from the visitor's parking lot, "Charlie."

This showboating dunce has been called out on the carpet numerous times by his manager, his teammates, his fans, the media, and pretty much everyone else you could name. It's hard to imagine anyone spending much time with Puig without wanting to give him a stern telling off. Like a lot of annoying players, Puig chalks up his obnoxious behavior to just how much he enjoys the game—he's just expressing his excitement and having fun, you guys! Because the thousands of other pro baseball players throughout history who didn't act like self-entitled chumps simply didn't love the game quite enough. As Bryce Harper would say: that's a clown excuse, bro.

An overbearing meathead who was tried on six charges of lying to Congress about being a roided-up cheater, Roger Clemens was widely loathed during his playing days by pretty much everyone, including his own hometown fans. He could probably blame the roids for two of his most famous on-field moments, namely throwing a bat at Mike Piazza during the 2000 World Series, and getting thrown out in the first inning of a must-win playoff game against Oakland for arguing balls and strikes while wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shoelaces. Maybe that's the actual source of his pulsing veins and throbbing anger. It wasn't steroids at all, it was just the side effect of a radioactive spill in the sewer he crawled out of. Now, if only Master Splinter could teach him some discipline.

Like Cap Anson, Ty Cobb was both a great player and a notorious racist. Anson, however, was able to get by because everyone liked him. Cobb, on the other hand, was widely loathed by pretty much everyone he ever met. A vicious, angry dude, Cobb was an equal opportunity hater, as he seemed to despise all of humanity equally. Famous for his willingness to throw down at the slightest provocation, Cobb was known to attack fans and intentionally injure opponents. He once engaged in an infamously bloody no-holds barred fistfight with an umpire after a disputed call. They don't make them like this anymore—and thank goodness for that.