IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2021: Countdown begins with Stephen A. Smith, Adam Silver, Johnny Damon, and more luminaries

Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.” The IDIOT OF THE YEAR selections ahead were voted on by an expert team of Deadspin staffers, whose first round of balloting was thrown out after they’d unanimously picked themselves No. 1. With that conflict of interest loophole sewn up, the team tried again. This list is the product of that scrupulous process. The qualities considered included, but were not limited to: Volume/Wrongness Coefficient: Look, nobody cares if you’re wildly off the mark about everything in private. But please don’t shout about it on national television. Established Track Record of Idiocy: Has the candidate enjoyed sustained excellence in the field? Memorableness: There are many stupid things that happen each day, so time is the ultimate arbiter. If you forgot the person behind the idiocy, chances are it was not sufficiently resonant. Is It Trevor Bauer? If it is Trevor Bauer, they are an idiot. What follows is a vaguely depressing cross-section of athletics and culture. We invite you to laugh with us not out of spite, but because it’s the best defense mechanism one might hope to muster against the Lovecraftian nightmare that is sports. Missed our other gripping IDIOT OF THE YEAR installments so far? Here they are: December 21: December 22:  December 23: 50. Tim Peel source: Getty Images Hockey, perhaps more than any other sport, makes a big deal of “letting the players decide.” Except Tim Peel made it clear that they do the exact opposite of that. Because when refs are intentionally trying to balance penalties and power plays, that’s rigging the game. Peel is hardly an outlier, and any hockey fan of any passion level is familiar with the term, “make ‘em even call.” You know you’re getting a soft call against you after three straight power plays. Which is the exact opposite of the whole idea here. Again, the players “can decide” that one team should have a power play, because one of the players deciding is an uncoordinated clod who couldn’t keep up with Connor McDavid. They’ve decided that guy sucks and needs to sit. In Peel’s world, every player is the same, all an 85 on the EA meter, and things should just happen randomly. Except he’s said it out loud, so instead of just feeling and suspecting, now we know for sure. 49. Johnny Damon source: Getty Images Johnny Damon did, in fairness, beat us to the punch when he titled his autobiography Idiot. But that highbrow work was published more than a decade ago, and there’s been so much more to celebrate since then. Most notably this year was his drunken interaction with cops — and his subsequent DUI arrest — in central Florida. Oh, the gamut of stupidity that was run. The encounter, which was caught on glorious video, featured a clearly sauced Damon repeatedly telling arresting officers that “blue lives matter,” as if it were a magical password that could make his legal troubles disappear. Damon drunkenly opined that the traffic stop was politically motivated, as he was an ardent supporter of then-President Trump. (Again, the man’s autobiography is called Idiot.) Police reminded Damon that he was in the midst of a traffic stop — because he forgot — and assured him that the incident was not caused by his politics, but by his driving nearly four times over the blood-alcohol limit. This did not prevent his wife, Michelle Mangan-Damon, from trying to physically intercede in her husband’s arrest, earning herself a charge of battery on a law enforcement officer. They’re perfect for each other. 48. Kristi Noem source: Getty Images In case you forgot why South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was an honorable mention in our March IDIOT OF THE MONTH edition, she gave us a refresher on her odious politics just this week. Noem introduced a bill to bar transgender women and girls from participating in female sports. As always, those pretending to protect the sanctity of women’s sports don’t actually care about women’s sports, they’re just trying to further marginalize transgender people. That’s what made her an idiot in March, and it’s why she’s an idiot now. “Gov. Noem’s proposed legislation is clearly fueled by a fear and misunderstanding of transgender people in our state,” South Dakota ACLU leader Jett Jonelis said in response. 47. Kevin Mather source: Getty Images If you want to know why baseball is in a lockout right now, and why the players view the owners as basically the Uruk-hai, you don’t really need to go any further than former Mariners CEO Kevin Mather. He gave the game away in one speech to the rotary club. This, in itself, tells you plenty. Mather got caught complaining about the English language skills of various players, and bitching about paying a Japanese interpreter $75,000 a year. That’s how much these dickbags want to nickel and dime everything for an organization that’s worth a couple billion. For Mather, $75K is a nuisance. MLB owners find $75K on the kleenex when they blow their noses. Mather also let the cat out of the bag by saying that Jarred Kelenic and Logan Gilbert wouldn’t be called up until their service time would duck under the wire to stay under team control for another year. Or how they viewed Kyle Seager, one of the few players worth a shit on the Ms for the past few years while they swan dived into the muck on purpose, as “overpaid.” Mather made it clear just how callously executives view players, how they’re viewed as just assets. At the heart of this lockout, that’s what everything is really about. Except Mather isn’t part of it anymore. Thanks to yelling the quiet part loud, he’s out on his ass. 46. Kevin “KFC” Clancy All’s well that ends well now that Tiger Woods is alive, relatively healthy, and back on the course, so this one could have ended a lot worse for Barstool personality Kevin Clancy, aka KFC. After Woods’ severe car crash in February, Clancy took to Twitter to tell everyone that it was a “hoax” — and when the LA County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the details of the accident, he actually doubled down and said that they were lying, too! Not really much of a reason to lie about something like this, and putting that flaming hot take out for the world to see earns him a spot on our Idiots list this year. Disappointing? Sure. Shocking? Not at all. 45. Zach Plesac source: Getty Images Don’t assume Zach Plesac has gotten any smarter after landing at No. 10 on our 2020 Idiots list — the Cleveland pitcher comes in at No. 45 this year. He’s still a colossal idiot, it’s just a sign of how incredibly dumb the world is. Having broken COVID protocol to hit the Chicago bar scene last summer, getting himself sent home from Cleveland’s road trip as a result, this year Plesac found himself in a much more timeless situation of idiocy, injuring himself by, as manager Terry Francona described it, “rather aggressively ripping off his shirt.” In the course of his rage-filled disrobing, Plesac caught his thumb on a locker room chair and broke it — the thumb, not the chair. The injury cost him the entire month of June and, really, his season. Because when you break the thumb on your throwing hand, that’s the kind of thing that can mess up your pitching. After returning in July, Plesac made 15 starts and pitched to a 5.04 ERA, serving up 14 home runs in 84 innings. He avoided surgery, but could not duck a second consecutive appearance among Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR titans. 44. Matt Rowan Matt Rowan is no household name, but he certainly made his impact in the idiocy sphere at a girls’ high school basketball game in Norman, Oklahoma. Perhaps he thought that since he’s so irrelevant and that this occurred back in March, the world has forgotten about his idiocy. We’re here to remind you. After seeing a high school team kneel at the playing of the national anthem, Rowan said the following into a hot mic: “They’re kneeling? Fucking n——-s. I hope Norman gets their ass kicked. Fuck them. I hope they lose. C’mon, Midwest City. They’re gonna kneel like that? Hell no.” And wouldn’t you believe it — his excuse and “apology” actually somehow made the situation worse. In a statement, Rowan actually blamed the racist statement on none other than his Type 1 diabetes. His blood sugar was spiking, he said, which…caused him to say the N-word? He also made sure to let us know in the statement that he was a Baptist, a former youth pastor, and a “family man.” Well, Matt, you’re also a racist. Congrats on making Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR rankings in spite of your complete irrelevancy. And your Type 1 diabetes. 43. Bradley Beal source: Getty Images It could be that Bradley Beal walked back his comments on the COVID-19 vaccine — “I’m still considering getting the vaccine. … I’m not sitting up here advocating or campaigning that ‘no, you should not get that vaccine!’” — or that we don’t blame athletes for things their wives tweet (“Yalllll go right ahead and play around with that vaccine if you want to”) or that people simply like him more than his non-vaccinated NBA brethren, or that he managed to claw back a point or two by publicly disavowing the support he received from Ted Cruz, but Beal should probably be higher on this list. Oh well. Only coming in at No. 43 can be his consolation prize for the gold medal he missed out on. All because he didn’t want to mess around with the vaccine, then got the COVID and couldn’t go to Tokyo. 42. Adam Silver source: Getty Images Technically, Adam Silver isn’t an idiot. The dude is way too smart for that. He has degrees from Duke and the University of Chicago. However, his decisions over the past two years have been hella head-scratching. We’re still wondering why the NBA had to have an All-Star game last season without fans in the middle of a condensed schedule. But, the reason he’s on this list is because it’s evident that the pandemic has him in a blender and he’s in over his head. After guiding the NBA between the Bubble and a season full of mandates that included no fans, or only the vaccinated ones, Silver looked like the man. Especially after he said, “As Dr. Fauci says, the virus will decide,” in October of 2020. But that was then, and this is now. Reports have since emerged that the NBA might not have run the Bubble to the level of perfection they’d let on. And right now, the league is ground to a halt with dozens of players — and counting — have been in the health and safety protocols this season, as well as the postponement of multiple NBA and G League games. Two teams, the Bulls and Nets, combined for 20 players out in December. There are analytics teams for that stat, too. They’re called epidemiologists. Whatcha gonna do, Adam? 41. Stephen A. Smith source: Getty Images The MLB not knowing how to market its star players (see Trout, Mike) is nothing new, so Shohei Ohtani not being more of an international sensation than he already is isn’t because he doesn’t speak English, as Stephen A. Smith so matter-of-factly said shortly before putting his Oxford in his mouth. He’s not a bigger star, because apparently people are still demanding athletes learn the local language. and the crack team over at MLB marketing still thinks Wheaties boxes are the best way to build a following. Come like two steps further, read the translator’s subtitles, learn someone else’s culture, watch the highlights, anything but go on First Take and yell “SPEAK ANG-LISH!” Relatedodds calculationsparlay oddsmoneyline calculationshalf point odds calculatorkelly forumula calculatorhedge betting calculatorbetting against the spreadover points bettingwhat is a parlay in sports bettinground robin in bettingev sports bettingwhats hedge betting