4. The 1986 New York Mets
It's a rare group of non-felons that can inspire a book titled The Bad Guys Won! A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo-chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, The Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform—and Maybe the Best. Dwight Gooden (drugs, booze) and Darryl Strawberry (drugs, booze, tax evasion, spousal assault) snorted away careers bound for immortality, and evidence suggests they were among the lesser offenders; Shea's clubhouse served as breeding ground for scumbags-in-training like Kevin Mitchell (reported father-puncher, possible unrepentant cat-killer) and Lenny Dykstra (massive reported steroid abuse, drunken car crash that seriously injured a teammate). As great as they were in 1986, the Mets should've been a dynasty.

3. Ty Cobb
Ty Cobb hated black people—that is, he really, really hated them. Apparently every black person in Detroit had it in for poor, sweet Ty, so he had to slash a hotel guard to bits (for which he paid a $100 fine) and hurl a chambermaid down the stairs for objecting to his use of a demeaning epithet. He routinely slid with his spikes groin-high and may or may not have been nudged into retirement following allegations of game-fixing. Hell, even his teammates hated him, tormenting him to the point at which he slept with a gun under his pillow and sought refuge in an asylum. See, kids—you don't have to indulge in illicit substances to be a scumbag. Just say no.

2. Babe Ruth
Watching YES Network's "Yankeeography," you'd think The Babe's greatest vice was warm, smiley kindness toward every child he met. Examine the historical record closer, however, and you'll find he was, in no particular order: a media hog, a whoremonger, a drunk, a slob, a greedy prick, and the poster boy for cardiovascular anti-fitness. He missed much of the 1925 season with a "stomach ache"—newspaper shorthand for syphilis—swung at umpires and hecklers alike, and rarely answered for his actions. We're trying to contrive a modern-day equivalent—maybe a combination of Mike Tyson and Jose Canseco, but with John Daly's ability to inhale 12 hot dogs in a sitting?

1. Billy Martin
As a player, he was considered one of the game's toughest middle infielders, one who made the most of his limited ability. As a human being, the reports aren't quite as glowing. There's a famous photo of Martin, mid-tussle, landing a knee to the groin of St. Louis' Clint Courtney. Later, as a manager, he beat up Twins hurler Dave Boswell and traveling secretary Howard Fox; alternately referred to Boston's Bill Lee as "the lady" and "the fag"; and drank, punched, and cursed his way out of something like 37 stints as Yankees manager, beating up a marshmallow salesman (!) in Minneapolis and barely surviving a beating at an Arlington strip club. To nobody's great surprise, he died in a car accident, stone drunk.