Advertisement

Where Bryan Price ranks among the best coach rants of all time

(Yahoo Sports)
(Yahoo Sports)

If we're rating coach rants for entertainment value, then Cincinnati Reds manager Bryan Price dropped an instant-classic Monday. We know the statistics well at this point: He uttered 77 F-bombs in just under six minutes, unleashing an angry tirade on Reds beat writers who he thought were hurting the team's chances with their reporting.

Now, we can debate the things that are wrong with Price's message somewhere else. In this post, we're looking at the straight-up entertainment value. Rants by coaches and managers are their own genre of sports entertainment — some are born of great frustration, some are intended for motivation and some are just a show. Many are vessels for profanities. The Wall Street Journal found that Price's had the second-highest profanity-per-second rate among classic coaching rants, so that's something to put on its Hall of Fame plaque.

[Yahoo Sports Fantasy Baseball: Sign up and join a league today!]

There's no question that Price's rant is an immediate all-time great, but the question is where it ranks among the others? Here's our list, it's plenty subjective, of course. You may notice (and object to) the exclusion of Herm Edwards' "You play to win the game." It was fun at the time, but in retrospect, it comes off as shtick.

If you're as angry about that as these coaches below, you're welcome to send over an e-mail with as many F-words as you like.

10. David Bennett (2009)
This one, from Coastal Carolina's football coach at the time, isn't profane, but it's so damn wacky and weird that it deserves be on a list like this. If for no other reason, to show us that there are other ways for be immortalized besides dropping dozens of F-bombs.

• • • 

9. Jim Calhoun (2009)
Most of the time when coaches explode at the media, they're the ones left to look like the bad guy. But watch as University of Connecticut's Jim Calhoun shows us how to tell a reporter to "shut up" and still not look like a horrible human being.

[Check out Big League Stew on Tumblr for even more baseball awesomeness.]

• • • 

8. Bryan Price (2015)
If you're just looking for a multitude of places to put the F-word in a sentence, Price's outburst is fantastic. But there are a few things that place it easily outside the top 5. It doesn't have a true repeatable quote that everyone will recite. And he never really raises and voice and rages.

• • • 

7. Jim Mora (2001)
We know this one for "Playoffs?!" but there's a lot more to it that people might forget besides that short sound byte. Ultimately, Mora wasn't attacking anybody but his own team, so this doesn't rank as high as some of the other famous coach rants despite its rather ubiquitous place in sports culture.

• • • 

6. Tommy Lasorda (1984)
Lasorda didn't always have Ric Flair-like swagger, but he did in this rant. After Kurt Bevacqua of the Padres called Lasorda a "fat little Italian," Lasorda unloaded. Note the limousine reference. This just needed a "Wooooo!" at the end and a Space Mountain nod. (WARNING: NSFW Language).

• • • 

5. Dennis Green (2006)
There are many glorious things about Green's rant — how he builds up his rage, the "they are who we thought they were" refrain — but all these years later, the best part of the video might be the pleasant "Thanks, Coach" right after he's done.

• • • 

4. Kevin Borseth (2008)
Borseth is maybe the least-known name on the list. He was the University of Michigan's women's basketball coach in 2008 and, if nothing else, he makes the best entrance of any angry coach. The rest of his rant is stellar too.

• • • 

3. Hal McRae (1993)
Other rants might be more quotable or have more bad words, but McRae makes the best use of props. He threw stuff. Lots of stuff. And he made a reporter bleed, so McRae is in elite company.

• • • 

2. Mike Gundy (2007)
He's a man and he's 40. Surely you know this one, it's an all-timer by the Oklahoma State football coach. As we said above, a great coach rant needs a repeatable catch phrase and Gundy has that down.

• • • 

1. Lee Elia (1983)
The former Chicago Cubs manager gave us the gold standard in coach rants. Not just because he dropped a number of words that will make grandmas blush, but because he went after the fans and the entire city. This one is like Joe DiMaggio's hit streak — a record that will probably never fall. (WARNING: NSFW Language).

 

More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:

- - - - - - -

Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!