The Greatest "Hurt All the Time" Athletes

Determining the top five athletes in the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL Hall of Fames with the most games missed due to injury is challenging due to limited comprehensive data on games missed specifically for injury across all four sports. Historical records, especially for older athletes, often lack precise injury-related absence counts, and the NBA doesn't use a formal injured reserve list like other leagues, complicating comparisons.

However, based on available information from the provided references and general knowledge of Hall of Fame athletes with notable injury histories, we’ve compiled a list of five athletes across these sports whose careers were significantly impacted by injuries, focusing on those inducted into their respective Hall of Fames.

The ranking is approximate, as exact game counts are often unavailable or inconsistent, and prioritizes those with well-documented injury-related absences.

Spoiler Alert: Kawhi Leonard isn’t on the list.

Gale Sayers (NFL, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Inducted 1977)

NFL (Running Back, Chicago Bears)

Sayers, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, had his career drastically shortened by knee injuries. He tore up his right knee in 1968, missing significant time, and after a brief comeback to win the NFL rushing title in 1969, a left knee injury in 1970 further limited him. He retired at age 28 after playing only two games in 1971. Sayers played just 68 career games, missing substantial portions of his seven-year career (potentially 40+ games based on a 14-game NFL season then). His injuries prevented him from reaching even greater statistical heights, yet his impact earned him Hall of Fame status.

Estimated Games Missed: Approximately 30–40 games (based on shortened seasons and early retirement due to knee injuries).

Cam Neely (NHL, Hockey Hall of Fame, Inducted 2005)

NHL (Right Wing, Boston Bruins)

Neely’s career was marred by a devastating knee injury from a check by Ulf Samuelsson in the 1991 playoffs. He played only 162 games over his final five seasons (1991–1996), averaging about 32 games per season when a full season was 80–84 games. This suggests he missed roughly 200–250 games due to injuries, particularly in his later years. Despite this, Neely’s dominance as a power forward (694 points in 726 games) secured his Hall of Fame induction.

Estimated Games Missed: Approximately 200–250 games (based on limited play in final five seasons).

Ken Griffey Jr. (MLB, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Inducted 2016)

MLB (Center Fielder, Seattle Mariners, Cincinnati Reds)

Griffey, one of baseball’s greatest, missed 260 of 486 games from 2002–2004 due to hamstring, calf, and other injuries while with the Reds. Across his 22-year career (2,671 games played), he likely missed around 300–400 games, factoring in seasons where he played fewer than 100 games (e.g., 53 in 2002, 70 in 2003, 83 in 2004). His 630 home runs and 10 Gold Gloves made him a first-ballot Hall of Famer despite these setbacks.

Estimated Games Missed: Approximately 300–400 games (based on 2002–2004 absences and partial seasons).

Mickey Mantle (MLB, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Inducted 1974)

MLB (Center Fielder, New York Yankees)

Mantle played his entire 18-year career with a torn ACL from 1951 and later dealt with shoulder injuries. He rarely played a full season, averaging about 120–130 games per year in an era with 154–162 game seasons. Estimating conservatively, he missed around 20–30 games per season, totaling roughly 300–400 games over his career (2,401 games played). His 536 home runs and status as the greatest switch-hitter cemented his Hall of Fame case.

Estimated Games Missed: Approximately 300–400 games (based on partial seasons and chronic injuries).

Patrick Ewing (NBA, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Inducted 2008)

NBA (Center, New York Knicks)

Ewing missed significant time due to injuries, particularly in his later years. A knee injury in 1999 caused him to miss the NBA Finals, and from 1997–2002, he missed about 250 games due to foot and other injuries (playing 26, 70, 71, 79, and 65 games in those seasons, compared to an 82-game schedule). His 1,039 games played over 17 seasons reflect durability early on, but injuries curtailed his prime. Ewing’s 11 All-Star appearances and Knicks legacy earned him Hall of Fame honors.

Estimated Games Missed: Approximately 250 games (based on late-career injury absences).

Notes and Caveats

• Data Limitations: Exact games missed due to injury are hard to pinpoint, especially for older players, as records often don’t differentiate between injury, rest, or other absences. Estimates are based on career games played, typical season lengths, and documented injury impacts from sources.

• Cross-Sport Comparisons: MLB’s 162-game season, NFL’s 14–17 game seasons (historically), NBA’s 82-game season, and NHL’s 80–84 game seasons make direct comparisons tricky. NFL players often miss fewer total games due to shorter seasons, while MLB and NHL players can accumulate higher missed-game counts.

• Other Candidates: Players like Steve Young (NFL, concussions, ~20–30 games missed), Kirby Puckett (MLB, glaucoma and jaw injury, ~200 games missed), and Bobby Orr (NHL, knee injuries, ~300 games missed) were considered but ranked lower due to less precise data or fewer documented absences compared to the top five.

• Sources: Estimates draw from references like Bleacher Report, Yardbarker, and Wikipedia, which highlight injury impacts on Hall of Famers.

This list reflects athletes with significant injury-related absences who still achieved Hall of Fame status due to their exceptional impact when healthy.

As a reminder, don’t expect to see Kawhi Leonard on this list in the future.

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With golf major season over and football still a month, we’ve added a history section to get through the dog days of summer.

Expect companion pieces to recently released documentaries and deep dives into military history, true crime, naval architecture, and beyond.

On the heels of two documentaries releasing on Netflix and HBO inside of a month earlier this year, we’ll open with Stockton Rush, a poor man’s Jeff Bezos, who led a failed submersible mission to the Titanic.

Failed, of course, is code for five people died, when Titan, the worst possible name for your home made built sub, imploded.

The CEO and co-founder of OceanGate was adamant about using carbon fiber for the Titan submersible's hull primarily because he believed it represented a technological innovation that would disrupt traditional deep-sea exploration.

His reasoning combined elements of cost-efficiency, weight reduction, marketing appeal, and a Silicon Valley-style mindset — but it also reflected a willingness to ignore established engineering norms.

Here are the main reasons behind his insistence:

Belief in Innovation and Disruption

Rush often framed himself as a visionary. He saw deep-sea exploration as stagnant, dominated by “old” engineering ideas and risk-averse culture. He wanted to "move fast and break things", borrowing from Silicon Valley's disruptive ethos.

He viewed the marine industry's reliance on titanium or steel as outdated and ripe for disruption.

Weight Savings

Carbon fiber is much lighter than titanium or steel, which Rush believed would:

• Reduce launch and recovery costs

• Make the sub easier to transport

• Allow more space or weight for passengers and equipment

This was attractive for commercial operations, especially since Titan was intended to carry paying passengers to the Titanic.

Cost Efficiency

While titanium is extremely strong and ideal for pressure hulls, it is also expensive and difficult to machine.

Rush claimed carbon fiber would:

• Be cheaper to acquire and build with

• Allow for custom hull design through winding processes

• Lower the cost barrier for future submersibles

However, this logic ignored the long-term risks and lifecycle costs of an unproven pressure hull material.

Marketing Appeal

Using carbon fiber allowed OceanGate to market the Titan as a cutting-edge, futuristic sub — something that could appeal to wealthy clients, investors, and media.

It helped create the image of OceanGate as an innovator, not just another undersea transport company.

Overconfidence and Risk Tolerance

Stockton Rush appeared to believe he could engineer around the risks. He had a background in aerospace engineering but was not a certified naval architect or deep-sea pressure vessel specialist.

Multiple industry veterans raised red flags — but Rush reportedly dismissed them, calling concerns “needlessly conservative” or rooted in bureaucratic thinking.

Avoiding Certification Bodies

Rush deliberately did not seek certification from organizations like DNV or ABS. He saw them as barriers to innovation, saying:

He believed OceanGate could self-regulate through internal monitoring systems — a belief tragically disproven.

Stockton Rush pushed for carbon fiber because he believed it was innovative, cheaper, lighter, and better suited for the commercial vision of OceanGate. But his disregard for material limitations, certification standards, and expert warnings ultimately led to the Titan’s catastrophic failure.

His story is often compared to that of the Challenger shuttle or Titanic itself — a case of ambition overriding caution in an environment where the cost of failure is absolute.

The Titan submersible likely would have been safer if it had not used a carbon fiber hull.

Material Properties: Carbon Fiber vs. Titanium

• Carbon Fiber: Strong in tension, weak in compression — especially over repeated pressure cycles. That’s a serious problem in deep-sea applications where the hull is constantly being compressed by thousands of pounds of pressure.

• Titanium (used in most deep-sea subs like Alvin and DSV Limiting Factor):

  • High strength

  • Great corrosion resistance

  • Handles cyclic compressive loads well

  • Proven in dozens of deep dives

Conclusion: Carbon fiber may be great for aircraft and sports cars, but it’s not ideal for deep-sea submersibles where the pressure is crushing and relentless.

Industry Standards Don’t Use Carbon Fiber for Pressure Hulls

• Traditional deep-sea submersibles like:

  • DSV Alvin

  • Triton Submarines

  • Shinkai 6500

• These all use titanium or steel pressure hulls because those materials have been tested over time and conform to certification standards from classification societies (e.g., DNV, ABS, Lloyd’s Register).

OceanGate's Titan sub was not certified by any recognized maritime safety organization, in part because of its use of carbon fiber.

The Titan's Design Had Known Concerns

• Engineers and deep-sea experts raised red flags for years, warning about potential delamination, microcracks, and failure in the carbon composite over repeated use.

• The carbon fiber and titanium end-cap created an interface between materials with different thermal expansion rates and stress tolerances — making the joint a potential failure point.

• The catastrophic implosion in June 2023 was widely believed to be caused by failure of the carbon fiber hull under extreme pressure.

Could a Metal Hull Have Prevented the Implosion?

Most likely, yes.

• Had OceanGate built the sub with a full titanium or steel hull, and followed certified design and testing standards, it likely would have avoided the sudden and fatal implosion.

• This doesn’t mean accidents can't happen with metal-hulled subs — but the risk would have been significantly lower and more predictable.

The Titan sub might have been safe — or at least much safer — if it had not used a carbon fiber hull. Deep-sea exploration pushes the limits of material science, and unconventional shortcuts in materials and certification can be deadly when you're under 6,000 psi of ocean pressure.

Watch

Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster (HBO)

Titan: The Oceangate Submersible Disaster (Netflix)