3

After Baseball, Babe Ruth Did A Vaudeville "Show"

Babe Ruth was legendary at almost everything he did. Almost. He had a fairly disastrous game in the 1926 World Series that brought his career to a halt, but Ruth didn't dwell on that low point for long. Instead, he embarked on a three-month tour on the Vaudeville circuit. Wow, who could have known that the Great Bambino was as talented a showman as he was an athlete?

Nobody. Because he wasn't.

Ruth's "shows" basically consisted of talking about baseball and signing autographs for kids, meaning those kids were technically performers, meaning he was technically in serious violation of child labor laws. He was arrested at a show in San Diego after failing to show work permits that allowed those kids to go onstage, though he was immediately released on bail and acquitted a few weeks later. Athlete scandals in the '20s sound downright quaint.

2

Morton Downey Jr. Pretended To Be Attacked By Nazis

If you've ever been thankful for the high-quality programming of Howard Stern and Jerry Springer, send a card to Morton Downey Jr. (No relation to Robert.) Downey is often credited as one of the great pioneers of "loudmouth" television, but as viewers grew bored with his "zip it" catchphrase and advertisers grew wary of hawking their products via dry-humping strippers, his ratings began to plummet.

1

Michael Phelps "Raced The Shark"

Michael Phelps has won a record 28 medals over his Olympic career. But recall that back in 2009, right after he first gained fame, sponsors dropped him en masse when we was caught on film hitting a bong like an Arizona State undergrad. Like that, Phelps' career path was on a downturn. Until that fateful day when he decided to race a shark ...

Discovery ChannelSort of. Kind of. But not really. At all.

Phelps had agreed to take part in Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week festivities by starring in a production called Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White. Hyped as a contest between man and beast off the coast of South Africa, Phelps would test his mettle in a 100-meter race against an apex predator. But it wasn't a side by side, breaststroke-for-your-life situation, like many had hoped, nor did the producers talk him into going ahead and jumping over the shark with a motorcycle. Instead, he faced off against a CGI replica of an outsized Carcharodon carcharias.

Discovery ChannelMaking it almost the least-real thing ever to run during Shark Week.

The internet, as it is wont to do, exploded in brief but furious indignation that they were denied a front-row seat to the horrible death of a master Olympian. But when all was said and done, Phelps did set yet another record. The show garnered more viewers than any other Shark Week production in history. Then he mostly did appearances on daytime talk shows to promote Colgate's "Every Drop Counts" environmental campaign. Which may have something to do with spilled bong water? We'll have to check.

Jordan Breeding also writes for Paste Magazine, the Twitter, himself, and wishes he had some fame to desperately cling to.

Sharks are at their best in blimp form and steered by humans, in case you had an incredible itch for one of your own.

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