The most exhausted pro athletes are…

Hockey comes in at No. 6 because I couldn’t find a lot of instances of players complaining about the workload. The closest I found was Penguins center Jeff Carter, saying 82 games feels like a lot coming off back-to-back COVID-shortened seasons.

“(82-games) was definitely different. After two years of shortened seasons, this one felt a lot different. I think at times throughout the second half, personally, it kind of caught you a little bit,” Carter said in May. “I think the coaches and the strength staff and all of them, they do a good job of managing. And I think they understood kind of how it was this year.”

Hockey players are conditioned to not complain about pain and play overtime hockey until the best team is left skating. I’d put it higher in this ranking if I thought it wouldn’t offend the entire NHL.

Bunch of guys missing teeth, avowing that they’re not tired, and that it doesn’t hurt at all. If they ever were willing to admit it, the NHL would be in the top three.

Baseball players tally the most games of any athlete on this countdown. At 162 contests per season, it’s crazy to think about appearing in every outing, let alone the 2,632 consecutive games that Cal Ripken Jr. showed up for. Pitchers and catchers were set to report on Feb. 15 prior to the lockout, and considering the 2021 World Series didn’t finish until Nov. 2, that’s a ton of baseball.

It may not be 11 months like another sport in this collection, but April to November is long enough that Anthony Rizzo harped on the duration of an MLB schedule. In 2018, the then-Cub lobbied for a later start to the year, with added doubleheaders to create more off days. He also mentioned the reluctant Chicago spring and its many forms — few of them conducive to a baseball game — as another reason. That’s fine, but when weather and two-a-days are part of your argument, you get the last spot on the list, which is odd for a sport with its own dog days. Yes, hitting a baseball is among the most difficult things to do, and injuries are abundant. Let’s not pretend like it’s physically exhausting for anyone outside of the pitcher or catcher, or that the dangerous nature of the game isn’t responsible for most of the injuries. Fatigue is responsible for many Tommy John surgeries, and so is the unnatural motion of pitching.

It seems like everything about baseball is too long — the games, the time between pitches, the extra innings, the season, the playoffs. The argument isn’t who plays the most games, it’s who’s the most exhausted. If Rizzo yearning for doubleheaders wasn’t reason enough to make baseball No. 5, members of the Red Sox getting in trouble for drinking beer and playing Xbox during games seals it.

I think commissioner Adam Silver genuinely cares about the game and how his tenure will be perceived. He’s extremely judicious, and takes stands when they don’t involve China. He’s even open to lopping off a portion of the schedule — but only if the revenue can be replaced by another form of competition. A midseason single-elimination tournament could take on the feel of soccer’s FA Cup with a proper reason to hold it and about a century’s worth of history.

Load management and an abundance of caution haven’t been able to guarantee the league’s stars are healthy for the postseason. Short of keeping the players in the packaging, there’s no way to guarantee the playoffs feature the complete set.

Players Association President CJ McCollum has said he’d be open to cutting down on regular season games “if it made sense for the masses, if it made sense for the players.” Shooting guard-turned analyst Richard Jefferson said reducing the number of games is “the epitome of coddling players,” which I’m assuming was followed by a story about how much elevation change was in his walk to school.

It’s commendable that the league has tried to ease player workload by reducing back-to-back games and other scheduling issues. In doing so though it was forced to push up the start of the season.

What’s been overlooked is the trend that Gregg Popovich started with healthy scratches, and that’s what the NBA desperately wants to avoid as regular season showcases are often missing a full roster of stars. The grind of 82 games is real, but at least the league is trending toward a reduction and has normalized DNP-rest.

In March, Naomi Osaka said the tennis season, which runs from January to November, is too long for her. She also said she’s the type of person who wants to play in little tournaments as possible, so there’s that. The caveat to that, as she pointed out, is players have to perform well in the appearances they do make to keep their ranking up. The better a player does, the more points they get, and the higher the ranking. Higher ranked players get better draws and easier paths to Grand Slams. Players also can skip qualifiers and make tournaments based off of ranking. They can get a wild card, too, which is more or less an invite at the discretion of the tournament organizers.

Osaka isn’t the only notable name to take umbrage with the length of the season. Rafael Nadal complained about it long ago, as did Andy Roddick when he was still on the tour. Nadal hasn’t said a lot about it recently, but he also hasn’t played a lot because he deals with injuries as a result of playing so much tennis.

Eleven months is a long season, and there’s nowhere to hide in an individual sport. While stars are going to be invited to Grand Slams regardless of their ranking — as this site noted, Wimbledon needs Serena more than Serene needs Wimbledon — the average pro tennis player has to grind out a ranking to avoid playing even more tennis. And though great players earn the right to play at tournaments of their choosing, it takes a shit ton of work to get there. I’m also not going to tell anyone on the circuit that their sport is easy to play.

A recent article on ESPN laid out just how much soccer the world’s best players are subjected to, and it’s predictably a massive amount. The English Premier League is 40 weeks long, and there’s also random cups, friendlies, and competitions. There’s only 52 weeks in a year, and when you factor in national team appearances or a run to the Champions League Final, it’s wildly impressive that more guys aren’t walking wounded.

All the flopping that goes on in the game doesn’t help their argument. It’s hard to sell the public of the toughness of a when he crumples after getting breathed on. True as it may be, players run more miles over the course of 90 minutes than a lot of people walk in a week. Managers will mete out off days on occasion, with perhaps some light substitute work, which is nice because there are few stoppages and no timeouts.

The James Harden tradition of playing oneself into shape isn’t an option because substitution limits make cardio a prerequisite. That’s why you don’t see a lot of out of shape soccer players. Before “futbol” guy gets upset and wants to argue how tough his brethren are, a few dangerous challenges don’t merit the ranking. Coming in at No. 2 is a result of the strain players put on knees, hammies, and lower bodies, as well as unrelenting waves of fixtures. Free soloing would win the most dangerous sport debate by a long way, which is why that’s not what this piece is about.

I’m looking at who needs a breather the most, and these insanely coordinated track and field athletes definitely could use a respite — and a more concrete offseason.

San Francisco tight end George Kittle recently said the NFL season should be extended. It wasn’t because he was advocating for more games, rather he wants an extra bye week to allow players to recuperate because the slate is now a minimum of 17 games and 21 if a team wants to make it to the promised land without landing the one seed.

I’m not sure where we are on how many car crashes are in an NFL game, but evoking collisions of steel and side lamp when it’s merely human flesh and helmet striking one another is wild to think about. Boxers fight one to three times a year for a reason, and that reason is getting beat to shit, even when you’re the guy delivering the beating, isn’t something the body can do repeatedly.

I reiterate that because 21 possible NFL games takes a physical toll other athletes on this list don’t have to withstand. In terms of everyday competition and length of season, it doesn’t compare to any of the sports on this list. That said, there’s a finite amount of football in the human body, and it’s been debated if people should even play the sport at all.

The governing body also hid the extent of damage that concussions do to the brain, and the NFL owners don’t give a fuck about player safety. If that was the case, and management looked out for its employees, the season would’ve been shortened, and they would’ve nixed a preseason game instead of replacing one with a regular season contest.

Nagging ailments happen over the course of a season in any pro league. The difference with football is players drag their bodies across the finish line with cortisone shots and ankle tape. It’s not a matter of if a player gets hurt, it’s a matter of how bad.