by Kevin Hench

Outta here

All of the major sports have at least one big-name quitter who quickly comes to mind. Check out the cream of the slop in our gallery..

Sarah Palin tried to make it clear she was not quitting on the people of Alaska. Quoting Gen. Douglas MacArthur, she said, "We're not retreating, we are advancing in another direction."

But here in the sandbox of the sports world, we know a quitter when we see one. We've had a lot of practice.

Sports quitters come in all shapes and sizes, from welterweight Roberto "No Mas" Duran to super-heavyweight John "No Airplanes" Madden. And just as the quitters vary, so does the quitting.

Some players merely quit on themselves. Others quit on their teams. A select few quit while they're on top.

Quitting on your teammates

There is no violation of the Athlete's Code as grave as quitting on your teammates. Whereas the boxer, tennis player or golfer is answerable only to himself, pro athletes in team sports are supposed to be committed to the other guys in the locker room.

But that hasn't stopped some very high-profile jocks from breaking this sacred bond. And a little quitting can go a long way to defining a career.

Scottie Pippen won six NBA titles and was a seven-time All-Star, but he was not on the court for what became the most memorable play of his career. After coach Phil Jackson called a play for rookie Toni Kukoc with the score tied and 1.8 seconds remaining in Game 3 of the 1994 Eastern Conference semifinals, Pippen infamously refused to enter the game, feeling he had been snubbed.

The regrettable moment set a new standard for athletic petulance and abandoning your team in its hour of need. Pippen would later apologize to his teammates, but he'll never be able to scrub his otherwise outstanding record of this one inglorious demerit. Of course Pippen never would have been put in that position if Michael Jordan hadn't quit the Bulls after the '93 season.

Scottie Pippen's infamous ego moment in 1994 make him an easy choice for this list. (Nathaniel S. Butler / Getty Images)

While Pippen quit on his team for 1.8 seconds, Ricky Williams bailed on the Dolphins for the entire 2004 season. Facing a four-game suspension for failing a second drug test after the 2003 season, Williams gave word a week before training camp opened that he would rather retire than serve his suspension and live under the scrutiny of NFL rules.

Williams would later reconsider, return, be suspended again, play in the CFL and return again, but his inability to put team over self was one big reason the Dolphins went 20-44 from '04-'07.

Sometimes the fact that your teammate has quit on you is not readily apparent. It might even take an MRI to prove it.

There were a lot of ugly moments leading up to Manny Ramirez's departure from the Boston Red Sox last year. He got into a dugout scrape with Kevin Youkilis. He shoved the team's 64-year-old traveling secretary to the ground. He repeatedly jogged out double-play grounders.

But the moment where the Red Sox clubhouse turned on him for good was when he ducked Joba Chamberlain, citing an imaginary knee injury. The team sent for an MRI that came back negative. The team couldn't count on Manny. He had quit on the Sox and was shipped out of town in short order.

If Manny's malingering was not always discernible, Terrell Owens made it perfectly clear that he was willing to destroy the 2005 Eagles — who had been to the Super Bowl the year before — in order to get a new contract. In training camp, T.O. got in a screaming match with then-assistant Brad Childress and refused to acknowledge his teammates, with the exception of when he would take shots at Donovan McNabb through the press.

The strategy worked. The Eagles went 6-10 and Owens got suspended and then released, free to go poison the Cowboys locker room.

Like most things you shouldn't do, quitting can be habit-forming. Ask Brett Favre. The king of quitting and un-quitting and re-quitting looks to have reached a new low with the way he's wormed his way out of New York in order to more directly act out his revenge fantasy on the Packers.

Quitting on yourself

Less offensive is the individual athlete who merely quits on himself.

By its very nature boxing breeds quitters, and no athletes have a better excuse for throwing in the towel. It's not a matter of being late on the fastball or getting run down from behind by a strong safety. Hanging on too long in a boxing career or a boxing match means risking permanent damage. That said, self-preservation is not exactly a respected attribute among boxing fans.

When Roberto Duran saved himself a protracted beating at the faster hands of Sugar Ray Leonard by calling it quits in the eighth round of their 1980 rematch, he went from "Hands of Stone" to "Heart of Glass."

While Duran's surrender may be the most notorious of all boxing capitulations, it was by no means the most bizarre. That honor belongs to Oliver McCall.

On Feb. 7, 1997, less than three years after handing Lennox Lewis the first loss of his career and becoming WBC heavyweight champ, McCall met Lewis in a rematch. In rounds four and five McCall not only refused to fight, he began to weep. Referee Mills Lane recalled, "I thought he was playing possum but then I saw his lips started to quiver and I thought, 'My God, is he losing it?'"

He sure was. Lane was forced to stop the fight.

The prospect of Lennox Lewis teeing off on your noggin could reduce anyone to tears, but only John Daly could be thrown into a tailspin at the prospect of a weekend of golf.

Of Daly's many hard-to-break habits, quitting mid-tournament may be his most pathetic. If things aren't going his way, Daly has been known to leave the course without telling his playing partner, toss his unsigned scorecard into the scorer's tent and hit his moving ball as it rolls back down to his feet.

John Daly is known for many reasons ... including quitting on himself. (Andrew Redington / Getty Images)

The wild ups and downs of Daly's career seem largely self-imposed by his lifestyle decisions. For Björn Borg, the decision to quit was largely imposed by John McEnroe.

After winning five straight Wimbledon titles from 1976-1980, Borg lost to McEnroe in 1981. Later that summer, he lost his second straight U.S. Open Final to McEnroe. He left the stadium without attending the awards ceremony and retired shortly thereafter at age 26.

Quitting on top

There are a handful of pro athletes who walked away at the peak of their powers, their legacies unblemished by a long, painful decline phase.

Sandy Koufax not only went out on top — winning his third Cy Young in four years in 1966 — he retired after the greatest four-year stretch in baseball history (97-27, 1.86 ERA, 1,228 K in 1,192.2 IP).

Jim Brown and Barry Sanders rank 1-2 in NFL history in yards per carry, in part because they never had that awful 3.7 yards per carry season after hanging on too long. Brown was 29 when he called it quits and headed to Hollywood. Sanders was 30 and one average season away from becoming the NFL's all-time leading rusher when he hung up his cleats.

They say quitters never win. But when it comes to the frequently debilitating game of football, sometimes the quitters are the biggest winners of all.