Who is the All-time Worst?

I believe this story first popped up in a 1976 book called Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst, and Most Unusual. This is one of many anecdotes from that book that will never die so long as there is an Internet. 

The story pops up because it's mostly true.  The simul took place on Aug. 27, 1977 (so it couldn't have been in a 1976 book - though it was, in fact, in a later book, "The Complete Chess Addict" by Fox and James).
More convincing is an original newspaper article (the banner and article are a composite):

An other article:

Chess plan backfired CARDIFF, N.J. (AP)
Joe Hayden's challenge to play chess with 180 people simultaneously backfired. Only 20 people showed up Saturday and to Hayden's surprise and dismay, 18 beat him. Hayden, 17, beat only ,his mother and a man who withdrew from the contest at a shopping center here. The youth was attempting to break a record listed in the Guinness Book of Records, his mother said. To make matters worse, the chess enthusiast was beaten in just a few moves by 7-year-old Stowell Fulton of Atlantic City, another young enthisiast. "It was hard for me to concentrate, playing all those people."  
—"Standard-Speaker," Hazleton, Pennsylvania,  August 30, 1977, p.13

I bet his mom threw the game. Moms will do that.

+1 to TyroLoco for resurrecting a five-year-old thread.

Joe Hayden would be about 57 now.  For almost 40 years he's had to wear this albatross around his neck.  I hope his life has been otherwise successful.

To me , its sad that someone with so little ability would even attempt a simul , what was he thinking ? !  

What was he drinking?

Oh, c'mon, the all-time worst HAS to be NN.  He's lost every game he played, so far as I can tell.

Not every game Rob:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?pid=12883&result=1st

Batgirl has an amazing record against NN. He should avoid the king's gambit;)

BG, was that the real, genuine NN, or just a cheap imitation?

Actually, it's 36 of them.

36?  That's a large family; they must be Catholic.

I ran a 10-board simul at the University of Kansas in the early 90s to raise interest in the chess club. But I was an A-player and only gave up one draw. It was fun but I can't imagine a noob trying to do it at all.

In 1910 Austrian Master Josef Krejcik gave a simultaneous exhibition on 25 boards and lost every single game.

And this thread was bumped...again!

Anyways, it seems that NN might be a better player than we initially thought:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=12883

23 wins and 16 draws

And a wonderful photograph of the extremely handsome NN:

I played a guy who opened with the e pawn and then only moved his queen afterward. 

It was a very short game.

Just looked Joe Hayden up, and apparently he's a realtor.