IthacaMatt
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As we come up on Sunday's World Cup Final, ESPN has written an article talking about how we can determine the "best ever" athlete in any sports. It's a daunting task, and it's hard to say that there is any one "right" answer.
The way they frame the article has its own logic. They talk about how, realistically speaking, you have to enough people in enough countries around the world playing the sport so that you have a big enough pool of contestants to justify "The Greatest" tag.
American football leaves out somebody like Tom Brady, despite his 7 Championships, because too few people play American football. Baseball and basketball are more international sports (along, arguably, with cricket, which is played by many more people than you realize all throughout the British Commonwealth).
So, let's look at Michael Jordan. Yes, he won a lot of titles, but not the most in his sport. How were his statistical performances? Did he out-perform others in his sport by margins anywhere near those like Messi, Ruth or Gretzky? The answer is no, he did not. Great player, very clutch, but only marginally better, statistically speaking, than those he played against - like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, etc., to say nothing of all-time great hoops players from other eras, although in the old days, basketball was not enough of a "world's game" for people like Wilt Chamberlain to make the cut.
They also point out in the article that the pool of potential basketball players requires a unique feature of DNA (height) that eliminates about 90% of the world's population from consideration as the "world's best athlete". So, how can you say a basketball player is truly the best athlete?
But the two sports with the largest number of people who play the sport are futbol (soccer) and athletics (running). And they are played throughout the world, by more people than any other sport. In fact, there are more countries represented by FIFA (soccer's governing body) than there are in the United Nations!
Traditionally, we've been told (at least in Olympic years ...) that the Olympic Decathlon champion is the "World's Greatest Athlete", since the range of strength, speed, skill and endurance is unique for individual athletes in the world of sports. It's a unique challenge, the decathlon, and many people in the world do participate in "athletics", as track & field is known throughout much of the world.
The article talks about "who's the greatest" in terms of by how much did they outperform their peers, which I think is probably one of the best and truest ways to measure such things. That has become the magic stat in baseball - "wins against replacement" - how many more or fewer games would a team win or lose if this player were replaced with a "league average" player at that position.
This article started out with the soccer debate - "who's the best (of our era) at soccer - Messi or Ronaldo". Statistically, while their goal tallies are about even, Messi otherwise out-performs Ronaldo (and everyone else in the World's Big 5 Leagues over the last decade-plus) by about the same differential as Bath Ruth out-homered the rest of the Major Leagues in 1920, which is to say "by a lot".
Then, they talk about how, even in futbol, it wasn't until the last 30 years or so that they best players in the world all competed, mostly in the European leagues, which have the highest concentration of the best players in the World by a wide margin. Pele didn't play against such high competition as Ronaldo and Messi.
But then, after Messi's dominance of the sport (when you take into account assists, dribbling, key passes) is like Gretzky's in hockey (all-time scoring leader, who also has more assists than the 2nd best guy has goals), but clearly not enough people play hockey, when you leave out the continents of Africa, Asia and South America. So it's hard to say he is the best athlete ever.
So, it comes down to Messi, and who is the best track athlete of all time? Their vote goes to Usain Bolt, who is the only man to win both the 100 and the 200 in THREE consecutive Olympics, and set World Records doing so back-to-back, and with his 100 record, it was a big margin over the previous record, although not quite "Bob Beamon Long Jump" shattering of a record.
So, who did ESPN pick as the "Best"? Here's a link to the article (behind the paywall, but available if you stream ESPN):
Why Lionel Messi is the best male athlete of all time
What do you think of their logic regarding the GOAT of GOATs?
The way they frame the article has its own logic. They talk about how, realistically speaking, you have to enough people in enough countries around the world playing the sport so that you have a big enough pool of contestants to justify "The Greatest" tag.
American football leaves out somebody like Tom Brady, despite his 7 Championships, because too few people play American football. Baseball and basketball are more international sports (along, arguably, with cricket, which is played by many more people than you realize all throughout the British Commonwealth).
So, let's look at Michael Jordan. Yes, he won a lot of titles, but not the most in his sport. How were his statistical performances? Did he out-perform others in his sport by margins anywhere near those like Messi, Ruth or Gretzky? The answer is no, he did not. Great player, very clutch, but only marginally better, statistically speaking, than those he played against - like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, etc., to say nothing of all-time great hoops players from other eras, although in the old days, basketball was not enough of a "world's game" for people like Wilt Chamberlain to make the cut.
They also point out in the article that the pool of potential basketball players requires a unique feature of DNA (height) that eliminates about 90% of the world's population from consideration as the "world's best athlete". So, how can you say a basketball player is truly the best athlete?
But the two sports with the largest number of people who play the sport are futbol (soccer) and athletics (running). And they are played throughout the world, by more people than any other sport. In fact, there are more countries represented by FIFA (soccer's governing body) than there are in the United Nations!
Traditionally, we've been told (at least in Olympic years ...) that the Olympic Decathlon champion is the "World's Greatest Athlete", since the range of strength, speed, skill and endurance is unique for individual athletes in the world of sports. It's a unique challenge, the decathlon, and many people in the world do participate in "athletics", as track & field is known throughout much of the world.
The article talks about "who's the greatest" in terms of by how much did they outperform their peers, which I think is probably one of the best and truest ways to measure such things. That has become the magic stat in baseball - "wins against replacement" - how many more or fewer games would a team win or lose if this player were replaced with a "league average" player at that position.
This article started out with the soccer debate - "who's the best (of our era) at soccer - Messi or Ronaldo". Statistically, while their goal tallies are about even, Messi otherwise out-performs Ronaldo (and everyone else in the World's Big 5 Leagues over the last decade-plus) by about the same differential as Bath Ruth out-homered the rest of the Major Leagues in 1920, which is to say "by a lot".
Then, they talk about how, even in futbol, it wasn't until the last 30 years or so that they best players in the world all competed, mostly in the European leagues, which have the highest concentration of the best players in the World by a wide margin. Pele didn't play against such high competition as Ronaldo and Messi.
But then, after Messi's dominance of the sport (when you take into account assists, dribbling, key passes) is like Gretzky's in hockey (all-time scoring leader, who also has more assists than the 2nd best guy has goals), but clearly not enough people play hockey, when you leave out the continents of Africa, Asia and South America. So it's hard to say he is the best athlete ever.
So, it comes down to Messi, and who is the best track athlete of all time? Their vote goes to Usain Bolt, who is the only man to win both the 100 and the 200 in THREE consecutive Olympics, and set World Records doing so back-to-back, and with his 100 record, it was a big margin over the previous record, although not quite "Bob Beamon Long Jump" shattering of a record.
So, who did ESPN pick as the "Best"? Here's a link to the article (behind the paywall, but available if you stream ESPN):
Why Lionel Messi is the best male athlete of all time
What do you think of their logic regarding the GOAT of GOATs?
