Hart Surgery: The Most Dominant Athlete Ever
I have this friend. To say he is stubborn is to say that Bobby Brown is slightly unstable. This friend is a running enthusiast, and because of his appreciation for the endurance and stamina it takes to compete in sports that require those traits, he has developed an incredible passion for and devotion to Lance Armstrong.
Now, I am on the record as saying that Lance Armstrong is an amazing competitor, and watching him dissect his competition in the Tour de France is impressive, to say the least. I have stated my position on Lance’s superiority several times. Yet somehow I still end up getting constant phone calls from him, all of which follow some version of this script:
(Ring, ring)
Me: Hello?
Him: Did you see the Tour today?
Me: Yes.
Him: What Lance is doing is unprecedented. Will you finally admit that he is the single greatest athlete to ever walk the planet?
Me: I already told you he is great.
Him: Shut your pie hole. There has never been anyone as close to being a God-like figure than Lance.
Me: Yes, I agree he is amazing, and it’s awesome to watch him perform.
Him (ignoring my conformity): You are just an idiot. You have no idea what you are talking about. Lance may be the Messiah, finally bringing peace for all time to humanity.
Me: If I hang up the phone now, can you continue having this conversation without me?
And so on and so forth. I kid my friend of course, because though I do agree Armstrong is doing something never seen before in his sport, I can’t quite anoint him the status my friend wants to give him: Greatest Athlete of All-Time.
That is not an argument I care to undertake in this space, let alone anywhere else, but it did bring to mind another question that strikes me as very interesting. Part of my friend’s argument about Armstrong is that he is dominating his sport like no one else has ever done before (whether I agree with that or not I will get into in just a minute).
This does bring up an interesting question though, one which I will try to answer:
Who is the most dominant athlete in modern sports history?
Before I get into it, let me establish a few ground rules that may seem absurd if not downright offensive:
1. For the purposes of this column, I am going to define “modern sports” as “sports that mainstream people give a crap about” - i.e., if some wrestler I’ve never heard of consistently shattered his opponents vertebrae like so much bubble wrap back in the 60s, too bad. No one cares. If I had to include every great fencer or table tennis player in modern times, this column would go on forever and you would probably hunt me down for making you read about those sports in the first place. Hey, it hurts me too - I think I could be the world’s most dominant tetherball player, but I have yet to find a venue that allows me to prove it.
2. I am going to consider, for lack of a better term, a person’s “aura”. While cycling may not be considered a major sport, there is no denying Lance Armstrong has transcended his sport’s general appeal to create a space for himself in the collective conscience, regardless of how many people think a peleton is an Italian department store that sold multi-colored sweaters in the 80’s. Cycling may not be a big deal in America, but Armstrong definitely is and therefore will be included in the discussion.
3. I will not be considering any women’s sports, and before you call NOW, let me explain why. Women’s sports are still in their infancy. Look around the country and see how many professional leagues are still in their formative years (the WNBA, the now-defunct-but-could-be-restarted WUSA soccer league, and the coming-soon-to-a-theater-near-you Women’s Professional Softball League).
Women’s sports, on the whole, are still in their infancy - Title IX is only 33 years old - and the level of competition in most cases isn’t high enough yet to lend credibility to anyone’s numbers (though aside from Annika Sorenstam, I can’t think of a single woman who has dominated a mainstream sport. And while we are on the subject of Sorenstam, I realize she is making the LPGA her bitch, but in the last major the leaderboard was chock full o’ teens. Any sport that can be dominated by someone who can’t see R-rated movies doesn’t pass muster.).
Those are my ground rules. What follows is one humble columnist’s opinion, which you can feel free to disagree with if you like.
When reading this, keep in mind I am not trying to decide who was the best at their sport. Pete Sampras may be the best tennis player ever, but he only won two more majors than Roy Emerson (14-12), and he never won the French Open. His is a great resume for sure, but nothing groundbreaking.
Here are my top-five:
5. Michael Jordan
I debated whether or not to include Jordan on this list. On the one hand, are his accomplishments any better than what Russell did with the Celtics or Magic did with the Lakers? But on the other hand, Jordan did something that goes against accepted basketball logic. Namely, you can’t win a title without a dominant big man.
Think I’m wrong? Think of every NBA champagne-popper and name a team other than Jordan’s Bulls without an intimidating offensive or defensive presence (thought you had me with Detroit, didn’t you) roaming the middle.
When you factor in his incredible scoring, defense, and 6 postseason MVP awards, I think Jordan earns a place on the list. But no higher than this.
4. Lance Armstrong
Armstrong may be the most dominant athlete of the 21st century, and he is certainly the most dominant cyclist ever (if you buy that the Tour de France is the sport’s Holy Grail). But does his legacy stack up against other athletes?
Armstrong has now won seven Tours, which is both two more than anyone has ever won period and consecutively (Miguel Indurain also won five straight). That is impressive, to say the least. But it doesn’t blow away anything anyone else has ever done in the sport. If he won seven, and the next best person had won, say, three, I would be more impressed. But four other riders have won five Tours, which makes what Lance did amazing, but not inconceivable.
If Armstrong were to put off retirement and continue to win in France, then perhaps he would move up on this list.
3. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus (tie)
I started to only put Woods on this list, but at this point, I suppose you still have to consider Nicklaus the most dominant golfer ever. Nicklaus has won more Masters, PGA championships, and overall majors than anyone else, and (at least for now) by a wide margin. However, as Woods’ career continues, Nicklaus’ accomplishments begin to lose luster.
Watching Tiger at the British Open, I realized something. You can argue about who is the best golfer of all-time (Woods, Nicklaus, Hogan, etc.). You can even argue about who currently plays the best golf (Vijay Singh can certainly make a case for himself). But in my mind, there is one distinction that Woods holds over anyone in the history of the sport.
He is the best bad golfer ever.
As great as Tiger is, when any of his top competitors (Els, Goosen, Mickelson, etc) are playing their absolute best, none of them can be beaten. Neither can Woods. But what fills Woods’ trophy cabinet is not his ability to out-drive everyone; it’s his incredible ability to turn lemons into lemonade.
During the third round at St. Andrews, Tiger clearly wasn’t playing the same golf as in the first two rounds. He went into the gorse (Does anyone else hear that word and expect to see some combination of a goat and a horse?) twice, causing him to take a penalty each time. Yet he scrambled to make bogey and par on the two holes, and despite shaky ball-striking all day still got around the course under par.
Much has been made of Tiger’s re-formed swing, and maybe he was in a slump the last two years (at least in terms of winning events). But the poor shots Tiger made off the tee led to vast improvement in every single other facet of his game, and now that his drives have straightened out, the PGA Tour is in trouble. Again, it’s not his best golf that makes him Tiger, it’s his best worst.
But back to the main question - how does Tiger stack up on the dominance scale? Well, I’d say pretty high up there. Woods, at the age of 29, has not only already reached double digits in major titles, but more to question of dominance, already owns or shares the record for the lowest score in each of them. Yes, technology has definitely aided him, but that only cheapens it slightly - length is rarely the key to winning majors. No one thought anyone would ever challenge Nicklaus’s 18 professional majors, but the sky is still the limit for Tiger. Not that he will, but would you really be surprised if he gets to 30?
2. Babe Ruth
In 1920, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs. The next best player in the majors, George Sisler, hit 19. Shoot, only one other team in the AL hit more than Ruth. That, my friends, is domination. Ruth changed the way baseball was played, leading baseball away from the dead-ball era and into the modern version of the game.
What separates Ruth from the games’ other great sluggers like Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron was of course his ability to pitch just as brilliantly as he hit. Well, maybe not as brilliantly, as his hitting prowess got to be so great he had to be inserted into the lineup every day. But this is a guy who pitched the Red Sox to a World Series title in 1918 (why does that year ring a bell?) by winning two games, including a six-hit shutout in Game One. In fact, he has the second-lowest post-season ERA in history of pitchers with at least 30 IP, with a microscopic 0.87 average.
Ruth was a twenty-game winner twice in his career before becoming an outfielder, and might have been on a track towards the Hall of Fame on the mound had he not given it up. Interestingly enough, Ruth would pitch two games later in his career as a Yankee, tossing complete games once each in 1930 and 1933 - when he was 38!
Ruth’s domination extends beyond statistics, of course, as his teams won seven world titles during his career and made ten trips to the Fall Classic overall.
1. Wayne Gretzky
In defining a dominant athlete, there are three main questions to consider: 1) Did they win championships? 2) Did they play the game in a way that changed the sport? And 3) Did they set new standards, statistically?
With Gretzky, the answer to all three of those is an unqualified yes. His Oilers teams won four titles during the mid-80s, plus he led the LA Kings to the Cup Finals in 1991.
Gretzky blew the roof off of offensive hockey from the moment he entered the NHL. Gliding across the ice, darting in and out of traffic, finding teammates through the smallest of creases, he began putting up numbers unheard of in the history of hockey. He was a master at directing his team’s offense, setting up behind the net to flick passes at cutting teammates. It’s almost impossible to remember those high-flying times in today’s low-scoring age of neutral-zone trapping, but Gretzky had an effect similar to Ruth’s on baseball.
Gretzky’s 1981-82 season where he scored 212 points obliterated the old record of 164, set the year before by…himself. As a 19-year old. I could run off a million statistics about Gretzky, but all you need to know is that by the age of 20, he already owned every single-season goal, assist, and point total record in NHL history. To put that in perspective, imagine if Albert Pujols, batted .430 with 90 home runs and 220 RBIs in one season. Actually, given Gretzky’s physical stature, picture David Eckstein pulling that off.
Greztky’s accomplishments are so absurd in relation to his competition, it is hard to decide which are the most impressive. His nine MVP awards? The fact that he has more assists than anyone else even has points?
To me, the Great One is clearly the most dominant athlete of all time.
Gretzky had his jersey retired by the NHL when he hung up his skates. By comparison, the only baseball player with his jersey retired by every team is Jackie Robinson. I think that speaks to Gretzky’s significance in his sport.
Lance Armstrong is amazing, and his accomplishments have been noted for the record. But he pales in comparison to Gretzky.
Oh boy, I think I hear my phone ringing.
Tags: Babe Ruth, Jack Nicklaus, Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Tour de France, Wayne Gretzky
Share This Article
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comment On This Article
From The Gallery
Image Gallery Is Empty!
Website Poll
