Undisputed G.O.A.T. Thread

[Frozen Gator]

Nicklaus and it's not even close. I'm not sure Tiger would even be second on the list.

Bobby Jones ???

 

[divits]

Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas. Food eating champ.........She also gets an honorable mention in the "Wind Breaking" category.

 

[LighthouseGator]

Cricket-- Don Bradman

He was better than Sachin Tendulkar? Then again, I'm biased as I get my cricket info from my Indian father-in-law.

EDIT: I did a quick google search and the few lists had Bradman 1 and Tendulkar 2 (though he apparently owns all the batting records). Learn something new every day.

 

[LighthouseGator]

Great post. The only players who I can think of that compare as far as dominance and all-around ability are concerned are Mays, Griffey, and Aaron.

The peak years Shaq had in LA was the most physically dominant I've ever seen a basketball player against his peers. LeBron is the closest, though he's been physically dominant over a longer period of time and more all-around ability.

GOAT though has to be Jordan IMO.

 

[Gatorbait25]

SP- close but I'm taking Koufax over Randy, Pedro , Maddux and Clemens .

RP- Smoltz by a mile . Though Hoffman had a great run

CF- Mays
SS- Cal
C- Bench

Broudeur in goal

 

[Captain Sasquatch]

The peak years Shaq had in LA was the most physically dominant I've ever seen a basketball player against his peers. LeBron is the closest, though he's been physically dominant over a longer period of time and more all-around ability.

GOAT though has to be Jordan IMO.

Shaq played for the Dodgers? I was talking about baseball.

 

[Okeechobee Joe]

It's easy to deal in present-ism. What's that? That's where you judge a historical figure on the basis of current political or social beliefs. The same goes for ball-players. The athletes of today are going to be superior just based on the fact that they are bigger, faster, stronger. If you go back and look at Babe Ruth you will see that no one was even close to him in home runs. There was a pretty good drop off to second place and even greater drop off once you get out of the top 5. Now I know that Ruth played in the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium with its short right field fence tailored made for the left hitting Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

There is something to be said for how an athlete captures the imagination, the aura, the mystique, or what ever you want to call it of a certain time and place. Babe Ruth did this for his time and place in a way few athletes were ever able to do. Babe Ruth was baseball. America was in love with baseball and America was in love with Babe Ruth.

 

[MJMGator]

QB: Tom Brady
WR: Randy Moss
B-Ball: Lebron James
Baseball: Chipper Jones
Boxing: Mike Tyson
MMA: Chuck Liddell

I knew you weren't over 25.

 

[Marine1]

If we're judging all-around talent, the best I ever saw on a baseball diamond were:

1) Mays
2) Clemente
3) Mantle

Yeah, Ruth was a successful pitcher, blah-blah-blah. He was also a fat chub who probably wouldn't do jack shyt around today's game. One guy who always gets under appreciated here is Mantle. Early in his career, he was probably the best all-around player in the game. Knee issues and alcoholism robbed him of what could have been an even better career than he had.

Another guy who probably deserves mention for all-around prowess is Jeter. How many guys did what he did year in and year out over that long a period? He was the definition of money. As time goes by, his name will probably start popping up in the discussion of best ever.

Clemente was hands down the best defensive outfielder to play the game.

My guys as well. Ted Williams may have been the best pure hitter to ever play the game. Lifetime .344 with 521 HR's which was interrupted by Marine Corps combat. Probably would have hit 700. But these 3 guys were 5 tool players who excelled at everything. Willie Mays was probably the best player I ever saw. Hank Aaron is obviously up there as well.

 

[T REX]

NFL - Brady
Baseball - Ruth
Hockey - Gretzky
NBA - MJ
Boxing - Ali

 

[T REX]

It's impossible to compare across eras so you look at dominance compared to peers.

On the minus side, Babe didn't have to face African or Latin American pitchers.

On the plus side, he played at a time when all the best athletes played baseball (except for a few that boxed), and a higher percentage of Americans played baseball. It was the only real professional sport you could make money at (again, other than boxing).

His numbers were so much better than everybody else's, they invented a word for it..."Ruthian". In 1926, Ruth hit 47 HR with a .372 batting average. The guy in 2nd place hit 19 HR. In 2016, the top HR hitter also hit 47. But the guy in 50th place hit 27. That's how much better Ruth was than everybody else in his era. In 1920 he broke his own HR record by hitting 54. The guy in 2nd place hit 19. That year, Ruth hit 284% more HR than the guy in 2nd place. That's why when your stats dwarf everybody else's, they call it ruthian.

Plus Ruth hit for average (career .342, STILL 10th best all-time) AND he was a solid pitcher before they made him an every day player (set a long-standing record for scoreless innings pitched in the WS).

So in my book, he's the baseball GOAT.


Alex.

Great post. Have you seen any of the advanced metrics on Ruth? Off the charts. His OPS+ and WAR are both the all-time highs in baseball. Crazy stuff. His WAR is an ungodly 186. OPS+ is 207...207. That means he was two times better than the average player during his playing years. He averaged that for his career. Insane.

 

[Zambo]

Jenna Jameson.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Forest Gump in ping pong

AND RUNNING.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Yeah, he turned it into a one-on-one garbage game where nobody knows how to pass...

Lol. How old are you? This is absoluty nutso.

Jordan had 5600 assists and was a perennial NBA all defense team. He played in a fvkking triangle offense, exactly the way Zen Phil wanted it played.

 

[t-gator]

I can't believe that chinese guy that won all those hot dog eating contest hasnt been mentioned. His run as champion was phenomenal. He's definitely on the Mount Rushmore of hot dog eaters.

 

[78]

Lol. How old are you? This is absoluty nutso.

Jordan had 5600 assists and was a perennial NBA all defense team. He played in a fvkking triangle offense, exactly the way Zen Phil wanted it played.

That's accurate. Early in his career, Jordan would typically come out of the gate shooting. I think he averaged something like 37 ppg in '87 and a ton of shots. But with the offense so one-sided, teams, esp the Pistons, learned how to defense the Bulls by bullying Jordan (hence the Jordan Rules) and forcing the other stiffs to beat them.

The triangle, or triple post, involved constant movement and lots of ball rotation in and around the hoop. Jackson challenged Jordan to buy in in order to win a championship, and he did. It was normal thereafter to see Jordan devoting himself early in games to getting the other guys involved in the scoring. He became the eraser, the guy the Bulls turned to when they fell behind or when the outcome was in doubt late. In other words, if he took over games, it was almost always in the fourth quarter.

That's not to say he didn't take a lot of shots. He did. And why not? He was the league's best scorer. But he wasn't nearly the ball hog that he was earlier in his career. It made him and the Bulls a lot better.

 

[t-gator]

There was absolutely zero reason for Jordan to pass the ball ever

 

[78]

My guys as well. Ted Williams may have been the best pure hitter to ever play the game. Lifetime .344 with 521 HR's which was interrupted by Marine Corps combat. Probably would have hit 700. But these 3 guys were 5 tool players who excelled at everything. Willie Mays was probably the best player I ever saw. Hank Aaron is obviously up there as well.

Williams was the best example of power and average the game ever saw.

 

[78]

There was absolutely zero reason for Jordan to pass the ball ever

I can think of at least three reasons.

Paxson
Hodges
Kerr

 

[Gatorbait25]

One hit wonders

Eric Gagne- Went from average, to one of the best relief seasons in MLB history and then fell of the face of the earth.

Brady Anderson- Slap hitter belts 40 homers one year.

Can't believe I left off Rivera from earlier. He definitely has the edge over Smoltzie.