lvnwrth
January 17, 2005 at 09:10PM View BBCode
Babe Didrickson Zaharias may be the best female athlete ever. That's an entirely supportable argument.
As for male athlete, perhaps Wilt Chamberlain. Maybe Bo Jackson when he was healthy. Maybe Jim Thorpe...who can say how his talents and abilities might translate, given modern training methods, etc.
DougB
January 17, 2005 at 09:19PM View BBCode
I'd put Babe as the best athlete ever. Consider this... In a track meet her AAU team once won a landslide victory winning 5 events. This was notable only in that her team only entered 5 of the events. There was also the small matter that she was the only member of the team. The fact that one person could easily win a team track meet over teams with 20+ athletes is pretty much the definition of dominance.
whiskybear
January 17, 2005 at 09:23PM View BBCode
Originally posted by kingjames0405
Michael Jordan
soon to be lebron james
I didn't know Michael Jordan was becoming LeBron. That's a pretty intriguing story-line---why isn't Stuart Scott all over this? DOUBLE-BOOYAH!
Yeah, I get hos. BOO-YAH!
lvnwrth
January 17, 2005 at 09:26PM View BBCode
Jordan may be the greatest basketball player ever, but don't know that that alone qualifies him as the best ahtlete ever. Same with James.
Re: Didrickson-Zaharias and the one-person track team.
Didn't Carlisle Indian School do pretty much the same thing with Jim Thorpe?
Lovechop
January 19, 2005 at 08:28AM View BBCode
My vote would have to go to the real "Babe" that is Babe Ruth.
He was a good pitcher and great hitter.
His Career ERA is 2.28 which is the 15th best all-time career ERA
He had a 94-46 record with 17 shutouts
For hitting stats he was a man among boys.
He hit 40 or more home runs 11 times during his career, few if any modern day steriod infested players can claim that achievement(not even Bonds). Between 1919-1921 he had over twice as many home runs then the second place player. I don't believe there was ever such a gap before or since.
If he would have been in shape and cut back on his vice's then who knows how good he could have been.
whiskybear
January 19, 2005 at 09:47AM View BBCode
Originally posted by Lovechop
My vote would have to go to the real "Babe" that is Babe Ruth.
He was a good pitcher and great hitter.
His Career ERA is 2.28 which is the 15th best all-time career ERA
He had a 94-46 record with 17 shutouts
For hitting stats he was a man among boys.
He hit 40 or more home runs 11 times during his career, few if any modern day steriod infested players can claim that achievement(not even Bonds). Between 1919-1921 he had over twice as many home runs then the second place player. I don't believe there was ever such a gap before or since.
If he would have been in shape and cut back on his vice's then who knows how good he could have been.
Babe was a great performer. You said so yourself: He wasn't much of an athlete.
anjo25
January 19, 2005 at 01:56PM View BBCode
the babe could do it all...he changed the national pasttime.
michael jordan. as a baseball player, of course.:lol:
kingjames0405
January 19, 2005 at 09:44PM View BBCode
Originally posted by whiskybear
Originally posted by kingjames0405
Michael Jordan
soon to be lebron james
I didn't know Michael Jordan was becoming LeBron. That's a pretty intriguing story-line---why isn't Stuart Scott all over this? DOUBLE-BOOYAH!
Yeah, I get hos. BOO-YAH!
acually i meant to say that the best athlete was soon to be LeBron butim not certain since hes only 2 years into his career
1tim412
January 20, 2005 at 05:34AM View BBCode
Ruben Sierra of course! Gosh! Flippin' idiots!
skierdude44
January 20, 2005 at 12:27PM View formatted
You are viewing the raw post code; this allows you to copy a message with BBCode formatting intact.
[quote][i]Originally posted by whiskybear[/i]
[quote][i]Originally posted by Lovechop[/i]
My vote would have to go to the real "Babe" that is Babe Ruth.
He was a good pitcher and great hitter.
His Career ERA is 2.28 which is the 15th best all-time career ERA
He had a 94-46 record with 17 shutouts
For hitting stats he was a man among boys.
Actually the Babe was not the out of shape figure that he is often depicted as until the very end of his career.
But anyway I'm going with YAZ on this one and I'm gonna say Lance Armstrong. How many times has he won the Tour de France in a row? Six times I think. And that is coming off of beating cancer. Not to mention that that is probably the most grueling task in sports and to dominate it after coming off a life threatening illness is very very impressive.
He hit 40 or more home runs 11 times during his career, few if any modern day steriod infested players can claim that achievement(not even Bonds). Between 1919-1921 he had over twice as many home runs then the second place player. I don't believe there was ever such a gap before or since.
[b]If he would have been in shape and cut back on his vice's[/b] then who knows how good he could have been. [/quote]
Babe was a great performer. You said so yourself: He wasn't much of an athlete. [/quote]
farfetched
January 20, 2005 at 04:00PM View BBCode
The best athlete? If we're joking, it's John Kruk.
If we're being serious? John Kruk.
If we're really being serious and not joking about being serious? Cal Ripken Jr. If you haven't noticed, I'm a stickler for longevity.
farfetched
January 20, 2005 at 06:56PM View BBCode
I didn't think you would, what with those beer goggles you've got on.
I'm beginning to think John Kruk just may be a little better than Ripken, though.
Railroad
January 21, 2005 at 01:37AM View BBCode
Jim Thorpe, winner in football, track, and played some baseball too.
Duff77
January 21, 2005 at 09:44AM View BBCode
This is an impossible question because different athletes have different skill sets--that's why they compete in different sports. So I'd probaby go with Thorpe because he was good at so many sports. Personally, I'd rather set the physical part aside and look at guys who revolutionized the idea of what sports is--who made it such a big deal. I'd probably look at Ruth on that one.
jetpac
January 25, 2005 at 09:19PM View BBCode
the Babe practicallt
re-invented the game
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