Who's the best athlete in sports history?

[T.Horton]

i knew it when i came back in.

[jabsRstiff]

Are we talking athletic ability or who was the greatest performer in sports history? If it's the latter.....I think Michael Jordan played basketball and Wayne Gretzky played hockey better than anyone played other sports.

[squealpiggy]

Are we talking athletic ability or who was the greatest performer in sports history? If it's the latter.....I think Michael Jordan played basketball and Wayne Gretzky played hockey better than anyone played other sports.

Wrong. This is only true if you only consider North American sports. Don Bradman is the most dominant sportsman in history, with a lifetime test average of over 99 runs per innings.

[jabsRstiff]

Wrong. This is only true if you only consider North American sports. Don Bradman is the most dominant sportsman in history, with a lifetime test average of over 99 runs per innings.

I do only consider North American sports, so it is true......

[-jose-]

Roberto Clemente

[squealpiggy]

I do only consider North American sports, so it is true......

In that case you are basically dismissing about 90% of all sports on the basis of lack of familiarity and making declarations about the greatest athletes.

[jabsRstiff]

In that case you are basically dismissing about 90% of all sports on the basis of lack of familiarity and making declarations about the greatest athletes.

I guess you could say that, or you could say I'm making declarations about who/what really matters.

[DeadLikeMe]

Jim Thorpe.

[T.Horton]

Roberto Clemente

you can't compare him to Willie Mays. well maybe a little....

[squealpiggy]

I guess you could say that, or you could say I'm making declarations about who/what really matters.

Who or what really matters to a tiny percentage of the world's population. I'm willing to concede that basketball may come a distant third to football and cricket in world popularity but anywhere it even approaches mainstream popularity outside the US and Canada support is minuscule compared to soccer. As for hockey, it's huge, absolutely huge, in Canada. Population 36 million. Again it's not representative of sports in general to the degree that you can reasonably claim the Great One as being the greatest athlete in sports history.

Incidentally I've now seen Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretsky mentioned. Are people being influenced by this:



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