Top 10 Athletes of All Time: According to MSN

[SabresRule]

I would move Michael Phelps in the top 3 above Tiger Woods.

Phelps ahead of Gretzky?? I can't accept that possibility.

 

[jwfgeol]

Perhaps Roger Federer should be on this list even with his most recent loses to Rafa. There have been 21 grand slams since 2003 Wimbledon. He has played in 16 of the 21 finals and has won 12 grand slam championships.

 

[BillD1984]

Perhaps Roger Federer should be on this list even with his most recent loses to Rafa. There have been 21 grand slams since 2003 Wimbledon. He has played in 16 of the 21 finals and has won 12 grand slam championships.

Great point! You could make an arguement for Pete Sampras as well, although I'd choice Federer first.

 

[cjwct]

HD MM --> Here is my list with some changes and additions

Basketball- Jordan
Baseball- Babe Ruth
Boxing - Mohamed Ali
Football- Jim Brown
Soccer- Pele
Hockey- Wayne Gretzky
Olympics- Jessie Owens
PGA - Tiger Woods
LPGA - Annika Sorenstam
Man Multi- Jim Thorpe
Woman Multi- Babe Didrickson Zaharias
NHRA -- Richard Petty

 

[cjwct]

HD MM --> Here is my list with some changes and additions

Basketball- Jordan
Baseball- Babe Ruth
Boxing - Mohamed Ali
Football- Jim Brown
Soccer- Pele
Hockey- Wayne Gretzky
Olympics- Jessie Owens
PGA - Tiger Woods
LPGA - Annika Sorenstam
Man Multi- Jim Thorpe
Woman Multi- Babe Didrickson Zaharias
NHRA -- Richard Petty
Tennis -
Men - Pete Sampras
Women - Martina Navratilova ( slightly ahead of Graf due to competition)

 

[cjwct]

sorry for the double post; forgot tennis

 

[Ramy]

NASCAR would be Richard Petty not NHRA

 

[cjwct]

thank you; i cut , copied and pasted it in and out of word and made that mistake; thank you for the correction ramy!

 

[Paul Wozniak]

MSN - There's a real sports authority.

 

[HD MM]

HD MM --> Here is my list with some changes and additions

Basketball- Jordan
Baseball- Babe Ruth
Boxing - Mohamed Ali
Football- Jim Brown
Soccer- Pele
Hockey- Wayne Gretzky
Olympics- Jessie Owens
PGA - Tiger Woods
LPGA - Annika Sorenstam
Man Multi- Jim Thorpe
Woman Multi- Babe Didrickson Zaharias
NHRA -- Richard Petty
Tennis -
Men - Pete Sampras
Women - Martina Navratilova ( slightly ahead of Graf due to competition)

Good list. IMO though, Federer and Sampras are debatable. Personally I can't make up my mind which ones ahead though.

 

[cjwct]

Thanks HD .

Federer did beat Sampras in their only meeting at Wimbledon, so considering they are so close maybe we can give the nod to Federer for that reason

 

[AntAltMike]

I can't put a swimmer on the list just because he won a bunch of medals. Swimming is swimming, and basically, if someone is good at doing the Australian Crawl, then he'll be just as good at doing the Hungarian Crawl, but he's still only the best at one thing.

I am partial to Bo Jackson. I saw him throw out a runner from third on a sac fly by over 20 feet. That should be impossible, no matter how slow the runner is, because the baserunner makes a fairly reliable decision on whether to go or not based on the depth of the ball and his own speed. I also saw him hit homers that had me concerned for the fans in the outfield stands, and he got up to full speed coming of first in a hurry and did great take-out slides.

Plus, the Monday Night game where he had two 90 yard TD runs from scrimmage and ran over the prototypical villian at the goal line on another looked almost like it was scripted.

 

[lancemccaffrey]

I certainly like the word "top" better than "greatest." When I hear the word "greatest," it could mean most significant or most consequential. When ESPN did its SportsCentury 50 Greatest Athletes List of All-Time in 1999, I automatically assumed that Jackie Robinson would be Number 1. To me, the significance of Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier and achieve Hall of Fame status - before Truman desegregated the Armed Forces, before Brown v. Board of Education was issued by the Supreme Court, before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, before the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr., made him the "greatest" (or most consequential) of the 20th Century.

Throw in the fact that he was a five sport star (baseball, basketball, tennis, football, & track) before he embarked on what became a Hall of Fame baseball career - and I was shocked that SportsCentury only ranked him as the 15th Greatest Athlete of the 20th Century.

 

[mccoyrj]

I certainly like the word "top" better than "greatest." When I hear the word "greatest," it could mean most significant or most consequential. When ESPN did its SportsCentury 50 Greatest Athletes List of All-Time in 1999, I automatically assumed that Jackie Robinson would be Number 1. To me, the significance of Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier and achieve Hall of Fame status - before Truman desegregated the Armed Forces, before Brown v. Board of Education was issued by the Supreme Court, before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, before the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr., made him the "greatest" (or most consequential) of the 20th Century.

Throw in the fact that he was a five sport star (baseball, basketball, tennis, football, & track) before he embarked on what became a Hall of Fame baseball career - and I was shocked that SportsCentury only ranked him as the 15th Greatest Athlete of the 20th Century.

I agree. I immediately noticed his absence from the MSN list. But as Paul inferred, who the hell is MSN when it comes to sports anyway?

 

[jwfgeol]

I can't put a swimmer on the list just because he won a bunch of medals. Swimming is swimming, and basically, if someone is good at doing the Australian Crawl, then he'll be just as good at doing the Hungarian Crawl, but he's still only the best at one thing.

I have to disagree here. If it's so easy to be good at every stroke, why is Phelps the first to do what he's doing?

That's like saying Carl Lewis didn't do anything spectacular because he was only good at track. Or any other athlete for that matter who only played one sport.

 

[Ramy]

Thanks HD .

Federer did beat Sampras in their only meeting at Wimbledon, so considering they are so close maybe we can give the nod to Federer for that reason

I don't think you can count that match. Sampras was at the end of his career and Federer was just starting his prime.

 

[AntAltMike]

...If it's so easy to be good at every stroke, why is Phelps the first to do what he's doing?

The difference between what he expects to do and what Mark Spitz did is that Phelps is entering one more event. If they held an 80 meter dash and a 120 meter dash, and a dash wearing street shoes rather than sneakers, then Carl Lewis would have surely won all of those.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I have to disagree here. If it's so easy to be good at every stroke, why is Phelps the first to do what he's doing?

That's like saying Carl Lewis didn't do anything spectacular because he was only good at track. Or any other athlete for that matter who only played one sport.

And breaking world records, to boot. Thank you for some logical thinking.

 

[hancox]

Call me crazy, but any list that puts Jordan above Gretzky is bad. Really bad.

Is Jordan the highest scorer / assist leader / really anything in the history of his game? No.

Yes, Jordan was fantastic. Great to watch. A dominating player. But... Gretzky just DESTROYED just about every professional record in this sport.


Will list some of the numbers in a sec - they're really just staggering

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I don't really have a problem with the names on the list, I'm not so sure they really needed to be ranked. Kind of like comparing apples and oranges, isn't it?