[the OlLine Rebel]

I say there is that tier of rarified air where EXTREMELY few ever reach, in any given sport.

To me, these are the players whom a dunderhead who doesn’t watch or care about the game, like me, sees, and somehow INSTINCTIVELY knows is “the greatest”. They truly transcend the sport. Even ignoramuses can tell.

The Babe would’ve been one, Gretsky, Jordan (now I think Bird too), Johnny U for games/humans. Man O’War and Secretariat were like that for horses.

These just are extremely rare individuals, and the Greatest is a tiny platform.

[Alberta's Child]

There was a sports radio host here in the NYC area a few years ago who dedicated an entire hour of his show to listeners who would call in and give their opinion about the greatest athlete of all time.

The "ground rules" he set up at the start of the show were simple (and this was almost an exact quote): "I only want to hear about athletes after 1900. Nobody call up here and tell me that Spartacus was the greatest athlete in history."

I still crack up and think about that quote every time I see or hear Cory Booker's name. LMAO.

[Alberta's Child]

When comparing athletes from one era to another, I think the best way to look at them is to see how well their career numbers compared to the rest of their sport at the time they retired. Guys like Babe Ruth and Wilt Chamberlain stand out this way. Bobby Orr a bit less so, but mainly because he was a defenseman, his career was cut short by injuries, and he didn't have the offensive numbers that top forwards would typically have.

Gretzky stands head and shoulders above all of them. Not only were his numbers out of this world when he retired, but they remain so to this day. His 2,857 career points are more than 900 ahead of the #2 guy on the list (Jaromir Jagr). And none of his 60+ NHL records have been broken since he retired 21 years ago.