DA's greatest sportsperson: Nominations Thread

[IFF]

Right ok, guys this is what's happening. The goal is to get a top 10 ranking of the greatest sportspeople of all-time.

For the next 7 days, this is for nominations to it. a person can make a maximum of 3 nominations

how things will proceed afterwards will depend on the amount of nominations recieved. there will be a first round and probably a first round repecharge (for those who don't qualify by being in a tough group)

When making nominations, please give some criteria as to why.

by the way, i'm not the judge, i'm the organiser. The polls will all be open polls and in order to decide the groupings, i'll use a random number generating

so let's get picking the greatest sports people of all time

[colonel]

To me a great athlete is one who changes the way his or her sport is played by dominating it in a measurable way.

1. The Babe. In one season he personally hit more dingers than any other team in the league. Not only was he the greatest hitter of his time he could also pitch. I doubt either of these feats will ever be equaled.

2. The Great One. Gretzky could almost score at will and he showed the sport that the assist is just as important as the goal. Probably the only person to change the game of hockey for the better in the last 40 years.

3. Tiger. Not much needs to be said here. We won't truly know how dominating he is for another 20 years but he's already matched or beaten pretty much every record in the book. The changes he has effected in the sport are already plainly evident.

If I were allowed a 4th pick it would go to Ali.


Edit: My three picks are numbered chronologically and not in order of greatness.

[Baboon]

Bo Jackson. An all star in both MLB and NFL. Are you kidding me?

More nominations to follow...

[Marley]

In no particular order: Muhammad Ali, Wayne Gretzky, Willie Mays

[TwntyCent]

1. Babe Ruth- Colonel already touched on this.

2. Wilt Chamberlain- The guy destroyed almost every offensive record in the books. Scored 100 points in an nba game, averaged over 50 points in a season, averaged double digit assists after they said he was selfish. He was pure domination.

3. Tiger Woods - The guy put golf back on the map.

[IFF]

*bump

my 3 picks:

1. Eddy Merckx 0 won tour de france 5 times, won giro di italia 5 times and the vuelta a espana once. these are cyclings three biggest races, all 3 week races. he was also world champion 3 times. one of only two people to win the world, the giro and the tour in the same year. Of the 5 biggest one day races, he won them 19 times altogether.

2. Jesse Owens - 4 gold models in one olympics. though also he deserves merit as much for the performances as for the symbolism of the performances in Berlin

3. Footballer ALfredo Di Stefano (i know why not pele. because) - with real madrid he won the spanish league 8 times. was top scorer in spain 5 times.won the european cup with real madrid 5 times. for real madrid he score 1,126 goals in 818 games (and when you consider most soccer games are dull 0-0 draws that an achievement ). was alos top scorer in both the argentinian league and the colombian league

[IFF]

just 36 hours left to get those votes in people

come on, so far i think we have only 10 nominees

if you don't vote, a soccer player and a belgian cyclist will feature in the top 10. Do you guys really want that?

i don't think so

[IFF]

12 or so hours left to get in those final nominations

[IFF]

nominations are now closed

thank you to colonel, baboon, marley and twntycent for nominating people

the full nominations are:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Wayne Grettzky
3. Tiger Woods
4. Bo Jackson
5. Muhammed Ali
6. Willie Mays
7. Wilt Chamberlain
8. Eddy Merckx
9. Jesse Owens
10. Alfedo Di Stefano

with ten nominations, we will have 5 first round ties. the winners will qualify for the quarterfinals with the remaining 5 in a repecharge with the top 3 going through to the qualifiers
in order for 5 ties to be decided i will use http://www.randomizer.org/form.htm and each as above have been numbered in order of nomination

the numbers are then paired

the randomiser worked out as follows:

9, 10, 7, 2, 8, 6, 1, 4, 5, 3

so the 5 rounds will be as follows:

Jesse Owens V Alfredo Di Stefano
Wilt Chamberlain V Wayne Gretzy
Edyy Merckx V Willie Mays
Babe Ruth V Bo Jackson
Muhammed Ali V Tiger Woods

there will be an individual thread for each pick

voting in the preliminary rounds will close in one week

[KillZone]

Baseball--Mays

Basketball--Bill Russell (11 NBA Championship rings)

Football--Emmitt Smith

Hockey--Wayne Grettzky

College--Herchel Walker’s 3-yr run with Georgia still tops all Div-I players for 3 years (he left after his junior year) per rushing yardage

[IFF]

only 22 months late

[Sparkly Mary]

Hey better late than never, right?

[IFF]

yes.

the interest generated now is as much as the time of it

[Sparkly Mary]

Poor IFF. It sucks when no one's interested in one of your threads, huh?

[IFF]

i've got used to

[SivVulk]

i was very dissapointed that I didn't find this thread till it was too late Much as I like sports I don't pay as much attention to the sports forum as one would think cause its mostly about sports I have little interest in

I guarantee for any subsequent editions, I shall participate

[Nicholae]

Bo Jackson. An all star in both MLB and NFL. Are you kidding me?

More nominations to follow...

I knew Bo Jackson personally...he is was also a great track athlete as well. The nearest thing to Jim Thorpe, since well Jim Thorpe.

Babe Ruth is still number one. Everyone remembers the home runs, but take a look at his pitching stats as well:

163 GM
121 IP
488 K
94 W

ERA: 2.28 LIFETIME!

The problem is trying to equate across sports lines if a player didn't play more than one (your Bo comment is a perfect example of an "Athlete").

But for baseball hands down Babe Ruth and since many consider hitting a baseball the hardest thing to do in sports, then he gets my vote.

Others in no particular order:

Lance Armstrong
Pele
Gretzky
Michael Jordan/Wilt Chamberlain
Jim Thorpe/Bo Jackson
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay)
Tiger Woods/Jack Nicklaus
Jim Brown

[Nicholae]

Start it again in some fashion!

[Pot Roast]

Jim Thorpe

[beatlebabe]

Two words: Jackie Robinson.