What kind of logic are you using?
I know you like to argue for the sake of arguing and are really into philosophy or some crap but that logic doest even make sense.
Babe Ruth dominated a sport in every aspect? Dominated at not being able to run the bases. Dominated at striking out the most.
Come on son!
The title of the thread is “most impressive, well rounded athlete”… Neither of your two examples qualify at all. No one in the world would argue that The Fridge fit that definition.
[quote]gregron wrote:
What kind of logic are you using?
I know you like to argue for the sake of arguing and are really into philosophy or some crap but that logic doest even make sense.
Babe Ruth dominated a sport in every aspect? Dominated at not being able to run the bases. Dominated at striking out the most.
Come on son!
The title of the thread is “most impressive, well rounded athlete”… Neither of your two examples qualify at all. No one in the world would argue that The Fridge fit that definition.[/quote]
still waiting on a definition. Gotta be able to run? It apparently is no longer potential in sport, because I think babe could have been a pro in any sport if he’d gone for it. Does sport have anything to do with athletics in your mind? What does athlete mean?
I am not going to argue semantics with you. If you honestly believe in your heart that Babe Ruth is the greatest athlete of all time then that’s on you.
[quote]gregron wrote:
No one in the world would argue that The Fridge fit that definition.[/quote]
I think he could have been a pro in basketball or baseball or whatever sport he’d wanted to. If he’d grown up loving basketball, we’d be talking about perry the NBA star.
[quote]gregron wrote:
I am not going to argue semantics with you. If you honestly believe in your heart that Babe Ruth is the greatest athlete of all time then that’s on you.[/quote]
For the third time. I’m just asking what athlete means to you.
[quote]gregron wrote:
I am not going to argue semantics with you. If you honestly believe in your heart that Babe Ruth is the greatest athlete of all time then that’s on you.[/quote]
Of course he’s the greatest athlete of all-time. “Great athlete” does not restrict itself to athletic potential. At some point, you have to acknowledge that THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of being an athlete is the ability to translate it into success. Otherwise, all the talent in the world doesn’t mean shit.
Talent=/=great athlete.
And if we’re talking about well-rounded athletes let’s not forget that part of being well-rounded is being successful. No one dominated their sport relative to the rest of the sport the way Ruth dominated baseball.
And let’s dispense with the notion that hitting a baseball isn’t hard. The fact is that it’s arguably the single hardest thing to do in any sport. I don’t care how strong you are, how quick your reaction time is and all that. You are NOT going to step onto a field and put the ball in play against a pitcher throwing 95 mph and you certainly are never going to hit one of his pitches out of the ballpark. There’s a reason why it takes a long time to reach the majors. Virtually all other sports can be mastered in far less time and at younger ages. But the skill level required to succeed in baseball is higher than all others. I suppose golf might be the one sport that is harder to master than baseball, but the sheer lack of athleticism required to hit a golf ball is nowhere near what it is in baseball. A lot of former athletes get extremely good at golf; it doesn’t work the other way around, ever. Look at all the athletes who have played football and baseball at the same time. Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders were great football players but they were both actually pretty shitty baseball players in comparison.
Anyways, back to translating athleticism into success. Part of being a great athlete or a well-rounded one is the ability to use that athleticism to succeed in competition. Otherwise, what is that athletic talent good for? It doesn’t matter who has the greater potential. PERFORMANCE is what quantifies an athlete. We don’t measure the talent of an athlete by the way he looks or the way he performs a select few drills or whatever.
If that were the case then the biggest freaks at each NFL combine would be the best players the next year. But that is rarely the case. Chris Johnson is way faster than Frank Gore. Who’s the better athlete? Frank Gore, because he’s proven he can UTILIZE that talent in a way that Johnson has not.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
LOL @ Babe Ruth being a great athlete.[/quote]
Or that “tools don’t make an athlete”. That’s PRECISELY what makes an athlete. That was so comically stupid I didn’t know how to respond.[/quote]
Tools aren’t that important once we start talking about athletes competing at the most elite, professional levels. At that point we’re talking about the 99th percentile or higher.
After all, what are athletes? They’re competitors playing a sport to win at it and beat the opponent. “Tools” are nothing more than that: tools to get the job done. Well, obviously there’s more to getting the job done than having the right “tools”. All the tools in the world won’t mean shit if an athlete doesn’t know how to use them. Otherwise all the top physical freaks would also be the top competitors in their sport. But that isn’t the case at all. Ryan Leaf had more physical talent than Peyton Manning, yet here we are more than a decade later and one is still playing and one is sitting in jail somewhere or out on bail.
What makes an athlete are “tools”. What makes him great or well-rounded is his/her ability to utilize those tools. When we get into discussions like this, EVERY athlete mentioned has the requisite “tools”. Babe Ruth was extremely powerful, explosive, coordinated and had unparalleled eye/hand coordination. He couldn’t run well. That’s one tool out of many.
But to separate the cream of the crop from each other, since they all have “tools” to varying degrees, it is necessary to use actual success as a tiebreaker of sorts.
People here are still somehow confusing athleticism with skill/technical proficiency. The criteria for athleticism was listed in the first post of this thread. Babe Ruth had maybe 1/5th of those qualities. Was he a phenomenal baseball player? Of course. Was he a phenomenal athlete as judged by our listed criteria? Not even close.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
I am not going to argue semantics with you. If you honestly believe in your heart that Babe Ruth is the greatest athlete of all time then that’s on you.[/quote]
Of course he’s the greatest athlete of all-time.
[/quote]
So Babe Ruth was a better athlete than Michael Jordan? He was a better athlete than LeBron James? He was a better athlete than Jim Thorpe? He was a better athlete than Walter Peyton?
If Babe Ruth is the greatest then Dan Gable is right up there with him, he was impressive as hell in wrestling.
[quote]gregron wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
I am not going to argue semantics with you. If you honestly believe in your heart that Babe Ruth is the greatest athlete of all time then that’s on you.[/quote]
Of course he’s the greatest athlete of all-time.
[/quote]
So Babe Ruth was a better athlete than Michael Jordan? He was a better athlete than LeBron James? He was a better athlete than Jim Thorpe? He was a better athlete than Walter Peyton? [/quote]
More athletic? No. A better athlete? Yes. He dominated other athletes to an extent that not even Jordan began to approach.
What exactly is a “well-rounded” athlete anyways? Someone who is good at a bunch of things but isn’t great at any of them? Decathletes fit this mold. They are good in ten different events, none of which they are elite at unless compared to other decathletes. The fact is that any decathlete would get smoked in the 100 by the top sprinters, embarrassed in the pole vault by the top pole vaulters, etc, etc.
Also, what the hell makes skill level different than athleticism? It takes skill to hit a baseball. That doesn’t count as athleticism though? That is ridiculous. Mastery of a skill IS athleticism when it comes to sports.
It seems that the definitions of athleticism are highly geared toward strength and speed in this thread. That’s definitely a component of athleticism but it’s much, much more than that. And speed and strength can be measured in many, many different ways. Even though gymnasts only work with their own body weight, the strength required to do what they do is different than the strength required to run really fast with football pads on.
Some sports don’t require a very wide range of skills/talent. Tennis doesn’t require a ton of strength, football doesn’t require a ton of endurance, Olympic lifting requires zero running ability and so on. But that doesn’t mean that those athletes are somehow deficient. I think it is safe to assume that the top professional athletes in any sport outside of golf could have been really good at other sports if they had dedicated themselves to something else at an early stage of their life.
Remember, a LOT of professional athletes don’t go pro in a particular sport because it was the one they were best at but because it was the one they liked the most and spent the most time playing. I was a better soccer player than baseball player growing up and all the way into my first couple years in high school. But I didn’t really like playing it as much as I did baseball, so I practiced baseball all the time and got by on natural talent in soccer. I was drafted by a major league baseball team even though growing up I was better at soccer.
Joe Mauer was arguably a better high school QB than he was a high school baseball player. But he liked playing baseball more and worked at it more than football, even though he was one of the top QB prospects in the country.
AKA- for the most part he played against far weaker competition.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
I am not going to argue semantics with you. If you honestly believe in your heart that Babe Ruth is the greatest athlete of all time then that’s on you.[/quote]
Of course he’s the greatest athlete of all-time.
[/quote]
So Babe Ruth was a better athlete than Michael Jordan? He was a better athlete than LeBron James? He was a better athlete than Jim Thorpe? He was a better athlete than Walter Peyton? [/quote]
More athletic? No. A better athlete? Yes. He dominated other athletes to an extent that not even Jordan began to approach.[/quote]
That is incomprehensibly stupid. How many world series wins does Ruth have? How many records that still stand? How many people widely regard him as the best to ever play his sport? Let’s also not forget that Ruth dominated when some of his best competition was forced to play in the negro leagues. Jordan took on the absolute best every night and kicked the shit out of them. Ruth didn’t.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]gregron wrote:
I am not going to argue semantics with you. If you honestly believe in your heart that Babe Ruth is the greatest athlete of all time then that’s on you.[/quote]
Of course he’s the greatest athlete of all-time.
[/quote]
So Babe Ruth was a better athlete than Michael Jordan? He was a better athlete than LeBron James? He was a better athlete than Jim Thorpe? He was a better athlete than Walter Peyton? [/quote]
More athletic? No. A better athlete? Yes. He dominated other athletes to an extent that not even Jordan began to approach.[/quote]
That is incomprehensibly stupid. How many world series wins does Ruth have? How many records that still stand? How many people widely regard him as the best to ever play his sport? Let’s also not forget that Ruth dominated when some of his best competition was forced to play in the negro leagues. Jordan took on the absolute best every night and kicked the shit out of them. Ruth didn’t.
[/quote]
Ruth regularly hit more home runs by himself than entire teams. He’s widely considered the best to play baseball and the only player who ever enters that conversation other than him is Willie Mays.
What records of his that have been broken have been done so through the aid of illegal performance-enhancing drugs not available or not used by Ruth (Aaron and methamphetamine, which he has admitted to using and Bonds on every steroid known to mankind).
Ruth won 7 World Series titles and was the best player on all of those teams. While with the Red Sox he was one of the better pitchers on three World Series-winning teams and was also the best hitter by far.
Jordan would have had to been throwing more dunks per season than entire teams were to compare favorably to Ruth. Ruth changed the way the game was played on a fundamental level. Prior to Ruth, no one hit more than a handful of homeruns per year and many didn’t even try to do so because it was thought too hard to do to warrant the extra risk that swinging for the fences represented. Then Ruth came along and changed all that. Look at league homerun totals before and after Ruth began playing.
The guy also finished with a career batting average of .342, which is light years in front of the rest of the great power hitters of all-time. Mays hit about .301, Bonds hit about .298, Aaron hit .305.
Most people don’t realize that many of his homeruns didn’t count either. Before 1931, the rules stated that in extra innings the first run that broke a tie in the bottom of the 9th or later ended the game. So if a player hit a homerun with the bases loaded and the score was tied, the only run that counted was the first run to score and the batter was only credited with a single. This rule was changed in light of the many homeruns Ruth was hitting to win ballgames.
The rule during most of his career was that a ball hit down the line and into the stands was only fair if it LANDED in fair territory beyond the fence. So anything hit out of the park down the line (which Ruth did frequently) that passed the foul pole in fair territory but wrapped around it was called foul. He lost an estimated 50 homeruns this way. That rule was also changed in light of the many homeruns he hit down the line.
How many major rules changes did Jordan inspire? As good as Jordan was, and he really is the only one who can enter the conversation with Ruth, he didn’t change the game the way Ruth did.
Besides, Whiteflash, I don’t know why you even bother to participate in these threads. You’ve already stated that you are completely close-minded on the issue and refuse to accept that anything other than your own opinion is the correct one.
Well, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, but some of them you wouldn’t come near and others you’d come inside of.
If we’re all wrong, why are you even in here? Would you participate in a thread where everyone was arguing about whether 2+2=5 or 6 if you KNEW the answer to be 4? No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t waste your time with people stupid enough to think that way. And since you clearly think that what you are arguing in favor of is fact, why bother with us incomprehensibly stupid people with an opinion?
[quote]on edge wrote:
[quote]roybot wrote:
Sort of relevant to the thread:
Iordan Iovtchev - Sasuke Ninja Warrior Tournament 8, Best Personal Record - YouTube [/quote]
I don’t see this as any kind of proof a gymast is a great all around athlete. I was a very good baseball player but I’d say I could come a heck of a lot closer to doing those courses than I could to playing Major League Baseball. The only things in that video I don’t think I could do are the jump off the sliding bar (I have no idea how he made that, and I’m not talking about strength on the one legged landing) and the tower climb. I think I could do the tower climb, just not nearly fast enough to make it before the walls split.
[/quote]
It was meant to show how a top gymnast performed outside of his sporting event.
Dan Gable in the 1972 Olympics didn’t surrender a single point en route to his gold medal. If you read on it a little, the Soviets went there just to beat him. He was more dominant in wrestling then Jordan was in bball.
[quote]USMCpoolee wrote:
Dan Gable in the 1972 Olympics didn’t surrender a single point en route to his gold medal. If you read on it a little, the Soviets went there just to beat him. He was more dominant in wrestling then Jordan was in bball. [/quote]
I have all of his training videos.
If i had a sports idol it would be him…or Kendal l cross
a great athlete is my buddy that lives down the street. not good enough to be pro and any 1 sport, but in my mind, a great athlete, very very good at EVERY sport he does. two meanings to “great athlete”
in my mind.