Best All time

[EvilKing00]

Looking at some of the best all time players in a few sports which one, to you, stands out to be the most dominant in their sport.

Also why do u think so?

only 10 options so if your player isnt here feel free to post

[EvilKing00]

I love babe ruth i think he was insane, all time best player ever BUT looking at stats Gretzky was the best and no one will ever catch him.

hes 1st in goals - 93 ahead of next closest.

hes 1st in points - 970 (omg) ahead of next closest.

hes 1st in assists - 714 ahead of next closest.

hes also 3ed in +/- (hmm 3rd) 2 players in front are defence men, hes 1st if you only count fowards.

[frankh8147]

Most 'dominant' as opposed to greatest ever- nice twist! I'm going Joe Louis #1 for successfully defending his title 25 times (which to me, shows a long period of time with complete domination). #2, ill take Ruth, #3 Jordan, however, I can see how you can make a good argument for almost everyone on that list.

[novakjr]

Yeah, I had to go Gretzky as well...Dude was just flat out dominant, and would still be equally as dominant in ANY era...

Ruth, was probably the most dominant that we will EVER see in any sport, by how far he was ahead of his peers. BUT Ruth was ahead of his time type dominant. I don't think his dominance necessarily transcends era's(at least not at the same level)..

I'll agree with Frank on Louis. I'd probably have him 2nd, then Jordan, after that it's hard to say. I think Wilt falls into the same category as Ruth..

[Jlighter]

No Bronko Nagurski or Jim Brown?

[steve B]

Eddy Merckx.

1971 he won 47% of the races he was in over a full season not the handful of races some of todays guys compete in.


Hour record 49.431km - Not broken on a normal non aerodynamic bike until after 2000.
Most career victories by a professional cyclist: 525.
Most victories in one season: 54.
Most stage victories in the Tour de France: 34.
Most stage victories in one Tour de France: 8, in 1970 and 1974 (shared with Charles Pélissier in 1930 and Freddy Maertens in 1976).
Most days with the yellow jersey in the Tour de France: 96.
The only cyclist to have won the general classification, points classification and mountains classification in the same Tour de France (1969).
Most victories in classics: 28.
Most victories in one single classic: 7 (in Milan – San Remo).
Most victories in Grand Tours: 11

Plus 80 wins as an amateur.



Or if you want older Major Taylor. Won nearly everything, forced out of competition in the US by racism. Went to Europe and beat 3 national champions. Also raced in Australia.
World records in the paced mile.

Plus at least once where the pacers decided to deliberately go slow so he'd lose. After a couple laps of yelling at them to speed up he simply went around them and won. It's nearly impossible to beat a paced rider while unpaced. Speeds at the time were typically around 40mph paced.

By 1898, he held seven world records at distances from .25 miles (0.40 km) to 2 miles (3.2 km)[5] and he placed first in 29 of 49 races in which he competed. No one else came close to that record. Taylor was entitled to recognition as national champion but formation of a new cycling league that year "clouded" his claim to the title.
In one six-week period in 1899, Taylor established seven world records.[3] These included the .25 miles (0.40 km), .33 miles (0.53 km), .5 miles (0.80 km), .66 miles (1.06 km), .75 miles (1.21 km), 1 mile (1.6 km) and the 2 miles (3.2 km). He did the mile from a standing start in 1:41, a record that stood for 28 years.

And in womens sports
Eileen Sheridan british cyclist
She set pretty much every record for women in timed distance events including some that are still unbroken since the 1950's.

Or Beryl Burton winner of the British all round cycling championship every year from 1959-1983 at speeds that were sometimes faster than the men.

In 1967, she set a new 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles – a mark that surpassed the men’s record of the time by 0.73 miles and was not superseded by a man until 1969.[4] While setting the record she caught and passed Mike McNamara who was on his way to setting the men's record at 276.52 miles and winning that year's men's British Best All-Rounder. She is reputed to have given him a liquorice allsort as she passed him. Apparently, McNamara ate the sweet.

She also set about 50 new national records at 10, 15, 25, 30, 50 and 100-mile distances; her final 10, 25 and 50-mile records each lasted 20 years before being broken, her 100-mile record lasted 28 years, and her 12-hour record still stands today. Her prowess led to the rare distinction, for a woman, of an invitation to compete in the Grand Prix des Nations in 1967.

In 1982, with her daughter Denise, Burton set a British 10-mile record for women riding a tandem bicycle: 21 minutes, 25 seconds.

[CW]

While their later careers lost some luster, in their prime Mike Tyson and Tiger Woods were very dominant in their primes.

[alanu]

It's really hard to choose between the different sports, but I chose Jordan, mostly because he's the one I enjoyed watching the most.

If golf were added, it would be hard to choose between Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger, but again I'd probably choose Tiger since he's the one I watched the most.

Babe Didrickson and Jim Thorpe would be good additions as multi-sport athletes and it would be hard to ignore Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens in track and field.

I've been blessed to live in an era that showcased some of the greatest athletes of all time. I followed the careers of Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, Walter Payton, Mario Lemieux, Patrick Roy, Cal Ripken, Rickey Henderson, etc. Out of all of them, the most dominant athlete I've had the privilege to watch has been Wayne Gretzky. I don't know of any player who so single handedly and seemingly effortlessly dominanted his sport like he did. Collecting hockey cards was very popular in the Massachusetts city I grew up in. While all the other athletes were greatly admired and collected, Gretzky was like a god. If you didn't like The Great One you didn't have friends.

[TUM301]

Easy, the greatest team sport player in N American history. Bill Russell !!

[ChiefBenderForever]

Had to go with Gretzky just because he was so amazing to watch and was the greatest, although he did have great teamates which really help. Just like Jordan became the greatest when Pippen and Grant got on board. Without great teamates you are just a great player ( aka Adrian Peterson ) , and then some like Randy Moss think they are the greatest.

[sdkammeyer]

Cobb

[Exhibitman]

Most dominant:

Babe Ruth in baseball because he was right up with the top 2-3 hitters of all time and could pitch at a HOF level too. No one else has come close to that level of skill.

Wilt Chamberlain in basketball. His stats are astounding. In terms of peak performance in 1961-62 he averaged 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game. Cut that in half and it is still the output of a HOF center. As for career, he averaged 30.1 points and 22.9 boards per game. Wilt's win shares are 2nd all-time but he accomplished it in 13 seasons and it took #2 [Kareem] more play to top him. He is #1 in alltime rebounds per game, edging out Bill Russell, but Russell's scoring average was 15.1 points, half of Wilt's. Jordan has him by 0.05 in scoring average but only had 6.2 rebounds per game.

Jim Brown in football. He was a monster. He averaged 104.3 yards rushing per game [#1 alltime] and 5.2 yards per carry. He's still #5 alltime in rushing TDs.

[mart8081]

I like the choice of Merckx but would add:

Donald Bradman - Australian Test Match cricketer. Finished his test career with an average of 99.94 runs per innings. The next highest is 60.97 runs per innings (Pollock of South Africa).

40 runs per innings is the broadly used marker of a good test batsmen - I would guess it is roughly comparable to a .300 batting average in baseball. 50 runs per innings equates to .320, 60 runs per innings to .340. Therefore, 99.94 runs per innings using this scale would result in batting .420 in baseball - for your entire career.

[tachyonbb]

As documented earlier, to me Eddy Merckx was the most dominant in his sport over the longest time.


2nd to me is Bill Russell. 2 NCAA championships. 11 times NBA champion. He did what had to be done to win. Rebound, shoot, lead the fast break, whatever the team needed, he did.

[Touch'EmAll]

Do not forget Satchell Paige - he was THE guy for a LONG time in negro leagues.

We don't really know how great he was, statistically. But I would hazzard a guess at insanely dominant!

[Touch'EmAll]

I grew up about half hour from Anaheim Stadium in the 1970's, and my family liked to go to Angels games. We saw Ryan on many occasions. I look back, wow, what a lucky childhood.

Anyway, EVERY time he pitched there was always pregame crowd chatter about, "will he throw another no-hitter tonight?" The pregame crowd just oozed anticipation. I was there, I lived it, it is ingrained in my soul. Ryan was still young, in his prime, and, on certain nights, as dominant as it gets. Maybe not the statistically best pure pitcher, but absolutely YES, perhaps the most dominant.

[EvilKing00]

pretty good list and vote so far, looks to be Ruth and Gretzky pulling away.

[JBird]

had to vote for Jordan on this. just remembering how he could take over a game. basketball is hard tho because to dominate you have to have great team mates. but as a knicks fan i hated when we played the bulls. except for Starks dunk over jordan on the baseline. but in that respect its what Lebron is doing now. he can straight up take a game over. even if its not scoring he plays defense hard.
Tiger Woods definitely should be in consideration for this list tho. he was simply untouchable for a solid what 13 or so years?
Heres a quote from Wikipedia to show his dominace (and not just because is stays dominant in the quote look at the weeks at #1)
"He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997. Through the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf, spending 264 weeks from August 1999 to September 2004 and 281 weeks from June 2005 to October 2010 as world number one."

[pepis]

Gretzky-Ruth
both somewhat equal choices!
advantage for Gretzky, he did it pretty much in our life time,
advantage for Ruth, he did excel in both hiting and pitching
he still is one of only 2 lefty pitchers to compaile an ERA of under 2.00
while pitching 300 or more innings in american league history
and one of only 4 in modern major leagues (113 years}

[soxfan1986]

most dominant athlete of all-time,
is also the greatest winner of all-time bill russell.
the guy has more championship rings than he has fingers,

he;s got my vote.
and yes i have a boston bias

GO CELTICS

[bfrench00]

Have to go with the babe on this one. Not positive but i think he had more homers than entire teams a few times. He brought back baseball after the black sox scandal and since he would have been a hof pitcher that just adds to his legacy. 714 hr 342 ba and over 2000 rbis. As long as there is baseball babe will always be around.

[Jason]

While I'm not a fan of the 100 point game I chose Wilt Chamberlain.The stats earlier in the thread are just mind boggling.He totally dominated his peers at that time like no other athlete has.

[Shoele$$]

Gotta go with the "Great One".....nobody will ever touch Wayne's records. He changed the entire sport and it's marketing in this country by himself when he arrived in LA in the late 80's. There will never be another WG

[David W]

To me it was just about a tie between Gretzky, Ruth, and Chamberlain.

However, people have come close to Gretzky's totals, passed Ruth's totals, but no one has come close to Chamberlain in his first 6 seasons.

He completely changed basketball, scored 100 points, averaged 50 and 40, first to shoot 50%, 60%, and 70% in a season.

He also led the league in assists once in 1968 with 702.

He once averaged 48.5 minutes per game.

I voted Chamberlain.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...chambwi01.html

[EvilKing00]

no one has come close to Gretzky's totals

look - its almost like video game stats compared to the normal human players

http://www.nhl.com/ice/careerstats.htm

[David W]

Originally Posted by EvilKing00

no one has come close to Gretzky's totals

look - its almost like video game stats compared to the normal human players

http://www.nhl.com/ice/careerstats.htm

Career wise counting the WHA, Gordie Howe has more total goals, and Bobby Hull is real close.

Single season Gretzky has 92 and 87 and then Brett Hull and Lemieux have 86 and 85.

No one has come near Chamberlains 1st 5 years in the NBA

[drc]

Don Hutson should have been on the list. He dominated his sport in his era as much as or more than anyone. That doesn't mean I would have voted for him.

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by David W

Career wise counting the WHA, Gordie Howe has more total goals, and Bobby Hull is real close.

Single season Gretzky has 92 and 87 and then Brett Hull and Lemieux have 86 and 85.

No one has come near Chamberlains 1st 5 years in the NBA

All time NHL stats

[dabigyankeeman]

Ruth had some years where he hit more home runs that any other TEAM. And this is after being one of the greatest pitchers in the game! The Babe is the man!!

[EvilKing00]

Babe and Jordan catching up to the Great one! looks like its gonna be alot closer than I thought