GOAT of GOATs?

[Johnny Ballgame]

Originally Posted by enuffsenuff

Joe Davis the snooker player must have a shot at this. He was World Snooker Champion in 1927,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40, from 41-45 he was busy in Europe tending to other things, & 1946. In comparison he was pretty auwful at Billiards (trust you all know the difference) being World runner up in 1926,27 - World Champion in 1928,29,30,31,32 and finally runner up in 1933,34

So, World Champion 20 times and a runner up 4 times. I guess his trophy cabinet at home had at least 2 shelves ...I have numerous cards of Joe but no idea which is his first card. If you do let me know and I will bag a few.

Would be interested to learn of other WC's for 20 years or more. BTW, Joe's brother Fred, was WC in 1948,49 & 51 and was the only player ever to beat Joe off scratch (ie with no starting points advantage - usually great players would give 1,2,3,4 etc Black ball start to opponents. A black ball being worth 7 points eg 3 black start = 21 points and so on).

My guess on oldest card is the 1928 Churchman's (aka Men of the Moment series). I haven't seen anything older related to his earlier billiards career or his first title, though I've really only collected snooker items (mostly Joe/Fred Davis items and anything related to that "snooker plus" variant of the late '50s) for a few years.

I think if Joe hadn't elected to stop playing in the World Snooker Championship after 1946 he could've kept winning into the early '50s -- though I do think that Fred would eclipsed him at some point. It's incredible to think about how long the current final match is (best-of-35) and then compare it to the best-of-73 that Joe played in '41 (37-36 vs. Fred, though there were dead frames played after Joe got over the line) and the best-of-145 Joe played in his last title match in 1946. I'm not sure that Joe would've been able to sustain his performance in a best-of-145 against his younger brother. He had nothing else to prove, though, too, having been on top that long.

Fred Davis making the semifinal of the World Championship in 1978 as a 65-year-old is incredible. I'm not sure if there's anyone that can make a case for longevity like that in snooker or in most other sports.

Joe was essentially the face of snooker during his time, but that sport was only played at the top level by maybe 20 people in those 20 years. But he still had everyone's number. ... There are a few modern players (Davis, Hendry, O'Sullivan) that are ranked ahead of him in casual all-time rankings based on how competitive the game became after its explosion in popularity, even though they only have 7/6/5 titles, respectively. You can make the argument that Joe was so good that it affected the survivability of the sport as a whole, which I don't think you can make for many other athletes and is a good rubric for determining a G.O.A.T.

......

My GOAT vote is for Sir Donald Bradman, the cricketer. His career Test batting average defies statistics.

I remember Stephen Jay Gould ending an article by making a comparison of Joe Dimaggio's hit streak and the idea of cheating death repeatedly (it's a supreme outlier being about 25% longer than Keeler or Rose's streaks) ... but Bradman's Test average of 99.94 is 57% more than the second place batsman, and that's over a 20-year career. I'm hard-pressed to find even a counting stat in a sport where the margin between the all-time leader and second place is that great, let alone something like a rate stat. It's a larger difference than Rickey Henderson vs. Lou Brock in steals.

He was so good that he also threatened the survivability of his sport -- the bodyline tactic the English used against him (which was basically "throw at him and hope he defended himself with the cricket bat -- which could result in an out if he hit to a fielder) actually threatened diplomatic relations between Australia and Great Britain because of the fallout, and necessitated rules changes to reduce the effectiveness of bodyline. (I'm not sure that cricket ever put in rules to limit Bradman's effectiveness like you'd see in other sports, though.)

That's by far the most I've ever written about sports that aren't baseball. Ultimately I think it's all apples-and-oranges but it's fun to throw it out there.