THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Jordan-Gretzky-Ruth-Pele quartet always dominates this sort of poll, and it won’t change anytime soon.

I’m more curious about football players, actually. There’s no clear cut GOAT in football, and looks like voters agree.

I wonder if there’d have been similar results with either write-in results or at least with an ordering of responses that wasn’t along sports lines.

Me thinks not, and there’s certainly a lot of evidence that the structure of the answer options drives people’s response (Tango - you’ll probably notice that in all your multiple choice polls, people tend to respond to the middling choice).

Pele or any soccer player probably wouldn’t have even crossed my mind without that big block of soccer players at the bottom of the list. I certainly would have included individual sports athletes (Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali) before Pele. Because the way the responses were arranged, I felt essentially obligated to include 1 baskteball, 1 football, 1 hockey, 1 baseball, 1 soccer.

***

Also weird to see Brett Favre and Peyton Manning missing from the football list. Clear Poz isn’t much of a football fan, either. By some advanced stat’l metrics, Favre, Manning, Rice and Tarkenton (also missing) have had the most valuable careers.

I voted for Michael Jordan and Jim Brown who are two of the four athletes on my Sports Mt. Rushmore (Ali is the third and Rickey Henderson is the fourth).  I am surprised no boxers or Olympic athletes were on the list.  I would argue that Jim Brown was the GOAT of NFL players.  He was voted the Man of the Millennium by his peers and NFL Films.  Even today when the media speaks of him they say The Incomparable Jim Brown.  Check out some highlight videos on You Tube.

Jim Brown, without a doubt.

Jerry Rice was a great player - possibily the GOAT in the NFL - so I’m not trying to disparage him here.  But I wonder if his extremely high vote totals have something to do with that countdown (done by either ESPN or NFL Network, can’t remember which) which named him the GOAT.  I don’t remember people saying that about him 10 years ago, and yet now it seems like it’s infiltrated the way we think about it.  Prior to the last 3 years, I had ALWAYS heard Jim Brown mentioned as the #1 guy, although one of the things I always liked about football was that the positions are so different that most people don’t even bother with such silly questions.  C’est la vie.

"Greatest Players” is a bit broad...I exercised a little leeway and took it to mean the most talented and physically dominating, and not “who had the greatest career.” Obviously, there is overlap...but I chose the guys I would pick first if I was starting a team from scratch. I ended up with Pele, Ruth, Wilt, Jim Brown, and Lemieux.

Wilt/Lemieux over Jordan/Gretzky are the obvious odd choices. But after stripping away the context that surrounded their careers (teammates, injury, era) I thought Wilt and Mario were the guys I’d want to start my team with.

As of now, only 44% of ballots listed Pele. I’d love to hear an argument why Pele is not on every ballot.

The reason Pele isn’t on every ballot is that he played soccer. I’m surprised that he made 44% for a poll on the blog of an American sportswriter.

I think it’s more interesting that Leo Messi (who is only 24) is on 8% of ballots.

I have never understood the “Rice wasn’t just a great receiver, he was a great football player” bit. I’ve never seen him do anything other than receive passes. He was a highly talented and hard working receiver in a system that was revolutionary in its using the pass as the running game and focused on quick slants and routes that defenses were not familiar with. We often hear the “system QB” label as if it were an insult. I don;t see why Rice wasn’t a “system WR”. Those 9er teams were the perfect storm of design, intelligence, and talent.

But, there’s no way that Jerry Rice is a better football player than Jim Brown was in regards to their separation from their peers.

What has happened was that we’re so far removed from Jim Brown that we’ve either forgotten or didn’t know about it in the first place, or many of those voting grew up in the 80s or 90s. Jim Brown also walked away from football in his prime, so his records have been passed due to increased schedules, longer careers, etc.

I also prefer Lemiuex to Gretzky, but it’s more of a style preference. Simply put, Wayne was allowed to skate around the ice and do pretty much whatever he wanted. Lemieux was grabbed, checked, hassled, etc and was still dominant. There is also the issue of “surrounding cast”. Given the way the game has changed, you certainly pick Lemieux to start your team, not Gretzky. But, I understand that my/our preference in that regard is in the vast minority.

BrianK, can you perhaps argue why Pele should be?

I remember a while ago trying to read up on him and Maradona, for example, and it seemed like Maradona was a more impactful player (in games).

@CC #8:
I don’t know that I’d say Gretzky was allowed to do whatever he wanted. But my assertion is that if you level the playing field for health, teammates, and era, Lemieux would come out as the better player.

On the other hand, if anyone asked me who had the greatest career in hockey, I’d say Gretzky without hesitation.

@ Mike #9:
I’m not expert enough on the subject matter to refute that Pele was obviously superior to Maradona. My opinion comes from conversations with many friends of mine who are lifetime soccer fans and who uniformly consider Pele the greatest player of all time. Since soccer is the most widely played sport (making it much more difficult to dominate), and since it seemed universally accepted that Pele was the greatest player, I was/am curious why he would not be named on every ballot. If there is a legitimate argument that Pele was not the greatest player, then that is interesting to me which is why I’d love to hear why he is not on every ballot!

@10 BrianK

I agree with that.

What I mean by “Wayne was allowed to do whatever he wanted on the ice”, is “he was allowed to go wherever he wanted, and no one dared to check him”. This was for 2 main reasons [1] Marty [2] McSorely. *grin*

Lemieux, on the other hand, played in an era where teams could jam up, grab, and hassle great offensive players to such a degree that it hurt the game, and if I recall correctly, led to rule changes to encourage an more open style of play.

But, the totals/points that Gretzky put up over his early career are just laughable, as in no one could ever do that.

The thing with Rice, more than anything else was the total TD record.  He ended up with so many more than anybody else, it was comparable to Gretzky having more assists than anyone else had total points.  The NFL Network did that recent countdown where Rice was #1 and Brown was #2.  Their reasoning was the TD record and that it was now a passing game.  I personally preferred Mario to Wayne, but Wayne was totally awesome especially earlier in the Oilers years.

@10 BrianK

-But my assertion is that if you level the playing field for health, teammates, and era, Lemieux would come out as the better player.-

Maybe. But if that’s the case, then I’ll say Bobby Orr is the greatest hockey player of all time. Nobody dominated the game like Bobby Orr.

If you set “health” aside (whatever that means), then you can definitely make the case for Bobby Orr.

As for different “eras”: 99 is 4 1/2 years older than Mario.  They must overlap on something like 13 seasons or something.

Gretzky stood head-and-shoulders above Mark Messier (same team), and Mark Messier is one of the greatest of all time.

If you “start a team” (whatever that means), presumably that means the whole career, and I’ll take 99’s to 66’s.

@#14:
I would not try to argue Lemieux over Orr. I saw one and not the other and that informed my choice. I would have chosen Orr over Gretzky. No offense to The Great One!

@Tango, #15:

Yeah, I’m on thin ice here. But the way I chose to interpret it was “peak true talent"… select the 5 athletes who, at the absolute peak of their powers, had the greatest “true talent”. To me, Lemieux and Orr edge out Gretzky. If you asked me to take a player’s career as it actually played out, then I’d certainly take Gretzky.

Their careers did largely overlap. But the NHL seemed to undergo a rapid change in the late 80’s and early 90’s. At least to my eye, the game seemed very different during Mario’s peak years than Wayne’s peak years.

Ok, based on peak true talent: it’s interesting how it took for Mario to play with Wayne (in the 1987 Canada Cup) for Mario to reach his potential.

In his first three years, Mario was a great player, but not a superstar.  Wayne was MVP in his first year, and then he got better.

In terms of peak talent, I’d go with Wayne or Orr.

Orr was revolutionary, Gretzky was evolutionary.

I think you helped my point. The 1987 Canada Cup might have been the first time Lemieux played next to a league average winger/center.

As a 20 year old 2nd year player, Lemieux went 48-93-141...not sure what you’d classify as a superstar, but that’s comparable to Gretzky’s 2nd year. Of course, Wayne absolutely exploded in his 3rd year… not coincidentally the year in which Anderson/Coffey/Kurri/Messier all made their marks as stars. In his 3rd season Lemieux was playing with the likes of Bob Errey and Dan Quinn in his 3rd year.

Lemieux’s 199 point age 23 season stands with any of Gretzky’s when you consider the context. And he was headed even higher in his age 24 season (which is the year I think his true talent peaked higher than Gretzky) when he suffered his first back injury. Unfortunately, he was diminished ever after, even though he posted a 2.67 pts/gm season at age 27 (limited to 60 games again, because of his back.)

Much of this is summary opinion without evidence of course, which is what makes it fun.

My favorite is that Gretzky scored 600 goals in his first 718 games, and Lemieux did it in… 719.

Mettle mentioning advanced NFL stats having Favre as one of the best ever got me thinking about how to evaluate “peak” vs “longevity”.  Favre was, according to some advanced stats, about a 75th percentile QB.  Rarely better, rarely worse, during the bulk of his career.  I just can’t envision him contributing more towards his team winning Super Bowls than guys like Brady or Manning, with their shorter careers but much larger positive impact on a per-season basis.

There’s got to be a way to compare the impact of having a 2 WAR player for 10 years, versus a 10 WAR player for 2 years, in terms of how it impacts that player’s chances of being on the team that wins it all.  I can’t imagine the answer is that they’re both the same because they both provided 20 WAR… my gut tells me the 10 WAR player is more impactful on an average team… but I guess it depends on the spread in win% among teams in the league.

Anyways, that’s how I think I’d balance the importance of peak vs. longevity, because I think that’s what I think these players are striving for, once they step on the field: how much did you increase your team’s chances of winning it all?

I’m trying to think of a WR that played as many seasons with a HoF QB. He had Montana and Young in an offense based on accurate passing.

It wouldn’t be unlike an NBA scoring player that played his entire career for a Phoenix Suns type team that focused on scoring points with a great point guard.

In football it’s hard to separate QB from WR. If Rice had played for the current Ravens or a run-defense team, how different would his career have been.

For Jim Brown, IIRC, his ypc were far above any other RB, perhaps even comparable to Ruth’s HR, and was bigger and faster than LB’s. in short, imagine Brandon Jacobs being the fastest RB in the league and that may represent Jim Brown.

Looking at Jim Brown’s stats, over his 9 year career he led the league yards every year except one. For his career he average over 5 ypc and 100 ypg. 126 TD in 118 GP.

I guess a “knock” against Brown might be that Barry Sanders did nearly the same thing in similar amount of games, although Brown had 1K more yards in 5 fewer games (Brown 12+K yards/118G, Sanders 11+K yards in 123 games). Brown left the game at age 29 as the best player in the league. Sanders walked away at age 30 as nearly the best player in the game.

Rice certainly scored 197 TD, but in 303 GP and at a less demanding position (and one more reliant on QB skill/system).

For a comparison, Randy Moss scored 153 TD in 202 GP with lesser QB’s.

In 100 more games, Rice had 500 more receptions and 50 more TDs than Moss. That seems to be rewarding longevity rather than “greatness”.

It’s difficult for me to gauge the difference in having passes thrown to you by Montana & Young versus Cunningham and Culpepper (and Brady).

While I don’t know enough about the metric football-reference’s weighted AV has Rice rated #1, their fan vote has brown #1, Rice #3.

I’m not advocating that Ross be deemed the greatest WR or anything like that ... just showing that other WR’s have put up ridiculous numbers with lesser QB’s.

I think the best argument I heard in favor of Rice was that if you split his career into two different careers along even and odd years, Rice(Odd) would still be the best receiver of all time and Rice(Even) would be a borderline Hall of Famer.

Once you put the two of those together into the same person I think it’s hard not to call him the GOAT. Obviously that’s only looking at one side of the argument, so I’d need to learn more about Jim Brown to make a final decision.

This is off topic, but with the discussion of Gretzky, Lemieux, and Orr, I have a hockey question and don’t know where else to pose it. 

I am only a midling fan of hockey and have basically no knowledge of the statistical analysis of the game.  I semi-frequently take my children to ECHL contests.  My question is: what is the level of skill for the average and top performers in minor league hockey games?  Is it like baseball where there is a fairly stable relationship between A, AA, AAA and MLB with each level being noticably but not immensely different?  Or is there a dramatic qualitative difference between ECHL and NHL?

The poll’s lack of Elway disturbs me. Also, Rice had 207 career touchdowns, plus Brown played in an era that, to put it nicely, didn’t always try to include the best players all over the country that they could have. And Brown’s era had looser rules for O-line blocking too.

#24: The “system” argument applies to Jim Brown every bit as much as it does to Jerry Rice.

Brown ran behind 3 HOF linemen (Lou Groza, Mike McCormack, and Gene Hickerson) and a fourth lineman (Dick Schafrath) who was a 4-time First Team All-Pro and 6-time Pro-Bowler.

During Brown’s career, Cleveland’s other backs had 1373 rushes for 6202 yards (4.52 yards per carry).  That was not as good as Brown but still well above the NFL average, which fluctuated between 3.9 and 4.2 yards per carry over the same span (1957-1965).

...and to Rice I would point out the changing rules of cornerback play, the rules affecting QBs leading to more passing, the west coast offense, more teams in warm weather climates (favors passing),. Imagine Jerry Rice playing in the era when DBs could pretty much do what they wanted within 10 yards. Nighttrain. Lane. Plus he’d get to play the raiders twice a year, every year. Ouch.

Jim Brown was also a RB in the league when basically “anything goes” for a defensive lineman as well, head slaps, etc.

1/2 of Jerry Rice isn’t better than Randy Moss.

Moss: 202g - 14858y - 153 TD
Rice: 206g - 17612 - 164 TD

The 206g is Rice through 1998 I believe. I think differences in QBs can account for the differences. Rice’s longevity is what really separates him, and it is impressive.

I’m trying to think of another situation where a player played so long with HoF players whose job it is to get them the ball. Malone-Stockton? Magic Kareem?

The argument has also been made that Rickey Henderson is “2 Hall of Famers”, but I didn’t find that to be the case.

Bobby Orr! Gretzky played half the game. A team of Bobby Orr’s would beat a team of Gretzky’s every time. Orr skills would translate from era to era much better than Gretzky’s because of his skating ability. You have to be able to skate now, the game has changed, and Gretzky was not a great skater.

25/James: the post directly before yours kind of invalidates that even/odd point.

I know almost nothing about Hockey, I know some current players, I like the Bruins but don’t follow them much, but I’m really dumb in terms of historical players. I only have ever heard of Gretzky, Orr and Lemieux, and since that’s the debate here, and I knownothing about advanced hockey stats, but I tend to trust sports reference for sports other than baseball (I prefer fangraphs for baseball) their overall stat or whatever is point shares. The order in point shares is Gretzky,Lemiuex,Orr, but point shares/82 Is Orr 19, Lemiuex 15, Gretzky 14.
I think Ted Williams got sort of underrated to me here. He is 2nd all time in WAR/162 only to Ruth, didn’t use steroids like Bonds, and missed 5 seasons to serving this country. He might be the #2 baseball player of all time to me.

Well, seeing that Orr stopped playing when he was 26 (!), of course his point shares per game is going to be incredible.

Why don’t you take their 8 best seasons each, and then report their point shares per game.

Well then Orr has 20 point shares per game in his top 8 seasons, Gretzky 18, and Lemieux 17. I probably think Gretzky is better anyway because of length, I was just throwing something out there.

I find it amusing/sad/interesting that, for all our dedication to advanced metric in evaluating baseball players, we can’t be bothered to do the same for football players. All the discussion here has focused on the equivalent of BA, RBI and Wins.
“126 TDs” is like saying 1300 RBIs.

If you look at advanced metrics, Jim Brown is good—top 10/20 depending on the metric, what you place on longevity, etc, but nowhere near GOAT.

OTOH, weighted value (which discounts longevity) have Rice, Manning and Reggie White as the triumvirate and unweighted value gives you Favre, Rice and Tarkenton.

And yes, Rice is 2 (borderline) HOFers - worth about 2 Michael Irvins over his entire career.

I find it amusing/sad/interesting that, for all our dedication to advanced metric in evaluating baseball players, we can’t be bothered to do the same for football players. All the discussion here has focused on the equivalent of BA, RBI and Wins.
“126 TDs” is like saying 1300 RBIs.

TDs were mentioned because that’s what Rice is known for. It wouldn’t be unlike saying 755 and talking about Hank Aaron.

I used it to show that Rice didn’t score TD at a greater pace than randy Moss, he just played 100 more games.

I was just showing TD/game, and wondering how QB quality affects that.

When Jerry Rice catches a TD pass, how much of that TD value goes to Rice? Young? O-line? etc?

The value metrics have to be based off of recorded results (just as UZR does), and football HAS to be more convoluted than baseball when it comes to giving credit/blame for plays in which the whole team in contributing.

Baseball is far easier for metrics due to the individual nature of positions/game.

OTOH, weighted value (which discounts longevity) have Rice, Manning and Reggie White as the triumvirate and unweighted value gives you Favre, Rice and Tarkenton.

They’re all tied for first (with a 159, IIRC).

Allen/Alan Page is 2nd/4th with 158.

There’s a lot of clustering at the top, which leads me to believe there probably isn’t a consensus on a clear #1.

And yes, Rice is 2 (borderline) HOFers - worth about 2 Michael Irvins over his entire career.

The statement was: Rice in Odd Years was the best WR off all-time, while the Rice in even years was still a HoF.

Approximated value is not a very good stat. It’s a good starting point, and it could be fixed really easily, but the two things it dosen’t include which it needs to are team pass/run attempts and stadium factors. Like Lets look at Tom Brady vs Peyton Manning, Manning has a 220 AV, and Brady has 160, but the real reason why Peyton is so far ahead is he had 7210 attempts to Brady’s 5321. In AV/500 passes, Manning beats Brady by .2. What they should do is divide by attempts per game, and multiply by league average team attempts per game. Also, look at Manning’s splits. For his career at home, Manning has a passer rating of 97.7, at home, on the road, he had a passer rating of 92.2. Brady’s splits are pretty much neutral. While approximated value says Manning is better than Brady by a ton, it’s really not true. All they have to make is two adjustments.

why is the greatest basketball player thought to be Jordan rather than Russell?  Is it because Jordan is more recent?  Similarly, is there anyone who watched Bobby Orr and thinks someone else was better at hockey?

why is the greatest basketball player thought to be Jordan rather than Russell?  Is it because Jordan is more recent?

IMO, it has more to do with quality of the league in Jordan’s era versus Russell’s era.

Simply put the quality of athlete in the NBA really took off in the 80s, also IMO.

38/ pierre

I have to agree with comment 39/ CircleChange11.  The NBA really took off athletically in Jordan’s era leading to more balance throughout the league even though the number of teams winning titles were limited to 5 teams during his Bulls career.  Russell’s Celtic teams were absolutely loaded.  It is also not really questioned that Jordan was the best SG of all time.  Russell is a part of a three way discussion of the best C of all time with Abdul-Jabbar and Chamberlain.  Russell only wins that discussion if you value titles and blocked shots over scoring.  But think about this, college basketball make the dunk illegal before Abdul-Jabbar played.  The NBA widened the lane because of Chamberlain.  No rules were changed because of Russell that I know of.

imo, Russell is to Jordan as Orr is to Gretzky.  Jordan and Greatzky were maybe their sports’ greatest practitioners, but Russell and Orr demonstrated how the sport could/should be played.

Jamal #40- I think hoops is all about the titles.  In the other sports, there’s 22 or 25 or however many guys and only so much one guy can do.  But with hoops, I struggle with the idea that the best player was someone other than the most successful player (i.e. Russell v Wilt/Kareem).

Could Russell’s level of success had any correlation with Cousy, Heinson, Jones, Jones, Havlicek, Sharmon, and so on?

Wilt couldn’t win until Walker, Cunningham, and Greer were on board.  And then West and Baylor.

What did Oscar Robertson win before Kareem showed up?  Speaking of Kareem, how many championships did he win without Robertson or Magic?  How many did MJ win without Pippen?  Shaq without a dominating SG? Basketball is more of an individual sport than baseball, but I don’t think you can just look at number of titles racked up, without context, and say who was the best.

I understand what you’re saying, but think that who among Russell/Wilt/Kareem had the best supporting cast(s) is a matter of opinion.

If you look at the history of the NBA, it’s amazing how frequently the champs featured the league’s best player.  The only times, imo, when this was clearly not the case ocurred during the early part of Kareem’s career, when Kareem’s dominance created a business problem for the league.  I really don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Russell’s team won all the titles, therefore he must have been the best player.

It would be interesting to look at Basketball Reference Win Shares and see how much correlation there is between one of the top 3 players (since Win Shares has some MOE) winning NBA championships.  Then again, since team defense plays such a big role in a player’s single-season Win Shares total, that may not be a great idea.  If only RAPM went all the way back to the beginning…

Do win shares “work”?  I’m pretty skeptical of non-baseball advanced stats.  But it’s so not shocking that, for example, when Jordan wasn’t around, The title went to Hakeem’s Olajuwon’s team.  Or Duncan’s after Jordan retired.

Seems like it’s true even when it isn’t- Boston won a couple of years ago when Paul Pierce outplayed Kobe and LeBron.

Well, it works about as well as anything else that covers all eras.  That is why I wanted to look at the top several, just for wiggle-room.

Pierre’s argument seems circular. He says he struggles with the idea that the best player isn’t the one who has the most champions and then says how consistently the winners had the league’s best player. He’s quite close to (if not directly) crediting whoever won as best and then saying, ‘whoa, look, the champs had the best player.’

I quite like win shares. It likes inefficient scorers more than I do and has the consistent box score based stat of not fully crediting man to man and help defense (outside of blocks/steals) and some other issues but I think it’s quite good. Better than PER by a mile, and wins produced has some nagging issues. But for all players the same thing is true, your odds of winning a championship are more dependent on your surrounding cast than upon you. If you think Kobe was the best in 09-10 (not true but a lot believe it) then why not the best more in his prime from 04-08 when he won nothing? Was KG all that much better in 2008 than say 2004 when he won the MVP? No. I would argue LeBron and Chris Paul (with Howard probably after them) have been the best players in the league over the past 3-4 years. Neither has a championship. Basketball is a team game, and assigning individual value based on team results seems very iffy.

I don’t know much about hockey but I thought Gordie Howe was supposed to be really good too? Though maybe he’s not comparable to Orr/Gretzky/Lemieux.

The argument for Maradona is usually that he won the WC with a weakish argentina team that he carried in 86. Pele’s 1970 brazil team is often looked at as the best of all time, he had an amazing supporting cast. The team was quite strong as well in ‘58. ‘62 was Garrincha’s year (best dribbler ever, go read stories about him, he’d do some craaaazy things), not Pele and ‘66 Pele didn’t play.

Pele’s league goal scoring records are amazing (and far better than Maradona’s though admittedly in different positions) but in a brazilian league that was better than it is now but still weaker than european leagues. He also played in an era when there was a lot more space and less pressing on ball. Formational understandings were much weaker in the 50s and 60s and they started changing in the 70s (which is why Gerd Muller’s scoring in the 70s is more impressive than it was in the 60s, defensive pressing improved massively).

I voted Pele, but I think players like Cruyff should be up there. Ronaldo pre late 90s injury was just unbelievable too. Messi is doing some fantastic things though I wouldn’t vote him yet. I suspect history massively underrates defenders so maybe someone like Beckenbauer is tops.

Also, as I recall, Pierce didn’t outplay LeBron. The big storyline at the time was that he canceled out LeBron (all he needed to do) and that the Celtics won because if he could do that, the rest of Boston was stronger than cleveland’s supporting cast.

Pierce shouldn’t have won finals MVP. He played phenomenally in the finals games the celtics won and poorly in the losses. KG and especially Ray were just as good in the finals (and KG was clearly the best overall performer for both the playoffs and the regular season on the Celtics).

I say all this as a Celtics fan. Pierce is a legend, he did an amazing job covering kobe and had some wonderful moments. He just didn’t deserve finals MVP based on his playing.

Here’s what amazes me ... Kevin Durant is about the same size as Bill Russell.

Durant is a do everything 3 or 4. He hits 3’s, he plays D, he handles the ball, attacks the basket.

Another knock on Russell is the quality of big men in his day ... as say compared to the 80s/90s when there was David Hakeem/Akeem, Patrick, kareem, Moses, Shaq, etc.

It also amazes me that the Heat have an NFL tight end playing small forward. Seriously, that’s how much the league has changed.

I don;t think Jordan is the #1 lock that we often hear. I think Jordan was a majorly dominant player at the time when marketing and media were exploding. It’s not unlike how Mike Tyson was marketed, only Jordan is a far better BB player than Tyson was a boxer.

I’m actually surprised no one mentioned Sugar ray Robinson.

#47
I agree with your overall assessment on Win Shares.  There is also the on-going debate about the value of assists.  I think WS values them at .5 pts per, which many would claim is too high and some too little.

Perfect timing:

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/story/_/id/7484149/peleacute-says-lionel-messi-rank-best-compared-brazilian-great?eleven=twelve

I never knew Pele was such a humble man.

#47
yes, a bit circular.  And subjective.  Also true, imo.  If you’ve got the NBA’s best player, you’re winning titles.  I don’t think there’s ever been a counter-example.

#49
I think it’s the same in all sports.  I’m sure it has to do with psrticipation levels, general levels of health in the population, etc. I don’t think it’s a knock on Russell any more than it is on Babe Ruth or Jim Brown or whoever.