Best Multi-Sport Athletes?

[Governor Quinn]

If we've discussed this topic, I can't find it...

Looking at the records of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (http://golf.about.com/od/golferswomen/p/babe_zaharias.htm) and Lottie Dod (http://www.tennisfame.com/famer.aspx?pgID=867&hof_id=89), two questions come to mind:

1) Have there been any male athletes at the same level of Zaharias and Dod?

2) Are there other female athletes at their level I've missed?

[Omniscient]

Bo Jackson, Jim Brown, Jim Thorpe, Deion Sanders.

[Governor Quinn]

Jim Thorpe

I had a bad feeling I was missing someone obvious.

[treis]

Jackie Robinson is another good example of this. He was a 4 sport athlete at UCLA (track, basketball, baseball, and football), and played baseball and football professionally.

[Oslo Ostragoth]

Jim Brown was multi-sport? Enlighten, please.

Who was the original Wheaties guy? Bob something-or-other? Definitely a multi-sport guy, did the Olympics at pole vault?

I so know I'm going to earn one of these :smack: when somebody posts it.

[Omniscient]

Jim Brown was multi-sport? Enlighten, please.


http://www.lacrosse.org/museum/halloffame/view_profile.php?prof_id=35

Thought to be one of the best Lacrosse players ever.

[Sunshine and Smiles]

Jim Brown was multi-sport? Enlighten, please.

Who was the original Wheaties guy? Bob something-or-other? Definitely a multi-sport guy, did the Olympics at pole vault?

I so know I'm going to earn one of these :smack: when somebody posts it.

Bob Mathias, two-time olympic gold medalist. Tremendous athlete. I don't think you've wholly earned that smack, though. That's not a really memorable name.

[DMC]

Who was the original Wheaties guy? Bob something-or-other? Definitely a multi-sport guy, did the Olympics at pole vault?Bob Richards. He ran for president in the wingnut party, later in life.

[Intelligently Designed]

Perhaps Canada's most multi-talented athlete was Lionel Conacher (http://www.histori.ca/sports/conach.html).

Dave Winfield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winfield) was so good at both baseball and basketball that he could have made a pro career in either.

Tom Glavine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Glavine) was drafted by both the baseball Atlanta Braves and the hockey Los Angeles Kings.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

How about Willie Gault? Most folks know he was a sprinter world record holder in the 4 x 100m relay, also 110m hurdles) and a wide reviever in the NFL (Super Bowl ring with the Bears) , but can you name his other sport?

He was on the American Olympic bobsled team

[JohnT]

Charlie Ward. Won the Heisman, followed it with an NBA career. Was also recruited as a pitching prospect by the NYY and TBJ.

[Bayard]

Bob Gibson excelled at basketball and baseball. From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Gibson):

Despite a childhood filled with health problems, including rickets, asthma, pneumonia, and a heart murmur, he was active in sports as a youth particularly baseball and basketball. After a standout career in baseball and basketball at Tech High in Omaha, Gibson won a basketball scholarship to Creighton University.

In 1957, Gibson received a $3,000.00 bonus to sign with the Cardinals. He delayed his start with the organization for a year, playing with the Harlem Globetrotters, earning the nickname "Bullet" Bob Gibson [...] Although one of the star players on the team--Gibson was famous for backhanded dunks--he resigned from the Globetrotters to play baseball because he could not stand the clowning. In 1958 he spent a year at the [Cardinals'] triple-A farm club in Omaha. He graduated to the major leagues in 1959 and had the first of nine 200-strikeout seasons in 1962.

[don't ask]

Probably the greatest all round sportsman in history was CB Fry of England.

He played cricket for England and when he retired had the second best batting average in history for anyone scoring over 10,000 runs.

He played soccer for England. He would have played rugby union for England but for injury, however he played for the Barbarians, the most famous invitational side in the game.

At Oxford he was proficient in many sports including cricket, soccer, Rugby Union, boxing, golf, swimming, tennis, javelin, badminton and sculling. No-one else has ever earned 3 "blues" in a year for representing at 3 sports. Fry achieved it 4 times.

Although he hadn't been trained he equalled the world long jump record with a jump of 23’ 6½” (7.17m) in 1893.

At the first international trackmeet he won the 100m and the long jump and was considered the favourite to win both at the 1896 and 1900 Olympics. Howewver he was on tour with the England cricket team and did not attend.

However his talents were not just confined to the sports field. C.B. also stood as Liberal candidate for Parliament in Brighton; he was a director of a training ship, a journalist and writer, a deputy and speechwriter for the Indian delegation at the League of Nations.

He was most famously offered the vacant throne of Albania but chose not to become their king.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Probably the greatest all round sportsman in history was CB Fry of England.

He played cricket for England and when he retired had the second best batting average in history for anyone scoring over 10,000 runs.

He played soccer for England. He would have played rugby union for England but for injury, however he played for the Barbarians, the most famous invitational side in the game.

At Oxford he was proficient in many sports including cricket, soccer, Rugby Union, boxing, golf, swimming, tennis, javelin, badminton and sculling. No-one else has ever earned 3 "blues" in a year for representing at 3 sports. Fry achieved it 4 times.

Although he hadn't been trained he equalled the world long jump record with a jump of 23’ 6½” (7.17m) in 1893.

At the first international trackmeet he won the 100m and the long jump and was considered the favourite to win both at the 1896 and 1900 Olympics. Howewver he was on tour with the England cricket team and did not attend.

However his talents were not just confined to the sports field. C.B. also stood as Liberal candidate for Parliament in Brighton; he was a director of a training ship, a journalist and writer, a deputy and speechwriter for the Indian delegation at the League of Nations.

He was most famously offered the vacant throne of Albania but chose not to become their king.
Well, fuck me. How is it that having grown up in England I'd never heard of this bloke?

According to Wiki, he also liked to run naked down Brighton Beach.

[Mr. Moto]

Joe Montana graduated from my high school.

Ask the old timers in the Mon Valley, and they'll insist that he was a far better basketball player than a football player in high school. There are facts backing this - he led Ringgold to a basketball championship, but spent his first two years as a football player as a backup.

He nearly went to college on a basketball scholarship.

[lieu]

Dave Winfield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winfield) was so good at both baseball and basketball that he could have made a pro career in either.Dave Winfield was drafted by four pro teams, including the NFL's Minnesota Vikings.

[Spoke]

Herschel Walker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Walker): Heisman Trophy winner, track star and Olympic bobsledder.

Danny Ainge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Ainge): played major league baseball (though not all that well) and had a long NBA career.

Dick Groat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Groat#Basketball): 2-time All-American and UPI player of the year as a basketball star at Duke, and held (for a time) the NCAA record for career points. Spent one season with the Pistons in the NBA before his basketball career was cut short by military service. As a baseball player, he was NL MVP, NL batting champion, and 5-time All-Star for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

[Spoke]

Forgot one:

Brian Jordan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Jordan): Defensive back for the Atlanta Falcons from 1989-91. Led all NFL cornerbacks in tackles in 1990. Lengthy baseball career as an outfielder, most notably with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves, including one All-Star appearance.

[Lamar Mundane]

A lot of the guys named are sprinters/football players or even football/baseball players, which for the most part require the same skill sets (power and speed), although hitting a baseball takes a special skill.

I think harder is to be proficient in a power sport and a finesse one. Hale Irwin was an All-Conference football player at Colorado and went on to become one of the ten or fifteen greatest golfers of all time.

I want to hear about a heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler who is a champion curler or darter.

[Bayard]

A lot of the guys named are sprinters/football players or even football/baseball players, which for the most part require the same skill sets (power and speed), although hitting a baseball takes a special skill.

I think harder is to be proficient in a power sport and a finesse one. Hale Irwin was an All-Conference football player at Colorado and went on to become one of the ten or fifteen greatest golfers of all time.

I want to hear about a heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler who is a champion curler or darter.
Mike Peluso (http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/story?page=f_ath_Peluso_NHL) is a minor league hockey player in the Blackhawks system, and a pro fisherman. (He is not to be confused with his older cousin, also named Mike Peluso, who played several seasons in the NHL). Not a champion at either level, but still kind of a wide difference between the two sports.

[Spoke]

Speaking of fishing, baseball Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Williams#Retirement) is also a member of the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame. According to Wikipedia:

Some opined that Williams was a rare individual who might have been the best in the world in three different disciplines: baseball hitter, fighter jet pilot, and fly fisherman. Shortly after Williams's death, conservative pundit Steve Sailer called him "possibly the most technically proficient American of the 20th Century, as his mastery of three highly different callings demonstrates."

[Mr. Moto]

I think harder is to be proficient in a power sport and a finesse one. Hale Irwin was an All-Conference football player at Colorado and went on to become one of the ten or fifteen greatest golfers of all time.

I want to hear about a heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler who is a champion curler or darter.

Not champion, but Jerome Bettis has a 300 game in bowling, and is considered to be one of the top celebrity bowlers in the sport.

[Lamar Mundane]

Mike Peluso (http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/story?page=f_ath_Peluso_NHL) is a minor league hockey player in the Blackhawks system, and a pro fisherman. (He is not to be confused with his older cousin, also named Mike Peluso, who played several seasons in the NHL). Not a champion at either level, but still kind of a wide difference between the two sports.
Good one. It was said that Ted Williams of the Red Sox was also a world-class fisherman, although I don't think there is any way to confirm that - there was no pro circuit at the time. He may just have had the means to travel the world and catch all kinds of different fish. Kind of like the "big game hunters" of the past. They were mostly a small group of wealthy white guys who could afford to outfit an expedition to Africa. But the best hunters? I doubt it.

[Ellis Dee]

In the context of this thread, I'm unimpressed with Heisman trophies or any other kind of amateur success. I mean, do you really consider Ron Dayne to be one of the best football players?

The OP is talking about being truly great at the professional levels. Look again at the accomplishments of the women in the links. Those women were basically Tiger Woods and Roger Federer rolled into one.

The only ones I would agree with are comparable would be Deon Sanders and Bo Jackson.

[gonzomax]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_DeBusschere Played pro basketball and pitched for the White Sox. hall of fame for both. Plus youngest coach in NBA history.

[Ellis Dee]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_DeBusschere Played pro basketball and pitched for the White Sox. hall of fame for both. Plus youngest coach in NBA history.He isn't in Cooperstown. According to this (http://espn.go.com/classic/obit/s/2003/0514/1553649.html):He tried to combine the sports and pitched parts of two seasons with the White Sox, going 3-4 in 36 games.

DeBusschere pitched 102 innings in the majors and had a 2.90 ERA. On Aug. 13, 1963, he pitched a six-hit shutout to lead the White Sox over Cleveland.

[Spoke]

The only ones I would agree with are comparable would be Deon Sanders and Bo Jackson.

Deion Sanders was a "truly great" professional baseball player?

Dick Groat at least meets the Deion Sanders standard.

[Ellis Dee]

Deion Sanders was a "truly great" professional baseball player?

Dick Groat at least meets the Deion Sanders standard.I thought he was. He wasn't? I'm not a baseball fan, but I lived in the South while he was on the Braves, and he seemed like a force to be reckoned with when he was in.

I dunno, from his wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deion_Sanders#MLB_career) he sounds pretty damn impressive:Sanders played a nine-year, part-time baseball career, playing 641 games with 4 teams. During his most productive year, 1992, he hit .304 for the Braves, stole 26 bases, and led the NL with 14 triples in 97 games. During the 1989 season, he hit a home run and scored a touchdown in the NFL in the same week, the first player to do so. Sanders is the only man to play in both a Super Bowl and World Series.

In four games of the 1992 World Series, Sanders batted .533 with 4 runs, 8 hits, 2 doubles, and 1 RBI while playing with a broken bone in his foot. Despite Sanders's performance, he and his Braves ultimately lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in six games.

In 1997, Sanders finished 2nd in the NL with 56 stolen bases in 115 games.Compare that to Dick Groat's one season in the pros.

[Spoke]

I thought he was. He wasn't?

Career average of .263.

'Nuff said.

[Marley23]

In the context of this thread, I'm unimpressed with Heisman trophies or any other kind of amateur success. I mean, do you really consider Ron Dayne to be one of the best football players?
The women mentioned in the OP were amateurs. Time was that only amateurs could compete in the big events and professionals would barnstorm the world.

Jim Thorpe sprang to mind for me as well, but today, you're not going to find athletes like this. (Some impressive examples from the recent past have been cited.) They may have the talent to succeed in several sports, but they're encouraged to pick one and concentrate on it to develop their skills and have a chance to make money as a professional. Amateurs had less reason to specialize. At this point, two-sport athletes are vanishingly rare once you get out of the college level.

[HubZilla]

Not Michael Jordan

[OneCentStamp]

I don't think we'll ever see a Thorpe or Dideriksen Zaharias again. They were to the sports world what Dante or Leonardo were to the world of learning and arts: an artifact of the era before super-specialization.

How about Carl Lewis? He was simultaneously the best sprinter and the best long jumper in the world for a time, and while those both fall under the umbrella of Track and Field, they're widely different skill sets.

[Moirai]

Perhaps Canada's most multi-talented athlete was Lionel Conacher (http://www.histori.ca/sports/conach.html).




Damn. And died hitting a stand-up triple. Dude. The Conacher boys were quite a group...

[Ellis Dee]

Damn. And died hitting a stand-up triple. Dude. The Conacher boys were quite a group...I'm so glad you quoted that link, which I passed over the first time it was posted. This is one hardcore athlete:He had to have endurance, too. One day in 1922, he hit a triple in the final inning to give his Toronto Hillcrest baseball team the Ontario baseball championship, then jumped into a waiting car and crossed the city to join his Maitland lacrosse team in their championship game against Brampton. Maitland was trailing 3-0 when Conacher arrived, but he scored four goals and assisted on another to lift his team to a 5-3 victory.Damn.

[Snarky_Kong]

Yeah, but it's not like playing baseball requires endurance. Are players really ever tired after a game?

[Governor Quinn]

In the context of this thread, I'm unimpressed with Heisman trophies or any other kind of amateur success.


To comment in my own thread, amateur success on a high level impresses me, far more than middling talent in professional sports.

To comment on some candidates, Fry is on the level of Zaharias and Dod, Conacher is on that level, Herschel Walker (from the Millrose Games footage I've seen) is reasonably close to that level, I don't know enough about lacrosse to comment on Jim Brown, Sanders wasn't on that level (his baseball OPS+ is 89, below league average), and I'm not sure that Jackson would have been on that level without injury (his on-base percentage tended to be below league-average, he struck out a lot, and he doesn't appear to have been an impressive fielder).

[Ellis Dee]

To comment in my own thread, amateur success on a high level impresses me, far more than middling talent in professional sports.Understood, but my point is that more often than not that's exactly what the progression is. I would've thought my example of the record-shattering Heisman-winning Ron friggin' Dayne would have made that point pretty convincingly.

Amateur success on a high level frequently translates into middling talent in professional sports, which is exactly why I'm not impressed by it.

[astorian]

Well, John Brodie was an All-Pro quarterback for the 49ers, and later won a few golf tournaments on the PGA seniors tour. (I suspect he could have been a stellar rpo golfer in his youth, if he'd gone that direction instead of playing football.)

[Oslo Ostragoth]

Bob Richards. He ran for president in the wingnut party, later in life.Yep. A well-earned :smack: .

[Oslo Ostragoth]

Yeah, but it's not like playing baseball requires endurance. Are players really ever tired after a game?Other than catchers and pitchers, I wouldn't think so.

[RickJay]

I thought he was. He wasn't? I'm not a baseball fan, but I lived in the South while he was on the Braves, and he seemed like a force to be reckoned with when he was in.
Sanders has his moments but over the course of his career wasn't a very good ballplayer. He was an okay player, I guess, and had a relatively short career. He did play brilliantly in the 1992 World Series, although his team lost. He wasn't even the best player of his time named "Sanders."

His and Jackson's careers were about the same length and of about the same value; okay, but forgettable if they hadn't been stars in other sports. They're the baseball equivalents of football players like Warren Williams or Michael Haddix.

[RealityChuck]

Gene Conley: Good enough to play in a world series and all-star game and an NBA final and still have time to try to make a trip to Israel in the middle of the baseball season. ;)

Bob Hayes was an Olympic gold medal sprinter who made the transition to wide receiver and ended up getting a Super Bowl ring. He was a major reason for the shift to zone defenses in the NFL -- no one could keep up with him man-to-man.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Yeah, but it's not like playing baseball requires endurance. Are players really ever tired after a game?
Doubtful. They don't seem to have much trouble playing double-headers.

[Moirai]

Yeah, but it's not like playing baseball requires endurance. Are players really ever tired after a game?


A single game might not require endurance (depends on who's pitching), but a regulation season sure does, even if you don't make the playoffs. 162 games in six months (season runs basically from the beginning of April through the end of September) averages out to 27 games per month, plus half of those are road games, which means you might be flying across multiple time zones on the same day you play. Players usually don't get to sleep until several hours after a night game, then sleep late before BP the next day, unless they have to travel.

It is a grinding schedule that can wear you down, and a player can have nagging injuries or problems that drag on all year. Plenty of players in their 30's creak like old men when they try to get out of bed in the morning.

It's a long season. It may not be professional football, which has been described by a player as "10 or 12 car crashes, every weekend," but it's certainly not a walk in the park.

So to speak.

[Moirai]

Doubtful. They don't seem to have much trouble playing double-headers.


Sadly, double-headers are mostly a thing of the past. They are a rare result of weather-related cancellations or terrorist attacks.

I miss them.

[jsc1953]

I think Bo Jackson is in a special category -- maybe the most physically gifted individual of our generation; just bigger, faster, quicker & stronger than 99.99999% of mere mortals. This translated well into football, and slightly less well in baseball. But there are some legends about what he was able to do, on wikipedia:

On June 5, 1989, Jackson ran down a long line-drive deep to left field on a hit-and-run play against the Seattle Mariners. With speedy Harold Reynolds running from first base on the play, Scott Bradley's hit would have been deep enough to score him against most outfielders. But Jackson, from the warning track, turned flat footed and fired a strike to catcher Bob Boone, who tagged the sliding Reynolds out. Jackson's throw reached Boone on the fly. Interviewed for the "Bo Jackson" episode of ESPN Classic's SportsCentury, Reynolds admitted that he thought there was no way anyone would throw him out on such a deep drive into the gap in left-center, and was shocked to see his teammate telling him to slide as he rounded third base.

On July 11, 1990 against the Baltimore Orioles, Jackson performed his famous "wall run", when he caught a ball approximately 2-3 strides away from the wall. As he caught the ball at full tilt, Jackson looked up and noticed the wall and began to run up the wall, one leg reaching higher as he ascended. He ran along the wall almost parallel to the ground, and came down with the catch, to avoid impact and the risk of injury from the fence.

After a poor at bat he was known to snap the bat over his knee, or with his helmet on, over his head.

And that CB Fry guy....it appears that when talents were handed out, he went around and cut in line about 8 times. I hate guys like that.

:)

[Spoke]

I think Bo Jackson is in a special category -- maybe the most physically gifted individual of our generation; just bigger, faster, quicker & stronger than 99.99999% of mere mortals.

Herschel Walker comprised that 0.00001% ;)

I think a big reason Herschel is underappreciated is that he spent the prime years of his professional football career in the USFL.

[robardin]

(Re: Lionel Conacher:) Damn. And died hitting a stand-up triple. Dude.
The total opposite of someone who's "born on third base"...

[Billdo]

Good one. It was said that Ted Williams of the Red Sox was also a world-class fisherman, although I don't think there is any way to confirm that - there was no pro circuit at the time. He may just have had the means to travel the world and catch all kinds of different fish. Kind of like the "big game hunters" of the past. They were mostly a small group of wealthy white guys who could afford to outfit an expedition to Africa. But the best hunters? I doubt it.

From everything I've read about Williams, he brought the same dedication and focus to fishing that he did to hitting, and that he mainly fished in the waters off his Florida home.

[633squadron]

How about Willie Gault?

He was on the bobsled team for his sprinting abilities. I don't consider this a significant multi-sport talent, compared to Dave Debusschere or Bo Jackson.

Zaharias and Thorpe are my votes for the greatest multi-sport athletes of all time. Right up there is Bo Jackson.

I like Jim Brown but his accomplishments are a level below, since he never did two pro sports at the same time. Having played lacrosse, though, I have to say I'm thankful I never faced him. I can not imagine what that would be like.

[jsc1953]

One more factoid about Bo Jackson...Wikipedia reported that he was clocked in the 40 yard dash at 4.12 seconds. This would be ridiculously, stupid fast...even if it's overstated by a two tenths of a second, that would make him faster than almost every NFL wide receiver, who tend to be wiry, skinny guys, which he was definitely not. Jackson was big enough to run over people, but fast enough to just outrun them -- built like a truck, but runs like a Ferrari.

[Moirai]

Doesn't surprise me. Hell of a nice guy, too- he came to the CA Angels to die (as did so many former baseball greats), and he was an extremely cool guy. Instead of inviting the team over for a BBQ, he would invite the clubhouse staff, the towel guys, etc, and show 'em a great time. He also had a lovely wife and really well-behaved kids, which reflects well on him.

[Bootis]

Sanders has his moments but over the course of his career wasn't a very good ballplayer. He was an okay player, I guess, and had a relatively short career. He did play brilliantly in the 1992 World Series, although his team lost. He wasn't even the best player of his time named "Sanders."

His and Jackson's careers were about the same length and of about the same value; okay, but forgettable if they hadn't been stars in other sports. They're the baseball equivalents of football players like Warren Williams or Michael Haddix.

I wasn't a Deion Sanders fan, but to his credit, and Bo as well, I think they both would have been star baseball players if they had chosen to play baseball only. Bo in his prime year hit 30+ hr, 100+ rbi and if he was able to focus on refining his skills in the offseason like most players, he likely would have been a superstar. Not to mention the fatigue factor in the second half of the season- it effects most star players who didn't spend their whole off season playing nfl football

Deion was the first and probably last person ever to hit a major league home run and score an nfl touchdown in the same week, hit over .300 one year, and close to it a few others, and likewise, if he was able to take the time to refine his baseball skills, probably would have been an outstanding basebally player

[don't ask]

I guess time marches on. treis mentioned Jackie Robinson many posts ago and he was never considered again. I guess people nowadays just remember him as the first black player in major league baseball. However baseball was his least effective sport. He was a better football player, a better basketball player and an Olympic class track and field athlete.

Reading up on Robinson's MLB career it is hard to believe that anyone could have put up with the pressure he endured and produce even moderate performances. I would be pretty confident in backing him as the best US athlete of the latter half of the 20th century.