Are sports without rigid positions more likely to have "greatest evers"?

The Game Room
1

I was reminiscing on my childhood in the 90s, when there were two currently active players considered by almost everyone to be the best in their sports: Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. Not only were they considered the best, but they were considered the best ever, even while they were still playing. There was some excitement over Lemieux, but his health issues prevented him from threatening Gretzky’s claim to ultimate greatness.

And then I thought about how baseball and football never really seem to have players labeled as “the greatest ever”. At least, you don’t hear that sort of label nearly as often. And I began to think about why.

In some sports, the positions are not merely an open-ended orientation of players. In football, the quarterback does what a quarterback does, period. In baseball, the catcher does what the catcher does, etc. But in soccer, a center midfielder is not making a huge mistake if he charges into the penalty box. In fact, a right defender is not always making a mistake while doing that.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that in basketball, hockey, soccer or other sports without rigid positions, that one should have no qualms about leaving one’s supposed position. But in those games, positions are less rigid. Players have more freedom to act how they choose and to influence the game however they see fit.

Could this be the key to why some sports have “greatest players” in a way that others do not as much? It is common for people to talk about the greatest soccer player ever - usually it’s Pele or Maradona, sometimes others. Few dispute that Gretzky is the greatest hockey player ever. Jordan is considered the greatest basketball player ever by most. But even those who disagree disagree not because they think you can’t say one player is the best, but because they have a different idea of who the best was.

Whereas in baseball, you’re not going to hear statements like “Mariano Rivera is the greatest baseball player ever”. This is not because he isn’t unbelievably good (his ERA is unreal) but because he has a very specialized role.

So, does what I’m saying make sense? Are games that have greater specialization in team play less likely to be the focus of “greatest player” debates and labels?

2

In the two sports you mentioned, the ‘greatest’ were 1 of just 5 on the ice/court (goalie aside), and you could clearly see the point/assist stats that indicated their contribution to the score.

It’s easy to point to films, scores, stats and see how far and above Jordan and Gretzky are from anyone else.

Also, they both had the chance to do things no one has ever done before, but on an entirely new scale. What Gretzky did from a statistical standpoint made an absolute mockery of the best stats posted prior to that.

In football, records have been broken, but no one went and broke the 16-game rushing total for a season by 1,000 yards. What Gretzky did, say with just the 50 goals in 39 games record, has no equivalent in football. No one has reached 1700 yards rushing in 8 NFL games… and if they did, and had the ability to smash 100 other records along the way… then they might be held in as high a regard.

3

Most baseball fans would agree the Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player ever. Even though people have passed him in some categories, he still is the all-time leader in several important ones, no one has ever matched his combination of slugging, hitting for average, getting on base, total domination of his era (his adjusted OBS+ – comparing his batting and slugging to players of his era – is 207, sixteen points higher than anyone else, meaning he was over twice as good as the average player in his time), and, yes, pitching (Ruth was a Hall of Fame quality pitcher before he switched to being an everyday batter).

Much like Gretzky, his hitting 60 home runs was a titanic increase over home run hitters in the past. What’s even more amazing was that no one was amazed by it – it was expected of him.

4

And if Wayne Gretzky never ever scored a goal in his entire career, he would still be the NHL’s all-time scoring leader. I can’t think of anything comparable in any other sport; except maybe if Hank Aaron never hit a home run in his life, yet still was the all time RBI leader.

5

I grant you, nobody is ever likely to pick a pitcher or goaltender as “the greatest player ever” in his sport.

Lefty Grove or Roger Clemens MAY have been the greatest pitcher ever, but I don’t think either would top many people’s “Best Ever” lists. And no hockey fan would name a goaltender as “Greatest player in NHL history.”

Even so, before Wayne Gretzky came along, I’d bet a fair number of hockey fans would have named defenseman Bobby Orr as the greatest player ever.

Of course, that has more to do with his skills as a scorer and playmaker than as a defender. A stellar defenseman who didn’t score many points wouldn’t rate so highly. Nor would a basketball player who was a phenomenal defender and rebounder, but didn’t score many points (ask Dennis Rodman).

In almost all team sports, one dimensional players who score a lot of points (or help create a lot of points) always get more glory than one-dementional guys who prevent points.

As for football, well, people DO still pick “greatest players ever,” they just tend to stick to quarterbacks and running backs. Ask someone to name the greatest football player ever, and you’ll hear “Jim Brown” or “Johnny Unitas” or “Joe Montana.” You probably won’t hear “Bob Lilly” or “Dick Butkus.”

6

In cricket, among batsmen (who occupy a very rigid position), there is clearly one “greatest ever”: Don Bradman, who averaged 99.94 at test matches (international matches). If you look at the graph on this page, you see that his average is an extreme outlier: only three others have an average better than 60, and none are over 61. So occupying a “rigid position” doesn’t stop you from being clearly the greatest ever.

7

It’s a similar kind of idea, but I’d change the argument to say that the more possible it is for one player to dominate the possession of the ball/puck, the more likely it is that somebody will end up being considered the greatest by the most people. The guys who you can just give the ball to and let them take control are the ones who are most likely to end up being considered the best. And among the best, the true greats are the ones who take control most effectively. Baseball’s weird and operates by different rules, but aside from that, basically, the rule holds true.

Jordan’s on the court for 40ish out of 48 minutes, and you can literally just lob the ball to him 40 feet from the basket, and there’s basically nothing the other team can do about it save leaving a player literally unguarded. After 100+ touches per game, it becomes clear exactly how good he is.

Gretzky you can feed the puck in the neutral zone and let him pick the other team apart; again, even though it’s in a vastly different way than in basketball, the rules of the game are just conducive to Gretzky always being able to exert an influence, and he’ll be involved enough that his transcendent ability will be apparent.

As astorian said, same deal in (US) football - you can’t keep the ball out of the quarterback or the tailback’s hands. Walter Payton, Jim Brown, Montana, Sanders are the guys who can be leaned on, so those are the guys you’ll hear talked about as the greatest, but less so because they have to rely on linemen and the other phases of the team’s play for success to a greater extent than in the more individually dominated sports.

The other football (well, the real one) works like basketball except with much less granularity. When a guy’s out there for 95 minutes of back and forth play, he’s going to get his touches, but since scoring is rare and the odds are stacked against goalscoring moves anyway, he won’t always have repeated opportunities to really overwhelm the opponent. I think this leads to a much less clear consensus all-time greatest, and even from year to year the ‘world’s greatest’ title gets handed back and forth between a few players depending on who’s had the most success.

And then as far as baseball and cricket, the game’s binary nature makes for a difficult calculus to some extent, but I’d say that the fact that batters get multiple opportunities all to themselves every single game makes it such that it’s very very obvious who the greatest of all time are. Everybody knows Babe Ruth (and Bradman, so I understand) is the greatest ever because every time his team took the field he got 4 or 5 chances to bat, and the defense just couldn’t avoid it. Over time, it becomes really clear that he’s doing everything better than anybody else.

8

Is there really much dispute that Pele is the all-time greatest footballer? Maybe the controversy is something I don’t know about because I’m not really in the thick of football fandom, but I thought he was at least as clear as Jordan, say, if not Ruth or Bradman. (Which is to say that some contrarians might come out with another name just to be contrary, but 90% of serious fans would agree on one greatest.)

9

Yeah, looking around, maybe you’re right. I remember that FIFA did a player of the century thing and it was split between he and Maradona and I thought that was a pretty common debate. That appears to have been mostly an anomaly and maybe I put too much stock into it. I don’t hear much discussion about it at all, either.

10

**Jimmy Chitwood **There are only two innings in first-class and test cricket, so batsman only bat twice. In one-day cricket and twenty-20 there’s only one innings. However cricket batsman can stay in all day (literally) so a dominant batsman can score a lot of runs in one game - Brian Lara holds the current test and one-day records of 400 and 501 (both not out so potentially he could have kept going…).

While it’s hard to argue against Don Bradman as being the greatest ever, Garfield Sobers deserves a mention. The hundred voters for theWisden Cricketers of the Century complained that two of their five votes were ‘wasted’ as Bradman and Sobers were virtually automatic choices.

11

There wouldn’t be consensus on the greatest footballer - too many great players in too many strong domestic leagues over the past century. As a result, the greatest footballer question usually boils down to the greatest performer on the international stage in world cups. This is a toss up between Maradonna and Pele in the past 40 years - clearly Maradonna IMO, but others would argue that it’s clearly Pele - not clear cut either way.

12

I’m not sure I buy the OP’s premise.

For one, “Babe Ruth” is as common an answer to the question where baseball is concerned as anyone in any sport. He’s just as strong an answer as Michael Jordan is with basketball.

It’s Gretzky that’s unique - Jordan is not at all comparable to Gretzky.

13

I thought Ruth used to be the no-questions-asked Greatest, but didn’t Bonds gain some support as G.O.A.T., if you didn’t discount his roided-up ass?

14

He does in the sabermetrics crowd, to some extent, but Ruth is still the primary choice and brings to the table an added feature Bonds does not (pitching.)

For the sake of the OP, though, the fact Ruth held that position for so long sort of sinks the OP’s premise, which is that baseball never has players labelled “greatest ever” because of the nature of the sport. That obviously isn’t true.

15

Untrue, this is disputed quite often among serious hockey fans. The argument is that Gretzky although he may have been an offensive specialist, his skating ability, defensive skill, and physicality weren’t the “greatest”. Former greats such as Bobby Orr or Rocket Richard were well rounded players, gifted in all aspects of the game.

IMHO I like Bobby Orr.

16

As much as I appreciate Orr, and the Rocket, and Mario, and Phil Esposito, and Jean Beliveau, and Guy Lafleur, and Mark Messier, and Ray Bourque and … the list goes on and on… Anyway, as much as I appreciate all the other greats, no one, absolutely no one compares to Gretzky. Any comparisons are just ridiculous.

So, he wasn’t big. So, he wasn’t physical. So, he wasn’t the fastest guy on the ice. It didn’t matter. When he was on the ice he owned it. He completely dominated the play. I had the opportunity to see him play live a number of times in his prime and it was just absolutely jaw-droppingly astounding how much he controlled the play.

Sorry. There is no debate here.

17

Well, what made Ruth and Gretzky stand out was the huge gap between them and the second best players in the sports.

Babe Ruth was hitting 50 homers a year when whole TEAMS didn’t hit that many.

And Gretzky was scoring 200+ points beack when the runner-up “only” had 125 or so.

There have always been stellar players in every sport, and the average baseball player today is undoubtedly much better than the average baseball player of, say, 1923.

But even if Luis Pujols were demonstrably a better all-around ballplayer than Babe Ruth, he’ll NEVER be miles ahead of the second best player in baseball. In 1927, if I asked “Who’s the greatest baseball player in the world,” only an idiot would ahve said anything but “Babe Ruth.” But today? Pujols is probably the right answer, but one could amke a good case for any number of players.

No one player in baseball can possibly stand out as the Babe did.

And no future hockey player is likely to be as much better than his peers as Gretzky was.

18

The main argument against Gretzky is that he played against a super dilute talent pool when compared to Howe or whoever when it was just the original six. If you’d have taken the best players in the league and made six teams, Gretzky wouldn’t have put up as ridiculous numbers.

His numbers are generally so outrageous that I don’t but this argument, but there it is.

19

Well, if Babe Ruth were playing today, he’d probably only hit .280 or so. Of course, he’d also be 114 years old, so his skills would have eroded a bit.

20

I think you mean Albert Pujols. Luis Pujols is a AA manager who hit all of .193 in the majors back in the late '70s and early '80s.