I don’t know much about football, but…Maradona as a second-stringer? And no Beckham?
I am in no position to debate; just wondering about your reasoning.
I think Zidane and Maldini would fit into a full team of superstars better than Maradona, but if most people want him in the first team instead of either of those two, I wouldn’t argue much.
Beckam probably doesn’t make the 10th string, I’d have to spend a lot more time thinking about it. He was never the best player on his team, excepting his time in MLS, let alone one of the best players of his generation. Plus, his skill set doesn’t fit a 4-3-3.
Beckham is the Joe Namath of soccer: way, way, more famous than his actual playing ability. [Not to say either was horrible, but neither were all-time greats].
Gosh - this far and no hockey yet.
Like to see a game between these teams:
Centre: um, Gretzky Gretzky Gretzky / Crosby
LW: Ovie / Shanahan
RW: definitely Howe / Jagr (or Bossy? Kurri? ACK!)
LD: um, Orr, Orr, Orr / Robinson
RD: Lidstrom / Park
G: Brodeur / Plante
C: Bowman
- vs -
Centre: Lemieux (Claude - no just kidding) / Sean Avery (ok maybe kidding again - try McDavid instead) (*almost *Richard - who’s been incorrectly attributed as a right winger in some corners of the internet)
LW: (Bobby - not Brett…greatness, remember?) Hull / Alexander Yukashev (interesting - WAY less pickins than RW)
RW: Messier / Lafleur
LD: Harvey / Potvin
RD: Chelios / Stevens (heh - way less pickins than LD)
G: Sawchuk / Dryden
C: toss-up between Arbour / Blake / Babcock
Interesting - how so?
Good point, that made me vacillate between decisions.
Gosh - this far and no hockey yet.
Like to see a game between these teams:
Centre: um, Gretzky Gretzky Gretzky / Crosby
LW: Ovie / Shanahan
RW: definitely Howe / Jagr (or Bossy? Kurri? ACK!)
LD: um, Orr, Orr, Orr / Robinson
RD: Lidstrom / Park
G: Brodeur / Plante
C: Bowman
- vs -
Centre: Lemieux (Claude - haha no just kidding) / Sean Avery (ok maybe kidding again - try McDavid instead) (*almost *Richard - who’s been incorrectly attributed as a right winger in some corners of the internet)
LW: (Bobby - not Brett…greatness, remember?) Hull / Alexander Yukashev (interesting - WAY less pickins than RW)
RW: Messier / Lafleur
LD: Harvey / Potvin
RD: Chelios / Stevens (heh - way less pickins than LD)
G: Sawchuk / Dryden
C: toss-up between Arbour / Blake / Babcock
Interesting - how so?
Good point, that made me vacillate between decisions.
ETA:
On hard court and grass, sure.
I’ll wager RN has at least two more FO titles in him.
Fuck - first for everything, I guess.
Apologies.
NFL football:
Coach = Bill Belichick
QB = Tom Brady
RB = Barry Sanders
WR = Randy Moss, Jerry Rice
TE = Jason Witten
Offensive linemen = Larry Allen, Orlando Pace, Anthony Munoz, Walter Jones, Jim Otto
Defensive linemen = Reggie White, Michael Strahan, Bruce Smith, Warren Sapp
LB = Lawrence Taylor, Brian Urlacher, Ray Lewis
CB = Deion Sanders, Richard Sherman, Darrelle Revis
Safeties = Ed Reed, Darren Woodson
Well, we gotta do this now
C: Gretzky, Lemieux
RW: Howe, Richard
LW: Hull, Ovechkin
D: Orr, Lidstrom, Bourque, Robinson
G: Roy, Brodeur, Dryden
The problem with these All-Superstar baseball teams is that if you sent them back to 1927 they’d still have a tough time beating the '27 Yankees.*
And it’s hard to understand why Bob Gibson was left off the pitching staffs. That’s the guy I’d want in a tough spot.
*Babe Ruth would have to play for both sides, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if promised extra chow after the game. Or maybe even during it. 
The 1927 Yankees were a wonderful team but they had no all-time great pitchers. Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock are in the Hall of Fame, but they really aren’t great choices; they’re in the Hall BECAUSE they were on the 1927 Yankees. Dennis Martinez and Frank Tanana were just as good as those guys. Urban Shocker was a hell of a pitcher but by 1927 he wasn’t as dominating as he had once been - that was his last full year. Wilcy Moore had a great year but it was a fluke.
Against lineups of the sort presented here, the lack of super-elite pitchers is a fatal flaw. The '27 Yankees would be crushed by our All-Star teams. Absolutely massacred. Only in right field and first base are they as good; at every other position they are totally overmatched. Tony Lazzeri and Earle Combs and Bob Meusel were fine players indeed but nowhere close to Joe Morgan, Willie Mays and Barry Bonds. The left side of the infield is men against boys, and I’d forgotten who their catcher was.
Look at it this way… the 1927 Yankees went 110-44. How would our superteams fare in a 154-game season? They wouldn’t lose 44 games. I’m not sure they’d lose 14. We’re struggling to find a roster spot for BOB GIBSON.
Um… no.
Now, if you organized this game in 24 hours with the 27Y’s at the peak of their powers and the superstars coming off binges, suffering hangovers, in a one-game exhibition, the 27Y’s can beat the superstars. But if both teams are playing as teams, in a 7-game series, then the 27Y’s have zero chance against the supes, and would lose, at best, 4-1.
The modern players are just better. Better training, more knowledge, ability to view film, historical knowledge of the 27 Yankees, better approach to health and eating, more muscular, faster, a far greater knowledge of anatomy, and all the general advantages being born in, say, 1984 has over being born in 1902.
He’s on mine.
The LH column is from a fairly well credentialled judge.
The key of his selection was Sobers whose all round capabilities allwed him to select only four specialist batsmen and leave whoever they play to work out how to score a defendable total against a 100% cream six man bowling unit.
My selection, of those I have seen play is in the RH and plagarises that theme with the key being Kallis. I’m a curmudgeon who favours the old guys but IMHO even Braddles’s 11 would struggle to consistently score 300 against my bowlers.
- Barry Richards [South Africa] . . . (Kane Wiliams [New Zealand])
- Arthur Morris [Australia] . . . (Viv Richards [West Indies])
- Don Bradman [Australia] . . . (Ricky Ponting [Australia])
- Sachin Tendulkar [India] . . . (Virat Kohli [India])
- Garry Sobers [West Indies] . . . (Jaques Kallis [South Africa])
- Don Tallon [Australia] . . . (Adam Gilchrist [Australia])
- Ray Lindwall [Australia] . . . (Wasim Akram [Pakistan])
- Dennis Lillee [Australia] . . . (Shane Warne [Australia])
- Alec Bedser [England] . . . (Joel Garner [West Indies])
- Bill O’Reilly [Australia] . . . (Michael Holding [West Indies])
- Clarrie Grimmett [Australia] . . . (Dennis Lillee [Australia])
This is a matter of personal preference, but I am inclined to suggest we ignore timeline, at least within a reasonable definition of the span of a given professional league.
To use a different sport, there is no doubt, none whatsoever, that the NHL players of, say, Bobby Orr’s day were on average physically inferior to today’s NHL players. It’s plainly obvious. Gordie Howe was a big, terrifyingly physical player in his prime; today he’d be average sized at best. The NHL players of 2018 are faster, stronger, and blessed with coaching techniques, scientific analysis, nutrition, and sports medicine advantages that players of the past could not even dream of.
But if you don’t grade on the curve, you end up picking ALL players on every team from the last twenty or thirty years. What matters is not how Babe Ruth would do if he stepped out of a time machine and was asked to immediately get into the box against Justin Verlander; what really matters is how he did against Lefty Grove. I have no serious doubt that if a 25-year-old Ruth was transported to today and was given time to adjust, pick some lighter bats and take some batting practice, he’d be the best hitter in baseball; he was a ridiculously great ballplayer.
Of course, you have to draw the line somewhere. I’d grant this to Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb of Josh Gibson, but when you start getting into how Old Hoss Radbourn did for the Providence Grays in 1881 I am not really sure that’s Major League Baseball anymore.
That said, even giving the 1927 Yankees one hundred percent grading-on-the-curve credit, of course they’d be crushed by our superteams. The superteams are putting Mike Schmidt up against Joe Dugan, Alex Rodriguez against Mark Koenig, and Randy Johnson against Herb Pennock. The 27Y pitching staff would be a dumpster fire by Game 3 of that series. It’s an overwhelming mismatch. I mean, the NHL superteam is going to annihilate the 1976 Canadiens. The NBA superteam will print twenty posters a game against the Jordan Bulls.
Sir, this lineup features ten men on offense and twelve men on defense.
I hate to pick nits, but that’s kind of an important one.
ETA: Also, I’m a little surprised that no one has included Jim Parker on offensive line. It was another era, but footage of him playing is astonishing.
IMHO. I am not an NFL sachem.
Thank you both for educating me. What I know about footy could fit in a thimble. All the “greatest soccer player of the twentieth century” discussions I’ve seen usually boil down to Pelé vs Maradona. It’s good to see some diversity.
Bumping this since I love these kinds of threads.
So everyone’s favorite “should really have worn #69” NFL Tight End is retiring. And I was thinking, if this is schoolyard style alternate picking players kind of thing, then there’s an argument that for football, the first choice should be Gronkowski. Yes, a QB is more important than even the best TE ever, but there are a lot of great QBs, and probably not that much effective difference between P Manning and A Rodgers (or whomever your #1 and #2 are). Whereas Gronk created defensive problems that no other TE really did (basically, with him you can run a 6-lineman power run scheme or have a passing game with an obligatory double-team receiver, with the exact same offensive personnel. Here’s a pro making the argument: The Singular Greatness of Patriots Star Rob Gronkowski - The Ringer). So you’re better off with Gronk and your #2 pick QB than your #1 pick QB and your #2 TE. (We’re assuming longevity isn’t an issue.)
I also wonder if the same argument applies to Lawrence Taylor, and anyone else?
And now that I think about it, it’s a great addition to the all-basketball teams. If you’re alternating picks, who do you take first? Are Shaq and Kareem close enough that you don’t mind which one you get and grab LeBron first? Or gamble that 2020 Giannis won’t be much of a drop-off from LeBron and take Jordan first? Also, at what point do you grab Popovich?
Wow. I like to think that I “specialize” in N.F.L. all-time greats (I possess an “old-school” N.F.L. simulation with which I can pit all-time greats for each N.F.L. franchise up against one another in a virtual team setting) but this is tough. I plan to post my N.F.L. All-Time team(s) in a bit.
World XV (Rugby Union)
This may be slightly biased towards players that I have seen:
-
Jason Leonard (Eng) (Os du Randt (RSA))
-
Sean Fitzpatrick (NZ) (Keith Wood (Ire))
-
Adam Jones (Wal) (Owen Franks (NZ))
-
John Eales (Aus) (Brodie Retallick (NZ))
-
Sam Whitelock (NZ) (Martin Johnson (Eng))
-
Francois Pienaar (RSA) (George Smith (Aus))
-
Michael Jones (NZ) (Richie McCaw (NZ))
-
Zinzan Brooke (NZ) (Buck Shelford (NZ)).
-
Gareth Edwards (Wal) (Joost van der Westhuizen (RSA))
-
Dan Carter (NZ) (Jonny Wilkinson (Eng))
-
Jonah Lomu (NZ) (Bryan Habana (RSA)).
-
Tim Horan (Aus) (Phillipe Sella (Fra))
-
Brian O’Driscoll (Ire) (Tana Umaga (NZ))
-
David Campese (Aus) (Joe Rokococo (NZ))
-
JPR Williams (Wal) (Serge Blanco (Fra))
Charlestown Chiefs