Arriving at "the greatest" in any sport

[WinterTriangle]

Do the same type of heated arguments exist in other sports as in horse racing?

My game before this was tennis, and watching Federer try to beat Sampras's record was exciting, the French Open of 2009 . For many, the question will always be "yes, but----" knowing that Rafael Nadal had been sidelined by knees, had humiliated Federer so many times on the court, had a 13-7 record over Federer. I cried when Agassi gave Federer the trophy, even knowing that he did not have to face Nadal in Paris.

How do we peg them against each other. Statistically, or number of games won, titles. Do titles make you the best? Do statistics? Gold medals? Numbers? Mathematical measurement of lateral moves, mph of serves? Dominance on a surface, or versatility on each surface? Time? (Andre Agassi took 15 years to win his 17 titles; Nadal did it in a mere five seasons ). Unprecedented consistency? (Federer scores there.)

The surface question is alive and well in tennis, as it is in horse racing.:) Nadal is "the best" on clay-court, Sampras on grass, Federer is #2 on both of those, yet he is considered the greatest due to titles won. There are all these ifs and buts.

Martina Navratilova has actually won more Grand Slam titles than Federer, as has Margaret Court.

Similar to horses, how do we compare across eras? Pat Cash said of Federer: "you can't seriously compare players from disparate eras. Different rackets, different shoes, different techniques, different ... everything......."

I have long abandoned any attempt to keep trying to compare Agassi, Laver, Sampras, Federer, Nadal. I am certain that there is no system of measurement that could be arrived at that everyone would agree with.

"Greatness", in the end, is somewhat subjective.

[Hank]

Quite true.The Federer Nadal situation is something that I have never seen before.Fed is being proclaimed by many as the greatest of all time yet Nadal has his number holding a 14-7 edge over him head to head and has beaten him on grass his best surface.Strange huh the greatest of all time but not the best player of your own era.If Nadal's knees hold up he may surpass them all He's the fiercest competitor I've ever seen in the sport of tennis,surpassing even Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert in that regard.

[Overlay]

Since you said "any sport", I'll throw hockey out there. I'm not a hockey historian or aficionado, and I know that the game has a long history, but would there be any reason or standard by which Wayne Gretzky could be disputed as the single greatest player of all time? It would seem from my layman's perspective that the kind of points that Pat Cash made about changes in tennis surfaces or equipment over time would not have the same kind of relevance or impact in hockey.

[DeltaLover]

The 'greatest' of a domain, relates to the level of dominance of his contemporaries, without respect to the absolute measurement of it.

By this definition somebody will consider Aristotle as the 'greatest' scientist since he posed all the scientific knowledge of the humanity of his era or by the same token Alexander was the 'greatest' political – military leader based in the extend and influence of his campaign.

The ' absolute measurement' is not significant at all, since it is subject to evolution.

For example in Olympic sports the records are improving as time goes by since they depend to the constantly evolving training methods, drugs and equipment. Besides that though, nobody will seriously debate the 'greatness' of Jesse Owens even if his final times have long been surpassed by what is considered today to be slightly above average level athletes!

[Hank]

The 'greatest' of a domain, relates to the level of dominance of his contemporaries, without respect to the absolute measurement of it.

By this definition somebody will consider Aristotle as the 'greatest' scientist since he posed all the scientific knowledge of the humanity of his era or by the same token Alexander was the 'greatest' political – military leader based in the extend and influence of his campaign.

The ' absolute measurement' is not significant at all, since it is subject to evolution.

For example in Olympic sports the records are improving as time goes by since they depend to the constantly evolving training methods, drugs and equipment. Besides that though, nobody will seriously debate the 'greatness' of Jesse Owens even if his final times have long been surpassed by what is considered today to be slightly above average level athletes!

Agreed,That's about about as close as one can come to nailing it down....BUT because the quality of the contemporaries being beaten is not considered it to is flawed.

[Marshall Bennett]

Who would watch hockey is it weren't for the fact they beat each other with sticks and slam each other into walls ? The puck moves to fast to follow .

[Johnny V]

The same arguments occur in just about every sport. The sports I hear that the most in are probably baseball and boxing. It is really quite hard to compare athletes from generation to generation. Who is left that actually saw Ty Cobb, Jack Dempsey or Man O War?? All we have are written accounts and poor film. I think the great champions of all eras all have a good case to make but it can never really be decided.
There is a good book for baseball fans called The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs by Bill Jenkinson that does a very good job of comparing Ruth's accomplishments in comparison to today's results and players.

[Jay Trotter]

That's just dumb! If you know the game, you can anticipate the action. It ain't rocket surgery! Black puck on white ice! A baseball really is pretty much the same size as a puck! :bang:

Who would watch hockey is it weren't for the fact they beat each other with sticks and slam each other into walls ? The puck moves to fast to follow .

[Rookies]

Who would watch hockey is it weren't for the fact they beat each other with sticks and slam each other into walls ? The puck moves to fast to follow .

Marshall, you Americans need a better/ higher attention span.;) Hockey is like the Roman Colisseum come to life. It's development has always been elusive in America, despite its' strongly 'American' values: Skill, Speed, Violence, Fighting, Strength, Courage, Playing under extreme mental/ physical duress and injury.

It is no pussy sport like baseball.

On the subject itself, Gretzky is a no brainer for Hockey. But, I rank Joe Montana as the # 1 player in NFL History. In fact, his stats were not great, except for the one intangible- when the biggest games were on the line in the most critical moments, before the largest audiences, he thrived, made the correct decisions and followed through with the right stuff!

THAT should be the definition of " greatest".

[rastajenk]

Jim Brown. A few minutes of watching him on film is enough to see someone dominating his sport like few others have. Montana has the rings, but Brown dished out some major punishment while racking up his big stats.

[thorobasePA]

And this is from someone who doesn't follow cricket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman#World_sport_context

[kenwoodall2]

IMO the biggest arguments are sports where playing area dimensions are not standard (racing, baseball) or rules, number of games (football, baseball, Olympics) change.
Racing is the only one I know of where each venue changes playing surface often, drugs are a big concern, distances keep changing, public discloure is frowned upon. These are also some reasons why horseracing needs to keep pushing for new blood and for media attention.