Is Gretzky the most dominant athlete ever in any major sport?

[BladesofSTEELwFIRE]

Maybe so, but the same could be said of many athletes (Ruth playing when he did, for example). Fact is, Gretzky was so dominant they had to make rule changes to slow his team down. He holds every major record there is for his sport in his position. He has more assists than anyone else has points. It's pretty crazy, when you really think about it.

It is timing because if he played today he wouldn't come close to 200 points or even if he played on a different team in the 80s I doubt he would have four 200 point seasons.

 

[PhilJets]

No one dominated like Bradman.

Can someone do a graph of Gretzky's point total vs the rest of the field?

better yet his assist total vs the rest of the field?

his offensive records vs the rest of the fields?

what else?

thanks

 

[BladesofSTEELwFIRE]

The difference is no cares about a sport named after a bug!

 

[Horvath Broncos]

The difference is no cares about a sport named after a bug!

yep. Cricket is so marginal sport compared to ice hockey. I mean no one cares about cricket in north america which is all that matters right?

 

[canucks4ever]

Knock cricket all you want, americans have never cared about ice hockey and it will never be a major sport in the us.

 

[Thenameless]

I'm really impressed by some of you guys and gals who are extremely knowledgeable at more than one sport. Are their any hardcore fans of certain sports that can give me a quick rundown of maybe a top-ten for a sport that they feel comfortable representing? Like... I would imagine Babe Ruth is certainly top-ten material if not #1, but who else belongs up there? This is going to sound dumb, but is Derek Jeter a top-ten guy? Is Shaq? Is Tom Brady? Is Cobi Jones?

I'm not a baseball expert by any means, but I'm pretty comfortable in saying:

Hitters: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio
Pitchers: Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax

For pitchers, I feel Walter Johnson is really outstanding. If you read about him, you'll see why. I kinda don't like that all the great hitters are from eras past, but they are definitely ranked as better than modern-day hitters by experts. A part of my insides tugs at me and says that "modern hitters have it way tougher because they constantly face fresher arms". In the past, a starter often finished the game. Nowadays, there's middle-relief, set-up man, and closer - things that didn't exist way back when. Plus, there's specialist pitchers "made" to go up against certain hitters.

Derek Jeter is not a top 10 guy. Shaq might be a top 10 guy for peak dominance (in fact he almost surely is), but he could be squeezed out of a top 10 careers discussion. Tom Brady is most definitely a top 10 all-time quarterback - see debates between him and Peyton Manning on football forums, etc.

For individual sports: Jahangir Khan in squash, Edwin Moses in 400m hurdles (unbeaten for a decade), Aleksandr Karelin of Greco-Roman Wrestling, Sonja Henie of women's figure skating. All of these people are worth a read in your spare time.

 

[Beef Invictus]

The difference is no cares about a sport named after a bug!

Except for about a billion people.

 

[Plural]

Except for about a billion people.

They don't count since they live outside of northern Europe or North America.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I'm not a baseball expert by any means, but I'm pretty comfortable in saying:

Hitters: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio
Pitchers: Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax

For pitchers, I feel Walter Johnson is really outstanding. If you read about him, you'll see why. I kinda don't like that all the great hitters are from eras past, but they are definitely ranked as better than modern-day hitters by experts. A part of my insides tugs at me and says that "modern hitters have it way tougher because they constantly face fresher arms". In the past, a starter often finished the game. Nowadays, there's middle-relief, set-up man, and closer - things that didn't exist way back when. Plus, there's specialist pitchers "made" to go up against certain hitters.

Derek Jeter is not a top 10 guy. Shaq might be a top 10 guy for peak dominance (in fact he almost surely is), but he could be squeezed out of a top 10 careers discussion. Tom Brady is most definitely a top 10 all-time quarterback - see debates between him and Peyton Manning on football forums, etc.

For individual sports: Jahangir Khan in squash, Edwin Moses in 400m hurdles (unbeaten for a decade), Aleksandr Karelin of Greco-Roman Wrestling, Sonja Henie of women's figure skating. All of these people are worth a read in your spare time.

Dimaggio? Over Bonds?

 

[Wrath]

Dimaggio? Over Bonds?

I assume he's probably discounting Bonds due to the PED thing (not saying I agree or disagree with it).

______________


Anyhow, Babe Ruth still takes the cake for me for the "big 4" sports in USA. What he did, compared to his peers before him (the second half of his career, people started hitting for power more because of Ruth...), is pretty ridiculous.

 

[Wrath]

For individual sports: Jahangir Khan in squash

I agree with most of the rest of your sports, except your assertion that Shaq is not a top 10 all time career, since Shaq still had a 13-14 year prime (don't forget the pre-Championship Lakers years or the Orlando years). Shaq in his prime was also easily the most dominant force since MJ in the NBA (Lebron came close, but no cigar).



However, I must disagree with Jahangir Khan in squash. I play a lot of squash, more than I do hockey (I watch more hockey of course though, maybe due to the fact that free top pro squash games are hard to come by), so I do consider myself to be fairly knowedgable in the sport.

Jansher Khan's existance prevents Jahangir from being up at the top along with the likes of Gretzky, Ruth, etc. If Jahangir is Gretzky, then Jansher is a healthy and durable Mario Lemieux.

Gretzky/Jahangir played less spectacular playing styles (at least to the casual viewer). Mario/Jansher were more likely to wow visually, and had more pure wow factor creativity (i.e. sick dangles/incredible shots you never expected).


Furthermore I would say that squash itself has grown so much since the days of the two Khans that it's so hard to compare now. Baseball was the biggest sport in America when Ruth was breaking records. Squash's viewer and player base is easily at least 10x bigger now than it is back in the Khan days, maybe even 100x bigger. Especially since soft ball (European) took over hard ball (American) squash. It's very hard to compare modern "legends" like Peter Nicol, Amr Shabana, and probably Ramy Ashour soon to the Khans, since they competition now really is that much bigger than before.

 

[jdatb]

A case could be made for Garry Kasparov. Extremely dominant.

 

[Uncle Rotter]

Edwin Moses in 400m hurdles (unbeaten for a decade)

Though he spent the last couple of years of that streak trying to avoid Danny Harris

 

[kook10]

Alexander Karelin - greco-roman wrestling

887 wins, 2 losses

3 Olympic Golds, 1 silver

9 World Championships

Undefeated for thirteen years, including not giving up a point for 6 years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Karelin

 

[Thenameless]

I assume he's probably discounting Bonds due to the PED thing (not saying I agree or disagree with it).

______________


Anyhow, Babe Ruth still takes the cake for me for the "big 4" sports in USA. What he did, compared to his peers before him (the second half of his career, people started hitting for power more because of Ruth...), is pretty ridiculous.

Actually, I think Barry Bonds deserves to be up there with the hallowed greats, along with Pete Rose. I just didn't want to face the wrath of the anti-PED crowd or the anti-gambling crowd.

 

[Thenameless]

I agree with most of the rest of your sports, except your assertion that Shaq is not a top 10 all time career, since Shaq still had a 13-14 year prime (don't forget the pre-Championship Lakers years or the Orlando years). Shaq in his prime was also easily the most dominant force since MJ in the NBA (Lebron came close, but no cigar).



However, I must disagree with Jahangir Khan in squash. I play a lot of squash, more than I do hockey (I watch more hockey of course though, maybe due to the fact that free top pro squash games are hard to come by), so I do consider myself to be fairly knowedgable in the sport.

Jansher Khan's existance prevents Jahangir from being up at the top along with the likes of Gretzky, Ruth, etc. If Jahangir is Gretzky, then Jansher is a healthy and durable Mario Lemieux.

Gretzky/Jahangir played less spectacular playing styles (at least to the casual viewer). Mario/Jansher were more likely to wow visually, and had more pure wow factor creativity (i.e. sick dangles/incredible shots you never expected).


Furthermore I would say that squash itself has grown so much since the days of the two Khans that it's so hard to compare now. Baseball was the biggest sport in America when Ruth was breaking records. Squash's viewer and player base is easily at least 10x bigger now than it is back in the Khan days, maybe even 100x bigger. Especially since soft ball (European) took over hard ball (American) squash. It's very hard to compare modern "legends" like Peter Nicol, Amr Shabana, and probably Ramy Ashour soon to the Khans, since they competition now really is that much bigger than before.

Thanks for the further insight with regards to Jahangir Khan's relative dominance. I don't know squash all that well. I just remember watching Khan in the early 80's, and I remember being amazed how good he was.

As far as Shaq goes, I'm both a Laker fan and a Shaq fan so it's hard for me to argue with you there. However, if you dig deep into stats and peruse basketball forums that are like HFBoards, you'll find a general consensus that Shaq was very dominant (say top 5 all time in this respect), but that his overall career is somewhat lacking in the personal hardware department (not a lot of scoring titles and not a lot of MVP's compared with some other greats). Shaq is somewhat plagued by the same thing that hurts Mario Lemieux - he didn't take his conditioning seriously and it affected his career.

 

[Thenameless]

A case could be made for Garry Kasparov. Extremely dominant.

A very, very strong case in fact. My personal favourite is Fischer, but there is no arguing against Kasparov.

 

[blogofmike]

I never knew or cared about what Bodyline meant, and I still don't care, but it says something that the NHL changed the rules to slow Gretzky down, while cricket changed the rules to eliminate a style of play that slowed Bradman down, even if fast bowling and bouncers became commonplace after Bradman retired.

Also, I feel Wayne Gretzky would still be the best player in the game, even if he played outdoors or with poor ice. While Gretzky scored 2 points in slushy conditions less than two weeks after the Suter hit (albeit in exhibition play), Bradman went from tripling average players, to scoring at under two thirds the average cricket player's rate: http://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/busting-myths-about-the-bradman-era-the-don-s-average-on-sticky-wickets-was-20-29-19492.

Wayne Gretzky was still Wayne Gretzky even if it's damp.

 

[Man Bear Pig]

Babe Ruth for me. The guys numbers are mindblowing. A career .474 OBP, 1.164 OPS, 163 WAR. Was also an absolutely dominating pitcher although he only pitched 9 years on and off. He finished with 183 WAR, by far more than anyone else including Cobb,Bonds,Mays,Gehrig etc. The only argument you could make was that he played a century ago, back when baseball wasn't exactly open for anyone to play.

 

[jdatb]

A very, very strong case in fact. My personal favourite is Fischer, but there is no arguing against Kasparov.

I always wished Fischer could have played Karpov/Kasparov. He definitely had the talent and skill.

As for Kasparov, my chess knowledge is a little rusty now, but he was the top rated player in the world for 22 years. He had the highest FIDE rating(2851) until last year when Carlsen passed him. However, Carlsen has had several advantages including technological advances and extra materials about openings and chess theory, so most still consider Kasparov a better player in his prime. This isn't to take away from Carlsen of course. One day he might be considered the best chess player in the world. However I don't know if we'll ever see the level of dominance that Kasparov showed. His game against Topalov in 1999 and game 20 of his match against Karpov in 1990 are absolutely phenomenal.

 

[Cawz]

It is timing because if he played today he wouldn't come close to 200 points or even if he played on a different team in the 80s I doubt he would have four 200 point seasons.

He might. You never know. His first season over 200 points, he had very little help, as only one teammate got over 90 points.

Only one teammate had more points than Gretzky had goals. Just think about that for a bit.

Gretzky made that team what it became.

 

[Brooklanders*]

Actually, I think Barry Bonds deserves to be up there with the hallowed greats, along with Pete Rose. I just didn't want to face the wrath of the anti-PED crowd or the anti-gambling crowd.

Then shouldn't we put Lance Armstrong in the conversation.

 

[Black Gold Extractor]

He might. You never know. His first season over 200 points, he had very little help, as only one teammate got over 90 points.

Only one teammate had more points than Gretzky had goals. Just think about that for a bit.

Gretzky made that team what it became.

I'm not sure how anyone could really think otherwise. His teammates eventually became HHOF-caliber players, but Gretzky had a huge head start over them.


1981-82:
Gretzky - 212
Anderson - 105
Coffey - 89
Messier - 88
Kurri - 86

Gretzky held a 107 point lead over Anderson... slightly more than double. Heck, even the next season when Gretzky just barely missed the 200-point mark:

1982-83:
Gretzky - 196
Messier - 106
Anderson - 104
Kurri - 104
Coffey- 96

Gretzky held a 90 point lead over Messier. Going back in time,

1980-81:
Gretzky - 164
Kurri - 75
Messier - 63
*Callighen - 60
Anderson - 53
....
Coffey - 32

Gretzky held an 89 point lead over Kurri, way more than double. When Gretzky really started to dominate the league, his team hadn't caught up to him yet.

 

[Sadekuuro]

I had forgotten that Coffey jumped from 32 to 89 points. Has any defenseman ever had a larger gain? Orr went from 64 to 120, which is only one point fewer gained as a raw count but isn't even close as a percentage.

 

[Iain Fyffe]

A case could be made for Garry Kasparov. Extremely dominant.

Dominant as he may be, chess is not a sport, and those that play it are not athletes, and as such are not relevant to this thread. Not all forms of competition are sports.