Mario = Michael

[paracord]

Watching this Jordan documentary got me thinking of how similar his career path was with that of Mario Lemieux.

• Both drafted in 84 after stellar amateur careers.
• Both gained enormous individual accomplishments/scoring titles in the 80s without great team success.
• Both were bounced in the playoffs with a subpar team in their first few tries and had to overcome better teams
• Both were MVP of the 1988 all star games of their respective leagues.
• Both were 3 time all-star MVPs.
• Both won their first championship in 1991.
• Both won their second championship in 1992.
• Both took the label of "best in the world" at pretty concurrent times.
• Both were the best players in the 1990s in their respective sports without even playing in the full decade.
• Both took a large amount of time off in their physical primes in the 90s after winning multiple championships, Mario for injury, Michael for baseball.
• Both retired in the late 90s still with good years left
• Both came back out of retirement in the early 2000s.
• Both are now owners of teams

And in my opinion both are the most talented and physically dominant players to ever play their sports.

Interesting to ponder.

I wonder which one is better at golf?

Click to read more...

 

[Khelandros]

• Both took a large amount of time off in their physical primes in the 90s after winning multiple championships, Mario for injury, Michael for baseball.

People still believe this lie? He got suspended from the league for gambling, but the league couldn't suspended their biggest star, so he went and played baseball for a year.

 

[theicebox]

They need to make a Space Jam movie with Lemieux in it, .

 

[Pens1566]

People still believe this lie? He got suspended from the league for gambling, but the league couldn't suspended their biggest star, so he went and played baseball for a year.

Tin foil. His dad had just died and he was burned out.

If he was in any way punished by the league for gambling, there's no way in hell they'd allow him into ownership later on. Not to mention, he kept up his ways when he came back in '96ish.

 

[Gurglesons]

Tin foil. His dad had just died and he was burned out.

If he was in any way punished by the league for gambling, there's no way in hell they'd allow him into ownership later on. Not to mention, he kept up his ways when he came back in '96ish.

Yeah, imagine letting someone suspended for gambling coaching in the NHL.

 

[Pens1566]

Yeah, imagine letting someone suspended for gambling coaching in the NHL.

Different leagues, different concerns. Especially after Donaghy.

 

[EightyOne]

Both are beyond elite in their games. No one could touch them in their prime.

But.
Dude.

Five
Goals
Five
Ways

That will NEVER happen again...I mean...three of them are situations that rarely happen even once in a game. Lol. It's absurd.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I struggle to compare basketball greats and hockey greats because of the championships factor.

In the NBA, the best player gets the ball every possession and very often the best player wins. In the NHL the best player often does not win. The best player can be prevented from touching the puck and the best forward also sits for 2/3rds of the game.

From a sheer physical talent standpoint I think that Mario (and Orr) are on that same level with MJ, Lebron and - purely physically - prime Shaq.

One baseball great occurred to me as a Mario comp: Ken Griffey Jr. Was an undeniably great player who played with a career-long handicap (not being on steroids when everyone else was) that was exacerbated by actual injury problems throughout his 30s.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I struggle to compare basketball greats and hockey greats because of the championships factor.

In the NBA, the best player gets the ball every possession and very often the best player wins. In the NHL the best player often does not win. The best player can be prevented from touching the puck and the best forward also sits for 2/3rds of the game.

From a sheer physical talent standpoint I think that Mario (and Orr) are on that same level with MJ, Lebron and - purely physically - prime Shaq.

One baseball great occurred to me as a Mario comp: Ken Griffey Jr. Was an undeniably great player who played with a career-long handicap (not being on steroids when everyone else was) that was exacerbated by actual injury problems throughout his 30s.

Griffey was nowhere close to Bonds even before the steroids, and I find it highly doubtful he never took PEDs. Honestly, it's more likely than not that any player in the 90s was on roids.

 

[billybudd]

One benefit of anabolics (and HGH) is that they allow for (which is not to be read as "cause") far quicker healing of contractile tissue (remember Ray Lewis's miracle recovery?) than is normal.

Just due to how often Griffey was IRed with muscle tears, I would tend to think he was clean, or at least clean most of the time. Also worth noting that his name never really came up in any of these investigations (to my knowledge).

A quick google search produces only stuff like this garbage article filled with wild speculation and not even a whiff of evidence. When your premise is that a constantly-injured ballplayer losing footspeed at 33 can only be explained by the cessation of PED usage, your allegation is trash.

 

[Al Smith]

Griffey was nowhere close to Bonds even before the steroids, and I find it highly doubtful he never took PEDs. Honestly, it's more likely than not that any player in the 90s was on roids.

I’ll always remember Bonds for disappearing in Three consecutive playoff appearances for the Bucs. Maybe the juice would have helped then.

IMO griffey was the superior pre-roid player but not by much.

 

[ChaosAgent]

One benefit of anabolics (and HGH) is that they allow for (which is not to be read as "cause") far quicker healing of contractile tissue (remember Ray Lewis's miracle recovery?) than is normal.

Just due to how often Griffey was IRed with muscle tears, I would tend to think he was clean, or at least clean most of the time. Also worth noting that his name never really came up in any of these investigations (to my knowledge).

A quick google search produces only stuff like this garbage article filled with wild speculation and not even a whiff of evidence. When your premise is that a constantly-injured ballplayer losing footspeed at 33 can only be explained by the cessation of PED usage, your allegation is trash.

Baseball from that era is so weird. Bonds may be better than Griffey. He may not. His numbers pre-2001 in San Fran were mind-boggling, then he went up another level.

We don't know when exactly Bonds started juicing. I think he had cocktail A for his first few years at San Francisco then experimented/cycled around until he hit cocktail 2001 where he was a freak of nature and broke every record there was.

Nonetheless looking further at Griffey's numbers it's clear that Mario is a step up from Griffey.

Here's another cross-sport comparison that I think Mario might embrace A LOT more: Ben Hogan. Still achieved a ton in golf but is somehow regarded below both Nicklaus and Tiger. Yet he lost multiple years due to WW2 and also a near-death car accident that took out a year for him. Plus he tended to only play 3/4 majors.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I’ll always remember Bonds for disappearing in Three consecutive playoff appearances for the Bucs. Maybe the juice would have helped then.

IMO griffey was the superior pre-roid player but not by much.

This isn't defensible by any stat, but was a common sentiment among 90s media.

 

[Al Smith]

This isn't defensible by any stat, but was a common sentiment among 90s media.

Well, I wasn’t in the media but I split time between Seattle and Pittsburgh when they were playing and saw them both play frequently. My recollection was that I thought Griffey was the better overall player. I’m not really interested in going back and comparing their stats. I would be interested to go back and see Bonds stats in 90, 91, 92 playoffs. My recollection is that he crapped the bed, which, again in my humble opinion as a former die hard Pirate fan detracts from whatever stats he put up in the regular season.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Here's another cross-sport comparison that I think Mario might embrace A LOT more: Ben Hogan. Still achieved a ton in golf but is somehow regarded below both Nicklaus and Tiger. Yet he lost multiple years due to WW2 and also a near-death car accident that took out a year for him. Plus he tended to only play 3/4 majors.

Yeah but golf isn't a sport so that doesn't track.

 

[HandshakeLine]

It's really hard finding elite athletes with comparable achievements to Lemieux who achieved with injuries like Le Magnifique, though.

But for the boxing afficionados out there, Harry Greb (local Pittsburgh boy!) might make an interesting comparison. One of the best p4p middleweights of all time, but he lost sight in an eye after being fouled in 1921 as well as other related health problems, but still managed to become champion and box for several more years.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I mean, I have no doubt Mario would rather be compared to Ben Hogan than Harry Greb, but...

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

In most ways I think Mario is kind of a unique situation across all sports. But maybe that's just the honorary yinzer in me talking.

 

[ChaosAgent]

It's really hard finding elite athletes with comparable achievements to Lemieux who achieved with injuries like Le Magnifique, though.

But for the boxing afficionados out there, Harry Greb (local Pittsburgh boy!) might make an interesting comparison. One of the best p4p middleweights of all time, but he lost sight in an eye after being fouled in 1921 as well as other related health problems, but still managed to become champion and box for several more years.

I like that one. Even though I despise boxing.

For me, Lemieux's playing career arc is having GOAT ability and talent level but whose trophy case isn't quite at GOAT-level. The reasons for this are:
1) Injuries.
2) Playing a team sport where one player can only do so much especially where there's chance baked in. Let's face it: in hockey "how good your best player is" is an order of magnitude less of a determinant of team success than it is in basketball. Though perhaps a little bit less so in the 80s-90s than today.

Maybe Bobby Orr and Mario are actually closer comparisons within hockey than any cross-sport comparison.

 

[paracord]

I like that one. Even though I despise boxing.

For me, Lemieux's playing career arc is having GOAT ability and talent level but whose trophy case isn't quite at GOAT-level. The reasons for this are:
1) Injuries.
2) Playing a team sport where one player can only do so much especially where there's chance baked in. Let's face it: in hockey "how good your best player is" is an order of magnitude less of a determinant of team success than it is in basketball. Though perhaps a little bit less so in the 80s-90s than today.

Maybe Bobby Orr and Mario are actually closer comparisons within hockey than any cross-sport comparison.

and 3) He overlapped largely with the only other human in history to score at his level, Wayne Gretzky. Let's face it, the 1988 Hart trophy should be in Mario's case and out of Wayne's, and I'm sure he finished second to him in many others over the years.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Orr is widely considered a pretty good comparison to Lemieux, though with a shorter peak, so I get that one too.

In the end, I think the top 4 can be sliced however you want to depending on what you value. Lemieux, Orr, Gretzky, and Howe are also all such different players from different eras that it's really tough to make a definitive statement regarding GOAT-ness. I've got no problem with someone ranking Gretz as the GOAT, or Howe or Orr over Lemieux. But the gaps between them aren't really as large as they seem from a distance, IMO.

 

[HandshakeLine]

In most ways I think Mario is kind of a unique situation across all sports. But maybe that's just the honorary yinzer in me talking.

It's really really tough to find anyone who achieved as much as Lemieux despite their injuries, which always means I'll admire Lemieux more over whoever someone with a more stats-based analysis might choose. And in the end, that's really what GOAT-ness is for IMO. It's so childishly reductive to try to boil these great players down to one ultimate supreme god dad-figure.

It's a fun game to argue about the GOAT, but it's kind of facile at the same time.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Also, whatever you think about boxing, Greb was an unmitigated badass. I think it's a shame that we yinzers don't celebrate him as a local son nearly as much as some of our other famous Yinzer brethren.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Also, whatever you think about boxing, Greb was an unmitigated badass. I think it's a shame that we yinzers don't celebrate him as a local son nearly as much as some of our other famous Yinzer brethren.

I don't really watch boxing but I have a great deal of respect.

Checking out his story, now.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I don't really watch boxing but I have a great deal of respect.

Checking out his story, now.

It's crazy. A shame no footage of him survives, he was supposedly one of the dirtiest fighters of his era, and that's saying something.