Throwdowns > Closed

williewilliejuan said 02/06, 11:53 PM
The debate about the Greatest of All Time almost always brings controversy, regardless of the sport. Differences in eras, differences in rules and the personal biases of those making the determination all color the discussion.

In most sports, the debate comes down to two players. Is it Gretzky or Orr? Is it Jordan or Chamberlain? In other sports, the debate is specialized by position. Few try to name the best football player of all time but debate "best QB", "best receiver" or "best running back" instead.

No such debate exists in baseball. That's why Babe Ruth is the least disputed G.O.A.T. in any sport.

Ruth changed the way the game was played. His statistical dominance over other players of his era is unparalleled. He was the first player to hit 60 home runs in a season. His career home run total record stood for 40 years. He currently holds the records for highest career slugging percentage, OPS and OPS+.

Even those who would seek to diminish his accomplishments because they took place before the color barrier was broken generally stop short of naming a better player. There is little dispute with the conclusion that Ruth was the best baseball player of all time.

williewilliejuan said 02/08, 01:31 AM
Our topic is the "least disputed" G.O.A.T. in sports. Among hockey fans, there are few topics that are disputed more than whether Gretzky or Orr was the greatest.

From a scoring standpoint, Gretzky is the clear winner. However, any hockey fan will tell you that hockey is a lot more than just scoring. Those in Orr's camp will point out that he changed the game completely. He redefined the role of a defenseman by becoming the only defenseman to ever lead the league in scoring. His 597 career plus/minus is significantly better than Gretzky's 518, despite the fact that Orr only played in 9 seasons.

This leads to the crux of the Gretzky/Orr debate. Gretzky was the more prolific scorer, but Orr was the more well-rounded player. He played a much more physical form of hockey than Gretzky, who was the beneficiary of a hands-off policy by both opponents and officials.

To illustrate how divided the hockey world is on who was their best player, in 1997 the Hockey News came up with what is considered the definitive list of the 100 best hockey players. Gretzky won with 2,726 total voting points; Orr came in second with 2,713 - a margin of less than half a percentage point.

williewilliejuan said 02/08, 09:26 PM
The point of the discussion isn't whether Orr or Gretzky was better; that's for others to debate. What's important (and is validated by the comments on this TD) is that the issue is very much in dispute.

The same cannot be said about Ruth. There is very little dispute about whether he was the greatest. That's because while other players may have matched some of his accomplishments, no one has had a career that encompasses all that Ruth did.

Yes, players have broken some of his hitting records. However, none of them came up during the dead ball era. Before Ruth was used as an everyday player, the HR leader each year was often in the teens or single digits. He literally changed the way the game was played and every player who came up afterward was the beneficiary of his efforts.

What truly separates Ruth from all of the others was that he wasn't just a great hitter. He was also an excellent pitcher. Ruth still owns MLB records for left-handed pitchers. For his career, he was 94-46 with a 2.28 ERA and a 1.159 WHIP. He was like Albert Pujols and Roy Halladay rolled into one.

There is plenty of debate about who was the G.O.A.T. in hockey, but little dispute about Ruth.