Best Athlete

Junkie, I get your point but the comparable to a person playing in an over 40 softball league is a golfer who shoots in the low 100's. Almost anyone can do that.

 

Not in hockey they can't.

You'd think maybe a goalie could get away with it ... all that standing around a guy's gotta do ...

But no.

 

So even the elite succeed at a lower rate in baseball. Sound to me like you just made the other side's argument. Thanks.

Otherwise, your entire argument is based on which comes more easily for you, which is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

 

Really mixing two different issues here: best athletes and what's the hardest thing to do in sport. They don't necessarily produce the same answers.


And why is professional bowler not a poll choice?

 

Elephant polo players. End of thread.

 

So say that. For you, golf is harder. Baseball probably comes easier than golf for Albert Pujols, too, but I'd be willing to bet if you raised him from childhood playing golf he'd be better at it than most golfers could ever be at hitting a baseball.

And to me, if a lower percentage of success is considered elite, that is the skill that is tougher to master.

 

Great arguments for hockey, but lacrosse players deserve some love too. Especially box lacrosse.

And the greatest athlete of all time was Lionel Conacher of Toronto, Ontario. Played for championship teams in hockey, lacrosse, football and baseball, a hall of famer in the first three sports, and was also a national boxing champ and an undefeated wrestler, among other accomplishments. The guy was a total freak of nature.

 

Yeah, but he was a Canadian so he doesn't count.

 

I thought being Canadian was the defining criterion.

 

Here's a pretty good summary of the Big Train's successes

http://www.histori.ca/sports/conach.html

He was a battered veteran with 600 stitches - 150 on his face alone. His nose had been broken 8 times. But he didn't rest. He became the provincial MPP and, later, federal MP for the Toronto neighbourhood in which he was born, representing the interests of his poor constituents.

Can you imagine how he would have been mythologized if he were a Yank?

We suck at that.

 

Yep. They'd have called him "Jim Thorpe."

This is what I was talking with you about - the lack of good biographies (or in some cases, any bios at all) about our most accomplished athletes. I find it hard to understand why the Canadian publishing industry and marketplace wouldn't go for books like that.

 

I would, so go write them I'll buy them, unfortunately I might be the only one. This is where Americans are much better than Canadians. They celebrate their hero's of the past. Canadian kids should know who these guys are