v2 G.O.A.T Round 1 Group 3

First topic message reminder :

Yesterday’s group pitted four sporting greats from the worlds of Tennis, Cycling, Athletics and American Football against each other and after a close battle between Bjorn Borg and Eddy Merckx that ebbed and flowed all day Borg finally proved victorious taking the group with 26 votes to Merckx 24. Both progress into round 2 with Kershee and Joe Montana exiting the competition at the first stage.

Today’s group see football, boxing, tennis and cricket compete for your votes.

We have just the one article today championing one of the four entrants, so please feel free to add your comments below to assist your chosen participant.

Please vote for the competitor you believe has achieved the most in sport and should progress into the next round.

Please leave a comment as to why you voted

Donald Bradman- Cricket- Championed by Fists of fury

Australia
Test record: 6,996 runs in 80 innings at an average of 99.94 (29 centuries)

It is a rare phenomenon indeed where an individual can be undisputedly and universally acknowledged as the finest to have ever participated in a sport. It is rarer still for that individual to be recognised as the greatest there ever will be, despite seemingly no human being beyond Mystic Meg and the recently unmasked Eric Bristow possessing the gift of foresight.

For Pele, there is Maradona. For Nicklaus, there is Woods. For ‘The Don’, there is no rival. He stands alone.

Such are the statistics of Donald George Bradman. Plying his trade throughout the 1930’s and 40’s in the famous ‘baggy green’ of Australia, Bradman compiled a record almost twice as formidable as anyone else in the history of Test cricket. In a sport harking back to 1877, that is an astonishing feat. Bradman’s final Test average of 99.94 grows all the more impressive when you consider that the widely recognised barometer for a modern batsman attaining greatness is, in comparison, a mere 50. For a sportsman to be so far afield of his predecessors, contemporaries and successors is surely unique.

Perhaps indicative of the supremacy asserted almost every time The Don walked to the crease, former Australia captain Bill Woodfull proclaimed Bradman to be “worth three batsmen to Australia.” Where a team scoring 300 in one day is classed as operating at a fairly brisk pace, Bradman once single handedly made 309 on the first day of a Test against England at Headingley. Such dominance of bat over ball was unusually rare in the age of uncovered pitches, and remains so in today’s comparatively batsman friendly era.

Despite being the holder of records that will likely never be challenged in anger, let alone broken, statistics are but one facet of what makes a great sportsman. It often takes a truly inspirational individual to transcend the sport within which they participate. Much as Muhammad Ali transcended the sport of boxing, Don Bradman transcended cricket. Bradman emerged during a period of great economic hardship in Australia, and through the sheer force of his on-field performances it is said gave happiness and hope to a populace in the midst of depression.

You can't tell youngsters today of the attraction of the fellow. I mean, business used to stop in the town when Bradman was playing and likely to go in - all the offices closed, the shops closed; everybody went up to see him play. – England bowler Bill Bowes, 1983

Bradman would go on to exhibit a further trait of any world class sportsman: success in the face of adversity. After scoring an extraordinary 974 runs at an average of 139.14 in the 1930 Ashes tour of England, Bradman was infamously targeted by hostile and aggressive ‘Bodyline’ bowling during the 1932-33 return series in Australia – a theory designed with the sole intention of taking Bradman’s wicket, whereby the English fast bowlers would deliberately target the body of the batsman with a packed leg-side cordon of fielders lying in wait – The Don was almost rendered mortal with a series average of 56.57 (still a world class average by anyone’s standards). It was his own controversial tactic of combating bodyline by backing away and hitting the ball in an unorthodox manner in to the vacant off-side that won Bradman plaudits for attempting to find a solution to Bodyline.

It should be noted that, despite the whole of Australia being in uproar over the “vicious and unsporting” tactics employed by the English captain Douglas Jardine, and despite his own misgivings, Bradman conducted himself with dignity throughout and fought the onslaught in the way he knew best – by scoring runs. ‘Bodyline’, or ‘fast leg theory’ as it was also known, would later be outlawed.

Somewhat ironically, and perhaps unfortunately, the great Don Bradman is as much remembered for his final innings than the unsurpassed genius that had carved a path of destruction through the cricketing world wielding but a plank of willow in the preceding years. Striding to the crease at The Oval in 1948, Bradman required a mere 4 runs from his final Test innings to ensure an overall perfect Test average of 100. Whether through the emotion stirred in The Don through the adulation of the English crowd and opponents as he walked out that day (as much cheers of relief that his utter dominion over England’s bowlers was nearing an end, perhaps?), or the cricketing Gods inflicting a cruel twist of fate as if to reclaim the immortality they had lent him, Bradman was bowled for a duck by Warwickshire leg-spinner Eric Hollies, thus ending his career with that infamous average of 99.94 – a now magical figure in its own right. It will never be bettered.

Next to Mr. Winston Churchill, he was the most celebrated man in England during the summer of 1948. His appearances throughout the country were like one continuous farewell matinée. A miracle has been removed from among us. So must ancient Italy have felt when she heard of the death of Hannibal – cricket writer R.C. Robertson-Glasgow upon Bradman’s retirement, 1949

Sir Donald Bradman died in February of 2001 aged 92. It would have come as a surprise to many that he failed to get out of the 90’s. There are numerous others with a rightful claim to being the greatest sportsman that ever lived, but in Bradman there has surely never been another so superior to their peers. A genius, an icon and a gentleman; The Don satisfies all of the criteria.

Sir Donald George Bradman was, without any question, the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games. – Wisden Almanack"

Shelsey93 wrote:

Stella wrote:I wonder if Sobers will be in the 64?

Should be.

I believe he should too. (Certainly he must have more of a case than Gavin Hastings, and if American Football can have 2 or more representatives, hopefully cricket can too). But I fear he won't be.

Shelsey - maybe you can vote for Virginia Wade when Sobers' nomination comes round!

super_realist wrote:Stella, that's what I'm asking. I don't think a football fan, golf fan, tennis fan etc would be looking so far back as I think they realise the sport has moved on dramatically and most often a completely different game now.

Is the game of cricket now, not completely different from Bradmans era, therefore are we really comparing the same game, and so doubtless a GOAT as Bradman was, does he belong in a poll where by some distance he's going to be from an era which other sports fans consider as pretty obsolete.

If a Footballer from the 1930's had scored 80 goals a season for 20 years then he would be.

super_realist wrote:

Olly wrote:Bradman's achievements are all the more incredible considering how much more difficult batting was in his era compared to more recent times. It's truly dumbfounding

Was it though.
Were bowlers/fielders as good. Was there as much variation in bowling methods, could a bowler bowl as quickly with as much pace/spin.

We'll probably never know, but calling it dumbfounding is taking it a little far, it's just hitting a bit of leather with a bat.

How would Fred Perry do in the modern era? That's the kind of question I'm raising with Bradman, are his achievements that great when they come from such a gentle era?

Where would I draw the line? Probably when sport in general became more professional. Mid to late 60's?

So we just forget about all sport that happened before the 60's?

Boys, ignore him. He is on yet another wind up crusade and is talking more guff by the minute.

"Where would I draw the line? Probably when sport in general became more professional. Mid to late 60's?."

But not all sports became more professional then, did they?
For example, cricket has had professional player since the mid 19th century.
Olympic athletes did not become professional until the mid-late 1980s IIRC.
Why, then, would you consider amateur athletes of the early 1970s more professional than professional cricketers of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s?

Fists of Fury wrote:Boys, ignore him. He is on yet another wind up crusade and is talking more guff by the minute.

I'm actually not on a wind up. I'm not denying Bradman is a GOAT either, I just think that it was from a time when there wasn't the level of professionalism there is now. No sport was very good back then. What makes cricket different?

super_realist wrote:

Olly wrote:Bradman's achievements are all the more incredible considering how much more difficult batting was in his era compared to more recent times. It's truly dumbfounding

Was it though.
Were bowlers/fielders as good. Was there as much variation in bowling methods, could a bowler bowl as quickly with as much pace/spin.

We'll probably never know, but calling it dumbfounding is taking it a little far, it's just hitting a bit of leather with a bat.

How would Fred Perry do in the modern era? That's the kind of question I'm raising with Bradman, are his achievements that great when they come from such a gentle era?

Where would I draw the line? Probably when sport in general became more professional. Mid to late 60's?

Fielding was clearly of much lower quality, but there were probably more variations in bowling (the only innovation there since the 30s really being 'reverse swing', while there is now less variation in spin / cutter bowling). As for how fast the quick bowlers were, that's been a suibject of much debate, in part because there was no way of getting an accurate measurement. Anecdotal evidence (which can always be disputed, even when from as respected a cricket man as Richie Benaud) is that Frank Tyson in the 1950s was the fastest bowler ever, which would suggest Larwood was potentially as fast as anyone bowling today. Hardly suggestive of a 'gentle' era, when England developed the Bodyline technique and fractured the skull of one of Bradman's Australian team-mates.

As I argued earlier, with Bradman we have some idea of how exceptional he was because the statistics for batting average across the years from the 1920s to the present show that the best batsmen of every era averages something between about 56 and 60 with only the exception of Bradman.

The conclusion is that while there have been changes in cricket, these have not caused major variations in performance: for example the effects of better bats, more consistent pitches and smaller boundaries have been largely offset by the improvements in fielding standards and video analysis of batsmen's weaknesses.

Oh, and as for it being 'hitting a bit of leather with a bat', try doing that when it's bowled at you at 90mph+. Hit it? Most of us would have difficulty even seeing it...

Obviously, the case for Fred Perry would be much more difficult to make - his Wimbledon and US championships were won as an amateur at a time when many of the best players were professional (indeed, this also effects the legitimacy of Laver's first Grand Slam in 62). The game of tennis has changed hugely even since the 70s, with it now being much more physical and power-based. Perhaps though it should be remembered that Perry's biggest asset (for his era) was that he was bigger, stronger and fitter than most of his opponents.

SR's points are perfectly valid.. tbh

I think Super raises some valid point personally, in the Bradman case for me the differential between him and everyone else is so vast I still think Bradman comes into the reckoning though.
But in general it is tough with eras, how do you compare Zatopek and Bekele for instance, very difficult.

Bradman. The name you link to cricket, unique and unrepeatable achievements, hero to his country, unplayable in era. No batsman comes close (though we must remember it is hard to compare great batsmen and great bowlers an then allrounders like Sobers in the middle). I think everyone would say he was the GOAT in his sport. And cricket, though only played at the top level by 10 countries is played by countries very varied despite their links to colonial Britain as well as many others at lower but still reasonably competitivish levels. And India is a huge country where cricket is a religion and when I went there was ubiquitous, played by millions. I think India help makes cricket a truly relevant sport, cricket has been used as political protest, as the only pacifier between India and Pakistan and spreads joy there where otherwise only strife has been seen for decades.

It was a very strange era indeed.

Take the case of Max Woosnam. Very similar era to Bradman.

1920 Olympic Gold and Silver
Doubles Winner at Wimbledon
Century at Lords and 5 tests for England
Davis Cup Team Captain
England and Man City Captain

Would never happen these days. So yes, there is certainly a question mark over how the game was played back then and certainly how much different sport was in general to now.

I'm happy to have Bradman in as a GOAT, but I could never have him taking it overall due to the sheer difference in sport over such a vast difference in era/time.

super_realist wrote:It was a very strange era indeed.

Take the case of Max Woosnam. Very similar era to Bradman.

1920 Olympic Gold and Silver
Doubles Winner at Wimbledon
Century at Lords and 5 tests for England
Davis Cup Team Captain
England and Man City Captain

Would never happen these days. So yes, there is certainly a question mark over how the game was played back then and certainly how much different sport was in general to now.

I'm happy to have Bradman in as a GOAT, but I could never have him taking it overall due to the sheer difference in sport over such a vast difference in era/time.

A pretty fair argument.

I can see a few who will agree............but not me

I could just about handle bradman as the GOAT of all time. But at the same time he could never be the diffenitive goat- they would allways be others that could sway my opinion

The only sportsman i could consider to be a difinitive goat would be the quickest man ever. Bolt..

Because its quantifiable, its logical.... But from a personal pespective it would be woods due to the skill level needed for the game he plays and the quality and size of the golfing world today(or a few years back anyway)...

super_realist wrote:
I'm happy to have Bradman in as a GOAT, but I could never have him taking it overall due to the sheer difference in sport over such a vast difference in era/time.

We all know there is only one overall winner for you Super, old nine chins himself

super_realist wrote:I've a feeling that a more deserved person who might be from a less fancied sport will certainly be overlooked.
Cricket may be quite popular amongst some, but can you imagine such a vociferous defence of someone from say a minority sport like baseball where they have undoubted GOATS too.
Is Bradman's support more due to their liking of Cricket than Bradmans actual merit, especially given the time period to which it relates.
I mean would anyone be championing the cause of a Port Vale, Tranmere or Bolton player from 1938 with a similar level of ahievement. Doubt it, too far in the past, and so I feel Bradman is the same.

In some way this is exactly the point. If you could produce someone with a similar level of achievement to Bradman from any sport from any era, then he would, simply by virtue of his record, be propulsed to this kind of level. The fact is you can't, because there isn't one. That's what makes Bradman's case so unanswerable. Ignoring all arguments about standards etc. he is a statistical outlier in a way which perhaps no one else is.

Of course if you put Bradman as he played then in today's game he would be not so good. But take someone with Bradman's ability and give him modern training methods, and professionalism and IMO he would be every bit as dominant.

Diggers wrote:

super_realist wrote:
I'm happy to have Bradman in as a GOAT, but I could never have him taking it overall due to the sheer difference in sport over such a vast difference in era/time.

We all know there is only one overall winner for you Super, old nine chins himself

No chance. Not even close. I'd never have a golfer in there, and even then Woods wouldn't come close.

mystiroakey wrote:I could just about handle bradman as the GOAT of all time. But at the same time he could never be the diffenitive goat- they would allways be others that could sway my opinion

The only sportsman i could consider to be a difinitive goat would be the quickest man ever. Bolt..

Because its quantifiable, its logical.... But from a personal pespective it would be woods due to the skill level needed for the game he plays and the quality and size of the golfing world today(or a few years back anyway)...

But why is quickest best ? You could argue that running quickly and having stamina is harder so Rudisha is the greatest athlete ever (I certainly think he's as great as Bolt personally) or just stamina in which case maybe Bekele.....who again is just as good as Bolt for me.
100 meters is just one element of athletics.
Anyway officially Mo Green is the 60 metre world record holder so is he the quickest ?

Mike Selig wrote:

super_realist wrote:I've a feeling that a more deserved person who might be from a less fancied sport will certainly be overlooked.
Cricket may be quite popular amongst some, but can you imagine such a vociferous defence of someone from say a minority sport like baseball where they have undoubted GOATS too.
Is Bradman's support more due to their liking of Cricket than Bradmans actual merit, especially given the time period to which it relates.
I mean would anyone be championing the cause of a Port Vale, Tranmere or Bolton player from 1938 with a similar level of ahievement. Doubt it, too far in the past, and so I feel Bradman is the same.

In some way this is exactly the point. If you could produce someone with a similar level of achievement to Bradman from any sport from any era, then he would, simply by virtue of his record, be propulsed to this kind of level. The fact is you can't, because there isn't one. That's what makes Bradman's case so unanswerable. Ignoring all arguments about standards etc. he is a statistical outlier in a way which perhaps no one else is.

Of course if you put Bradman as he played then in today's game he would be not so good. But take someone with Bradman's ability and give him modern training methods, and professionalism and IMO he would be every bit as dominant.

You probably could for say Babe Ruth, but because Baseball is so minority in this country, no one would give a toss.
Bradman, good as he was does seem to be a bit straw clutching simply to include Cricket by those who like Cricket.

SR's points are perfectly valid.

Helen Wills Moody was a great tennis player of the 20's and 30's. She won 4 FO's, 8 W's and 7 USO's. 19 slams in total without even bothering with the AUS open. She was also an international celebrity.

Yet no one would class her above Steffi, Martina or Evert in the GOAT debate because it is understood that tennis in her period was not as professional and the standard was not as high.

I can appreciate that with cricket it may not be as clear cut and each sport has it's defining period between a competitive pass time and true professionalism, however it is pretty obvious that the contemporary players are far fitter, stronger and more durable than in Bradman's day. Bradman may have been phenomenal but how many of his contemporaries were any better than the club cricketers of today?

Essentially it is easier to pile up records when the competition is a bunch of part timers who have very little concept of true professionalism. That is the context which needs to be considered when evaluating Bradman's place in the GOAT deabte.

SR how the heck could you NOT put Woods in the top golfer list i dont know!!

Diggs. I get ya. we could argue for a long jumper or a long distance runner. Basically anything measurable against no one else but the world/earth we live on... I mean crickers and footballers have judges on field and they play against different qiuality of opposition- its so hard to quantify how great they truely are- especially when we start measuring them against other sportsman!!!

But no i wouldnt personally pick bolt- but it really would be a simpler excercise if we thought of a sportsman as an athelete and an athlete only.

super_realist wrote:It was a very strange era indeed.

Take the case of Max Woosnam. Very similar era to Bradman.

1920 Olympic Gold and Silver
Doubles Winner at Wimbledon
Century at Lords and 5 tests for England
Davis Cup Team Captain
England and Man City Captain

Would never happen these days. So yes, there is certainly a question mark over how the game was played back then and certainly how much different sport was in general to now.

I'm happy to have Bradman in as a GOAT, but I could never have him taking it overall due to the sheer difference in sport over such a vast difference in era/time.

You fail to mention that his century at Lord's was as a schollboy, and that it was his Uncle who played 5 cricket tests, not him.
So, basically, he played tennis in the summer and football in the winter (and only for 3 years at Man. City). He was capped once for England at football.
Seeing as the likes of Jim Cumbs and Ian Botham were playing cricket in the summer and football in the winter as late as the 1970s/80s, this doesn't really prove much

super_realist wrote:

Mike Selig wrote:

super_realist wrote:I've a feeling that a more deserved person who might be from a less fancied sport will certainly be overlooked.
Cricket may be quite popular amongst some, but can you imagine such a vociferous defence of someone from say a minority sport like baseball where they have undoubted GOATS too.
Is Bradman's support more due to their liking of Cricket than Bradmans actual merit, especially given the time period to which it relates.
I mean would anyone be championing the cause of a Port Vale, Tranmere or Bolton player from 1938 with a similar level of ahievement. Doubt it, too far in the past, and so I feel Bradman is the same.

In some way this is exactly the point. If you could produce someone with a similar level of achievement to Bradman from any sport from any era, then he would, simply by virtue of his record, be propulsed to this kind of level. The fact is you can't, because there isn't one. That's what makes Bradman's case so unanswerable. Ignoring all arguments about standards etc. he is a statistical outlier in a way which perhaps no one else is.

Of course if you put Bradman as he played then in today's game he would be not so good. But take someone with Bradman's ability and give him modern training methods, and professionalism and IMO he would be every bit as dominant.

You probably could for say Babe Ruth, but because Baseball is so minority in this country, no one would give a toss.
Bradman, good as he was does seem to be a bit straw clutching simply to include Cricket by those who like Cricket.

No you couldn't, because many of Babe Ruth's records have since been broken or are within touching distance. None of them are an outlier in the same way that Bradman's is.

Bradman's record is so far out of sight, it is the one record in cricket which everyone confidently agrees will never be.

The thing is if Bradman's stats were minor, wouldn't it stand the reason that there would be more with equal quality of stats? This is the whole argument. The guy clearly is quality because he could do things that others couldn't.

emancipator wrote:SR's points are perfectly valid.

Helen Wills Moody was a great tennis player of the 20's and 30's. She won 4 FO's, 8 W's and 7 USO's. 19 slams in total without even bothering with the AUS open. She was also an international celebrity.

Yet no one would class her above Steffi, Martina or Evert in the GOAT debate because it is understood that tennis in her period was not as professional and the standard was not as high.

I can appreciate that with cricket it may not be as clear cut and each sport has it's defining period between a competitive pass time and true professionalism, however it is pretty obvious that the contemporary players are far fitter, stronger and more durable than in Bradman's day. Bradman may have been phenomenal but how many of his contemporaries were any better than the club cricketers of today?

Essentially it is easier to pile up records when the competition is a bunch of part timers who have very little concept of true professionalism. That is the context which needs to be considered when evaluating Bradman's place in the GOAT deabte.

If she had won 35 slams then she may have been talked about. This is how much better Bradman was than anybody else that there has been.

Apparently Phil Neville was as good a young batsmen as any in the country, he had to choose between football and cricket and went for the one that made him a multi millionaire.
But the point is time demands, you cant do both these days even though Im sure that plenty of people would be good enough. After all usually the guys who are the best at football at school are also the best athletes, cricketers etc. God I used to hate those kids.........

emancipator wrote:SR's points are perfectly valid.

Helen Wills Moody was a great tennis player of the 20's and 30's. She won 4 FO's, 8 W's and 7 USO's. 19 slams in total without even bothering with the AUS open. She was also an international celebrity.

Yet no one would class her above Steffi, Martina or Evert in the GOAT debate because it is understood that tennis in her period was not as professional and the standard was not as high.

I can appreciate that with cricket it may not be as clear cut and each sport has it's defining period between a competitive pass time and true professionalism, however it is pretty obvious that the contemporary players are far fitter, stronger and more durable than in Bradman's day. Bradman may have been phenomenal but how many of his contemporaries were any better than the club cricketers of today?

Essentially it is easier to pile up records when the competition is a bunch of part timers who have very little concept of true professionalism. That is the context which needs to be considered when evaluating Bradman's place in the GOAT deabte.

Precisely what I've been trying to say all along.
Also the concept of being a professional back then was probably more to do with being paid to do it, rather than all the training, practice, exercise, diet etc that is rolled into the term professional today.

Also, Bradman being so far ahead of his peers and no one getting near to his record since makes me question the ability of his peers, the fact that no one has got near to those stats since makes me think that Cricket and Cricketers are on much more of a level playing "wicket", and that they take professionalism more seriously than Bradmans contemporaries did.

Mike Selig wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Mike Selig wrote:

super_realist wrote:I've a feeling that a more deserved person who might be from a less fancied sport will certainly be overlooked.
Cricket may be quite popular amongst some, but can you imagine such a vociferous defence of someone from say a minority sport like baseball where they have undoubted GOATS too.
Is Bradman's support more due to their liking of Cricket than Bradmans actual merit, especially given the time period to which it relates.
I mean would anyone be championing the cause of a Port Vale, Tranmere or Bolton player from 1938 with a similar level of ahievement. Doubt it, too far in the past, and so I feel Bradman is the same.

In some way this is exactly the point. If you could produce someone with a similar level of achievement to Bradman from any sport from any era, then he would, simply by virtue of his record, be propulsed to this kind of level. The fact is you can't, because there isn't one. That's what makes Bradman's case so unanswerable. Ignoring all arguments about standards etc. he is a statistical outlier in a way which perhaps no one else is.

Of course if you put Bradman as he played then in today's game he would be not so good. But take someone with Bradman's ability and give him modern training methods, and professionalism and IMO he would be every bit as dominant.

You probably could for say Babe Ruth, but because Baseball is so minority in this country, no one would give a toss.
Bradman, good as he was does seem to be a bit straw clutching simply to include Cricket by those who like Cricket.

No you couldn't, because many of Babe Ruth's records have since been broken or are within touching distance. None of them are an outlier in the same way that Bradman's is.

Bradman's record is so far out of sight, it is the one record in cricket which everyone confidently agrees will never be.

One could also look at this in another way.

In every other sport the top contendors are grouped together. There are no statistical outliers because there has been an equilibrium of competiton over time such that differences between players have become more and more marginal. No human being can realistically be twice as good as all the other best competitors in their chosen field, it just doesn't happen in any other sport, thus there must be another reason as to why Bradman is a statistical outlier: competition.

or he simply was that much better than anyone else

statistical anomalies do happen you know, they're rare but they exist. Djokovic being in Federer's half for I-don't-know-how-many slams in succession is another example

another one of course could be the number of goals Pele scored: no one will get close to that I feel (well over 1000).

Diggers wrote:

mystiroakey wrote:I could just about handle bradman as the GOAT of all time. But at the same time he could never be the diffenitive goat- they would allways be others that could sway my opinion

The only sportsman i could consider to be a difinitive goat would be the quickest man ever. Bolt..

Because its quantifiable, its logical.... But from a personal pespective it would be woods due to the skill level needed for the game he plays and the quality and size of the golfing world today(or a few years back anyway)...

But why is quickest best ? You could argue that running quickly and having stamina is harder so Rudisha is the greatest athlete ever (I certainly think he's as great as Bolt personally) or just stamina in which case maybe Bekele.....who again is just as good as Bolt for me.
100 meters is just one element of athletics.
Anyway officially Mo Green is the 60 metre world record holder so is he the quickest ?

I wonder if we'll see Ashton Eaton pop up, currently holds the overall points record for the Decathlon as well as 4 Decathlon bests (another record at this point in time) and holds the Olympic Gold medal for the event at London 2012.

Very modern and currently the record holder in probably the most diverse sporting feat in the world, especially in athletics, is he to be considered for the GOAT.

Quick WUM time I think....

So, basically are SR and emancipator saying Bradman's GOAT status and general achievements are in doubt because he played during a weak era? Where have I heard that argument before...

Mad for Chelsea wrote:or he simply was that much better than anyone else

statistical anomalies do happen you know, they're rare but they exist. Djokovic being in Federer's half for I-don't-know-how-many slams in succession is another example

another one of course could be the number of goals Pele scored: no one will get close to that I feel (well over 1000).

Pele did score most of his in the Brazilian league, which I believe wasn't the strongest.

Some rubbish being written on here I'm afraid. Claims that Bradman is not worthy as he had it easy.

Then why on earth if it was so easy did no one else get within a million miles of his average?!

Dr Gregory House MD wrote:

Diggers wrote:

mystiroakey wrote:I could just about handle bradman as the GOAT of all time. But at the same time he could never be the diffenitive goat- they would allways be others that could sway my opinion

The only sportsman i could consider to be a difinitive goat would be the quickest man ever. Bolt..

Because its quantifiable, its logical.... But from a personal pespective it would be woods due to the skill level needed for the game he plays and the quality and size of the golfing world today(or a few years back anyway)...

But why is quickest best ? You could argue that running quickly and having stamina is harder so Rudisha is the greatest athlete ever (I certainly think he's as great as Bolt personally) or just stamina in which case maybe Bekele.....who again is just as good as Bolt for me.
100 meters is just one element of athletics.
Anyway officially Mo Green is the 60 metre world record holder so is he the quickest ?

I wonder if we'll see Ashton Eaton pop up, currently holds the overall points record for the Decathlon as well as 4 Decathlon bests (another record at this point in time) and holds the Olympic Gold medal for the event at London 2012.

Very modern and currently the record holder in probably the most diverse sporting feat in the world, especially in athletics, is he to be considered for the GOAT.

He is impressive, Im a bit of a snob when it comes to the multi events though. Very impressive but I think the talent pool for them is way smaller than for say a straightforward sprint, not that many people will ever focus on being a decathalete or heptathalete.
Still love watching it though and no doubt they are amazing physical specimens.

"In every other sport the top contendors are grouped together. There are no statistical outliers because there has been an equilibrium of competiton over time such that differences between players have become more and more marginal. No human being can realistically be twice as good as all the other best competitors in their chosen field, it just doesn't happen in any other sport, thus there must be another reason as to why Bradman is a statistical outlier: competition."

good points.

but..

Nicklaus was twice as good as his peers.. if we talk about wins then possibly more than twice as good- if we talk about scoring then i doubt he was more than 2% better!!

Different sports have different yardsticks.. and being twice as good isnt as easy to measure for different sports.

Anyway back to your point. I would guess that if bradman was around today he wouldnt average 100. maybe in the 60's though!! and still a contender for the goat

VTR wrote:Some rubbish being written on here I'm afraid. Claims that Bradman is not worthy as he had it easy.

Then why on earth if it was so easy did no one else get within a million miles of his average?!

PED's definatly

His contemporaries were too busy sheering sheep, jumping off convict ships or being Ned Kelly.

All i'm saying is that his great career was so long ago now, that it might be a bit too long ago to have as much credibility as he is getting.

emancipator wrote:

Mike Selig wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Mike Selig wrote:

super_realist wrote:I've a feeling that a more deserved person who might be from a less fancied sport will certainly be overlooked.
Cricket may be quite popular amongst some, but can you imagine such a vociferous defence of someone from say a minority sport like baseball where they have undoubted GOATS too.
Is Bradman's support more due to their liking of Cricket than Bradmans actual merit, especially given the time period to which it relates.
I mean would anyone be championing the cause of a Port Vale, Tranmere or Bolton player from 1938 with a similar level of ahievement. Doubt it, too far in the past, and so I feel Bradman is the same.

In some way this is exactly the point. If you could produce someone with a similar level of achievement to Bradman from any sport from any era, then he would, simply by virtue of his record, be propulsed to this kind of level. The fact is you can't, because there isn't one. That's what makes Bradman's case so unanswerable. Ignoring all arguments about standards etc. he is a statistical outlier in a way which perhaps no one else is.

Of course if you put Bradman as he played then in today's game he would be not so good. But take someone with Bradman's ability and give him modern training methods, and professionalism and IMO he would be every bit as dominant.

You probably could for say Babe Ruth, but because Baseball is so minority in this country, no one would give a toss.
Bradman, good as he was does seem to be a bit straw clutching simply to include Cricket by those who like Cricket.

No you couldn't, because many of Babe Ruth's records have since been broken or are within touching distance. None of them are an outlier in the same way that Bradman's is.

Bradman's record is so far out of sight, it is the one record in cricket which everyone confidently agrees will never be.

One could also look at this in another way.

In every other sport the top contendors are grouped together. There are no statistical outliers because there has been an equilibrium of competiton over time such that differences between players have become more and more marginal. No human being can realistically be twice as good as all the other best competitors in their chosen field, it just doesn't happen in any other sport, thus there must be another reason as to why Bradman is a statistical outlier: competition.

So cricket had perfectly good competition in the 50 or so years before Bradman came along, and 60 or so subsequent years. It was only during the 17 years that he played that all the opposition bowlers (from all the countries) were rubbish; mind you, all the Australian batsmen around at the time must have been rubbish as well, or they'd have averaged as much as Bradman; Australian bowlers and English batsmen were still performing at similar levels to every other era in cricket history, so they were probably ok. Now THAT is some probabilistic quirk.

I don't buy the argument that because someone dominates an era that era is necessarily weak. It's the same kind of argument used to downplay Federer's early success, or Hendry's 7 WC wins (in snooker), but there is no way of countering it seriously, because there is simply no way to tell.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:or he simply was that much better than anyone else

statistical anomalies do happen you know, they're rare but they exist. Djokovic being in Federer's half for I-don't-know-how-many slams in succession is another example

another one of course could be the number of goals Pele scored: no one will get close to that I feel (well over 1000).

Do you really believe he is twice as good as Lara, Tendulkar, Kallis, Richards, Sobers, et al ?

In real terms his 99 average may equate to, I don't know, say 60 in modern cricket, but there is no way that he could virtually 100% better than all the other great batsmen over the years.

Since the batting average is what most people use to Laude Bradman as the GOAT, then I think it's only fair that we question the validity and strength of such an outlying statistic.

Ps. No one is claiming that Bradman isn't a worthy contendor but he by no means should get a free pass. His credentials are there to be critiqued just the same as everyone else. If some people find that unpalatable, get out the kitchen.

"Ps. No one is claiming that Bradman isn't a worthy contendor but he by no means should get a free pass. His credentials are there to be critiqued just the same as everyone else. If some people find that unpalatable, get out the kitchen."

Spot on and I am a massive bradman fan..

emancipator wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:or he simply was that much better than anyone else

statistical anomalies do happen you know, they're rare but they exist. Djokovic being in Federer's half for I-don't-know-how-many slams in succession is another example

another one of course could be the number of goals Pele scored: no one will get close to that I feel (well over 1000).

Do you really believe he is twice as good as Lara, Tendulkar, Kallis, Richards, Sobers, et al ?

In real terms his 99 average may equate to, I don't know, say 60 in modern cricket, but there is no way that he could virtually 100% better than all the other great batsmen over the years.

Since the batting average is what most people use to Laude Bradman as the GOAT, then I think it's only fair that we question the validity and strength of such an outlying statistic.

Ps. No one is claiming that Bradman isn't a worthy contendor but he by no means should get a free pass. His credentials are there to be critiqued just the same as everyone else. If some people find that unpalatable, get out the kitchen.

Well he wasnt twice as good, but he was 40 runs better than say Wally Hammond and he is his day would been thought of in the same terms as Richards and Kallis. A great in his own right and plenty of Bradmans contemparies are seen as greats of the game.

emancipator wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:or he simply was that much better than anyone else

statistical anomalies do happen you know, they're rare but they exist. Djokovic being in Federer's half for I-don't-know-how-many slams in succession is another example

another one of course could be the number of goals Pele scored: no one will get close to that I feel (well over 1000).

Do you really believe he is twice as good as Lara, Tendulkar, Kallis, Richards, Sobers, et al ?

In real terms his 99 average may equate to, I don't know, say 60 in modern cricket, but there is no way that he could virtually 100% better than all the other great batsmen over the years.

Since the batting average is what most people use to Laude Bradman as the GOAT, then I think it's only fair that we question the validity and strength of such an outlying statistic.

Ps. No one is claiming that Bradman isn't a worthy contendor but he by no means should get a free pass. His credentials are there to be critiqued just the same as everyone else. If some people find that unpalatable, get out the kitchen.

so Hammond's average equates to what, something between 35 and 40? I think this is simplistic. Cricket has changed over the years, just as any sport, which makes comparison between eras extremely complicated, but the fact remains, that average is freakish. I thoroughly understand the arguments about the era, but the dominance Bradman displayed is just amazing. if there were a tennis player around the 30s who'd won 30+ slams we'd be rightly considering them.

emancipator wrote:

Do you really believe he is twice as good as Lara, Tendulkar, Kallis, Richards, Sobers, et al ?

No.
Just around 40-45% better.

Mike that is a fair point.

Is one guy just that good or is the overall competition not good enough?

It's tough to say.

In Bradman's case I would say a mixture of both in that the competition was not as good as it is today.

However that does not take away from his achievements because it is the only era he could have played in.

The difference with Federer is that it is patently ridiculous to suggest that he achieved his earlier success in a 'weak field' when he dominated in the ultra modern era which just by virtue of numbers and training advances makes it cut throat competitive.

emancipator wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:or he simply was that much better than anyone else

statistical anomalies do happen you know, they're rare but they exist. Djokovic being in Federer's half for I-don't-know-how-many slams in succession is another example

another one of course could be the number of goals Pele scored: no one will get close to that I feel (well over 1000).

Do you really believe he is twice as good as Lara, Tendulkar, Kallis, Richards, Sobers, et al ?

In real terms his 99 average may equate to, I don't know, say 60 in modern cricket, but there is no way that he could virtually 100% better than all the other great batsmen over the years.

Since the batting average is what most people use to Laude Bradman as the GOAT, then I think it's only fair that we question the validity and strength of such an outlying statistic.

Ps. No one is claiming that Bradman isn't a worthy contendor but he by no means should get a free pass. His credentials are there to be critiqued just the same as everyone else. If some people find that unpalatable, get out the kitchen.

Pretty fair assessment. Bradman isn't the leading scorer in the Test format and never played ODI or T20. It can be argued many are judging by the Test average. Seems a fair argument.

Still though it is a phenominal statistic.

Ok, I've said enough for today..

I'm supposed to be revising for an exam



rotapicname

Of course to turn it all on its head for all we know the likes of Tendulker may have struggle to average 40 back in the day, without the protection of helmets and body armour and having to bat on uncovered pitches, with no personal trainers and mind gurus to help them.

emancipator wrote:Ok, I've said enough for today..

I'm supposed to be revising for an exam



rotapicname

good luck

write an essay on Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Diggers wrote:Of course to turn it all on its head for all we know the likes of Tendulker may have struggle to average 40 back in the day, without the protection of helmets and body armour and having to bat on uncovered pitches, with no personal trainers and mind gurus to help them.

No respecting aussie has mind gurus anyway. And i reakon them indians have allways had em!! They love abit of spirtuality

emancipator wrote:Ok, I've said enough for today..

I'm supposed to be revising for an exam



rotapicname

Get a Minion to sit the exam

Myst

We've no problem with people critiquing Bradman's record. The only problem is that most of their criticisms don't stand up to scrutiny - his statistics were really that much better than either his contemporaries or those that came before or since. The ciriticism that he only played Tests in 2 countries has more merit, particularly as he didn't have to face the very different conditions encountered on the Indian sub-continent. However, in Bradman's defence, it shoud be noted that in the era of uncovered wickets, conditions in England were very different from those in Australia, and could change very quickly during the course of a match.

Now, the question of what would his average be playing today is pure guesswork. He was though famous for two things:
1 - Not hitting the ball in the air, so hugely reducing the number of catching chances he gave (and despite that still scored very quickly compared with his contemporaries). Also, his defensive technique was to play 'out to in' and close the face of the bat, so reducing the likelihood of outside edges going to the keeper and slips.
2 - Phenomenal concentration, hence the number of double and triple hundreds in his record.
Based on these, my best guess is he'd still be way out ahead of everyone else. Whether that means a career average of 75 or 125 is just guesswork.