Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Bobby Jones, George Vezina Pre-World War II

Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Jim Brown, Ted Williams Post-World War II

Babe Ruth
Michael Jordan
Wayne Gretzky
Tiger Woods

Honorable mention
Muhammad Ali
Tom Brady

Any thoughts...

I would put Pele over Tiger Woods, more important sport.

I had to Google Pele to confirm my suspicion that he was a soccer guy. I'd be willing to bet a lot of other "sports guys" would also not be overly familiar with him. Tiger on the other hand...

That would surprise me but I may be showing my age.

Alexander Joy Cartwright…with apologies to Abner

James Naismith

Walter Camp

James Creighton

These 4 gentlemen created or were credited with being the first to create the respective 4 sports. Without them it is fair to say that baseball football, basketball, and hockey may not have had the platforms for all the sports names to have shown their collective talents.

3 men and 1 woman

Ruth - larger than life while living and maybe even more so in death.
Jackie Robinson - amazing player and bigger influence on sport than anyone else.
Gretzky - I think he was the greatest player at his sport than any other person in history.
Serena Williams - arguably the greatest female athlete of all time.

So many other worthy options out there of course!

Bill

Ruth
Jordan
Gretzky
Brady

Babe Ruth
Gretsky
Pele
Herb Brooks

Nicklaus
Ruth
Brady
Serena

Next
Jordan
Gretzky
Ali
Tiger

I am sure I have commented on this thread before, but here are my thoughts today:

Ruth
Brady
Gretzky
Jordan

Great thread.

My choices are: Wagner, Thorpe, Staubach, Pele

All represent excellence and were great ambassadors for sport.

Babe Ruth
Babe Didrickson
Babe Parilli
Babe Dye

Am I doing this wrong?

I don’t remember commenting before (forgive me if I did) but my choices would be:

Babe Ruth—Saved baseball after the black Sox scandal and was the biggest celebrity in America in his day.
Jesse Owen’s—Great runner who embarrassed Hitler in the 1936 Olympics
Jim Brown—Greatest football player ever who did and still does some amazing work with the gangs in Los Angeles
Larry Bird/Magic Johnson together—Two all time greats whose rivalry saved the NBA.

Jackie Robinson
Ali
Jordan
Woods

Arnold Palmer
Lou Gehrig
Richard Petty
Walter Payton

Michael Jordan

Honus Wagner

Muhammad Ali

Wayne Gretzky



(although I like Palmer, Petty, and Gehrig)

Mt. Rushmore
 

I'll go with players, not coaches or inventors. In no particular order:

1) Babe Ruth

2) Jesse Owens

3) Wilt Chamberlain

4) Muhammad Ali

I'll never get all the Jordan love. Bird/Magic did more to renew interest in
the NBA- and I can't wait until fans find out why Jordan magically
disappeared from the sport for, what, a season and a half? Then there won't
even be an argument:) Trent King

Ruth - greatest baseball player and loved worldwide
Ali - greatest boxer and loved worldwide
Pele - greatest soccer player and loved worldwide
Gretzky - greatest hockey player and very popular among hockey playing parts of the world

Rushmore
 

Mark- hard to argue with your 4 as well. This is a tough ask! Trent King

I'm not a huge hockey fan but this list should start and end with Wayne Gretzky. He is the single most dominate player in major sports history and there simply isn't a close second. Opinions vary but statistics do not lie.

You could go with four different babes...
Fatima Diame
Allison Stokke
Anna Kournikova
Alex Morgan

My God, that's hard to outdo!

Ruth, Gretzky, Jordan, Ali

Same.

Ruth, Jordan, Ali, Gretzky
.ps...
I honestly didn't read the choices right above.

In trying to keep with the theme of the OP, here are my elections: Branch Rickey, Joe Louis, Lou Gehrig, Moses Walker and Candy Cummings.

Honorable Mention: Bobby Moore and George Mikan.

Gordie Howe-Howe could chisel his own with those meat hooks he had!
Babe Ruth
Johnny Unitas
Wilt Chamberlain

I believe it's still the case that he has more assists than anyone else has points. Jagr I think came close to ending that but fell short.

Gretzky remains the only player that I have seen in my lifetime that looked like he was playing an entirely different sport than the other players.

Jordan felt that way to me. As a Jazz fan, it just seemed like if there was a shot that mattered he was going to hit it.

Michael Jordan - because he was the greatest competitor I've ever seen and he transcended sport with Nike in a way that created a new type of athlete-entrepreneur.

Serena Williams - because she is the greatest tennis player of all time and the other half of humanity needs representation. 23 majors, 14 doubles majors, 3 or 4 gold medals.

Wayne Gretzky - because anyone legitimately called "The Great One" makes the cut. Getting to sit in the corporate seats handed down from my mom's Eastern European boss was about the best thing in my teenage years. Go Kings Go!

Alex Honnold - because he accomplished the greatest athletic achievement in human history. Period.

EDDY MERCKX
The cycling GOAT. Remove all of his success at the Tour de France and he would still be the cycling GOAT!!


ISAAC BURNS MURPHY
More than a century before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, black athletes were dominating America's first national sport. The sport was horse racing and the greatest jockeys were slaves and the sons of slaves. Isaac Burns Murphy was the greatest of them all.

He won 628 of his 1,412 starts—a 44% victory rate which has never been equaled, and a record about which Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro said: "There is no chance that his record of winning will ever be surpassed.”

He rode in eleven Kentucky Derbies, winning three times. He was the first jockey to win three Kentucky Derbys. Murphy is the only jockey to have won the Kentucky Derby, the Kentucky Oaks, and the Clark Handicap in the same year (1884).


ONOMASTOS OF SMYRNA
Onomastos of Smyrna was the first ever Olympic champion in boxing and also wrote the rules of Ancient Greek boxing as well. He also holds a record which remains remarkable even today. After hundreds of ancient and modern Olympiads, he’s still the boxer with the most Olympic boxing titles (4) to his name. Laslzo Papp, the world’s greatest amateur boxer of the twentieth century, came close to Onomastos’ record—but he stopped at three Olympic victories before becoming a professional boxer.


MARTIN STREL
Martin Strel is a Slovenian long-distance swimmer. He is one of the most elite endurance athletes, best known for swimming the entire length of various rivers. Strel holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube, the Mississippi, the Yangtze and the Amazon. He's been attacked by piranhas and dodged dead bodies on the most grueling swims ever completed. His athletic accomplishments are too impressive to make sense of.

Strel's first two river swims were the Krka river (65 miles) in 28 hours in 1992, and the Kolpa river (39 miles) in 16 hours in 1993.

In 2000, he swam the length of the Danube, covering 1,878 miles in 58 days, setting a world record and providing a taste of things to come.

Two years later, he broke his own record on the Mississippi, swimming from northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico (2,360 miles) in 68 days. He spent about 12 hours in the water each day.

In 2003, he swam the entire Paraná River (2,484 miles) in Argentina in 24 days. He swam from dawn to dust and averaged over 49 miles per day.

In 2004, he took on the toxic waters of the Yangtze, covering 2,488 miles in 50 days, passing several floating corpses along the way. The Yangtze provided a useful tune-up for his greatest swim of all, the Amazon.

In 2007, he swam from Peru to the South Atlantic (3,278 miles) in 68 days. The Amazon is home to one-third of the animal species in the world and Strel encountered most of them up close. He avoided the candiru. He managed to swim past crocodiles that lined the shores in shallow waters. He escaped bull sharks. Strel wasn’t able to dodge all the predators, however. He brought home a souvenir he’ll never lose; an eight-inch gash across his back where piranhas bit through his wet suit. It is a half-inch deep. He didn’t bother to get it stitched.

Strel was 52 years old when he finished his Amazon swim !!!

Ruth
Orr
Ali
Brady


If I liked Basketball I'd swap out Jordon for Ali - but I don't :-)

Great stuff and great learning

Thanks for sharing

Ruth
Brady
Jordan
Gretzky

To see Strel, your first reaction is not going to be, there is perhaps the most remarkable endurance athlete ever to live.

https://unofficialnetworks.com/2016/...-best-athlete/

My Mount Rushmore
 

Wayne Gretzky (did things never seen before OR after him)

Babe Ruth (did things never seen before OR after him)

Wilt Chamberlain (did things never seen before OR after him)

The numbers on these three are phenomenal. Unmatched. Then, and since then.

Mine is based on the exciting entertainment value felt by younger sports fans. The players we were glued to the TV watching every time they touched the ball or puck.

1. Wayne Gretzky - DUH!!!!!!!! What's that quote? He was better in his sport than anyone else was in theirs.
2. Reggie Jackson - every single one of his at bats was a magical moment of great expectations. You could not wait for him to step into the batter's box for another chance of knocking the ball into oblivion!!
3. 'Dr. J.'/Dominique Wilkens - man oh man did both of these uber-coordinated freaks of nature attack the court!! Completely mesmerizing.
4. Mark Gastineau - whether you rooted for him or against him, your level of involvement was the same, one-hundred-freaking-percent!!

Naming an all-sport Mt. Rushmore is a near-impossible task, but I align the closest with Glyn's post. And spelling "Didrikson" correctly is nearly as impossible! :rolleyes:

My approach was just to write out a list of people who could reasonably be considered the best at their particular sport and then throw out anyone from a sport where it seems debatable. Maybe Jordan is the best basketball player ever, but one could also make a reasonable case for LeBron or Wilt or Kareem -- so that rules out basketball. Maybe that's not a particularly good approach, but it's what I came up with. One could also disregard the athletic dominance of the athletes and just select on the basis of heroism or personal sacrifice or something like that, but my guess is if that were done correctly it would be four people none of us have ever heard of, so I decided not to factor in personal qualities one way or the other. So, with that preface and with the caveat that I don't follow most of the world's sports, here's what I am left with.

Tom Brady
Eddie Merckx
Michael Phelps
Babe Ruth

my dad

Alex Honnold's climb up El Capitan was absolutely breath-taking and I still think impossible.

Using this method, we have to include Joey Chestnut:

"Let's be frank, nobody was going to deny Joey Chestnut his 14th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest title. No competitor could catch up to Chestnut, who set a new world record by eating 76 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes at the annual July 4 event on Coney Island.

Chestnut's win was no surprise, as he was considered a -2400 favorite by William Hill Sportsbook entering Sunday. The 37-year-old American -- whose previous record was 75 in 2020 -- has won every Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest except one since he took the Mustard Belt from Takeru Kobayashi in 2007. Matt Stonie beat Chestnut in 2015."

This guy has won as many championships as Ruth and Brady combined!

I'm glad to see so many mentions of Merckx.

The only reason I left him off my list is that I don't think he's had as much influence outside sports as some other athletes.

But if the only criteria is total domination of a sport he's got to be in the mix.
1969 He won every classification at the Tour de France, overall winner, points(best sprinter) King of the mountains, combined, and most combative.

1974 he was the first to complete cyclings triple crown, Giro D'Italia, Tour de France, and world championship.

525 wins in 1800+ races, 445 of 1585 as a professional. 54 wins in 120 races in 1971 still the record for most wins in a season.

I doubt we'll see anything like that again in the sport, as it's become more of a team and specialists sport. The big tour winners are good at everything, but rarely great at everything.

Ali, Didrickson, Owens, Ruth

I hadn't considered him, but I'm not sure I would have selected him anyway. I'd certainly rank him first, but the fact that Kobayashi dominated by a much larger margin in the years before Chestnut arrived and that they were only separated by, what, 5%(?) in the years when Chestnut first pulled ahead makes it too close for me to say there's not even a conversation about who was the greatest.

Guess Nathan's needs its own theoretical stat so certain people can determine whether or not Chestnut is any good:
OH DEAR (Overall Hot Dogs Eaten Above Replacement)

After reading all the posts and I some great people listed for the 4 slots I can see a lot of choices I would not have picked but could easily see them on this list

Great thread

Babe
Tiger
Bo
Mike

1-Brady- greatest football player of all time
2-Ruth-greatest baseball player
3-Gretzky-greatest hockey player all time
4-pele- gretest soccer player of all time. Dominated a sport that boasts more participants and fans of any sport in the world

Greatest basketball player of all time? Up for debate. Bill Russell is the greatest winner of all time. I will say pick one Jordan or Wilt. I would say if any athlete is debateable they don’t go on the mountain.

Lou Gehrig

Vince Lombardi

Jesse Owens

Richard Petty

ty Cobb
Tiger woods
Jordan
Pele

A debate for the ages!

Usain Bolt
Serena Williams
Lionel Messi
Bobby Orr

I think any selection will be debatable. I would take Orr over Gretsky. :-)

Ted Williams
Serena Williams
Emmitt Smith
Žydrūnas Savickas

Never been a big basketball guy. So why did Jordan miss that season and a half?

Brady
Jordan
Gretzky
Ruth

The rumor is that Jordan was actually suspended for that season and a half as a result of his gambling.

I have also heard that rumor. Even if that was confirmed I doubt many would care.

Ruth - The man played 100 years ago and still is the greatest ballplayer, ever.
Pele - The greatest player in the world's most popular sport.
Ali - He told us he was the greatest, and I believe him. Known around the world.
Jordan - Coulda been Jesse Owens, Jim Thorpe, Lombardi, Jackie Robinson or Carl Lewis, or ........but I'm choosing Jordan for his worldwide appeal, greatness on the court and impact on merchandising.

Hard to argue with many of the previous lists, but I tried to use 'impact' as a deciding factor among so many greats. What was their impact on their game, their teammates (if any) and the world in general?

In the case of Gretzky, he literally made every player he played with better, more than any player in any sport. He is also pretty much singlehandedly responsible for his league expanding the way it did. Without him, there's no teams in San Jose or Anaheim. Probably not Atlanta, Dallas or Carolina either. And no Mighty Ducks movies.

Mount Rushmore
 

Okay, I'll foolishly swim into even deeper waters...

The arguments for Wayne Gretsky and Pele are compelling, and I could
easily see them on a fictional "Mount Rushmore" of sports athletes. I'll
double down on Michael Jordan, though. Some commenters have
mentioned "commercial impact", and I don't agree with that as a prime
mover for membership in an exclusive club such as "4 best ever" in sports,
"Mount Rushmore", etc. Jordan was a wonderful player (and so were guys
like Russell, Robertson, Bird, and so on). He was also Tracy McGrady at the
beginning of his career, horrible at the end, and "mysteriously absent"
(wink wink) in the middle of it. It's wonderful for his bank account that
Nike was enamored of him, but that dog won't hunt. Many folks have
named athletes whose impact on the sport, or perhaps society, was greater
than Jordan's and who were paid only a small fraction of what Jordan
earned- and he STILL got out earned in endorsements many times
by...drum roll, please- Michael Schumacher!!

As for people "not caring" about that tiny little absence at the height of his
fame, I'm sure many fans could persuade themselves not to care. Even if
I could be persuaded to get there, however, it sure wipes him out of a
Mount Rushmore chat. These are opinions, which is what was called for-
and that's my explanation. I'll take cover now:) Trent King

I will take a different spin: who would I like my child to look at as a role model?

Barney Ross (patriotism and selflessness), Aaron (grace), Robinson (courage), Clemente (humanity)

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...bsize/Ross.jpg

Per Wikipedia: "In retirement in his early thirties, Ross enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in April 1942 to fight in World War II. ... He was sent to the Pacific theater. He served with B Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines during the Battle of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. One night, he and three other comrades were trapped under enemy fire. All four were wounded; Ross was the only one able to fight. Ross gathered his comrades' rifles and grenades and single-handedly fought nearly two dozen Japanese soldiers over an entire night, killing them all by morning. Two of the Marines died, but he carried the third on his shoulders to safety; the other man weighed 230 lb (104 kg) compared to Ross' 140 lb (64 kg). Ross was awarded America's third highest military honor, the Silver Star, as well as a presidential citation. ... He was inducted into the Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame in the Class of 2006."

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...ron%20num1.jpg

"There is no shortcut in life. You have to take it one step at a time and work hard. And you have to give back.

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...kie%20RPPC.jpg

“Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.”

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Clemente.jpg

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth."

All Baseball Mount Rushmore, by era
 

Babe Ruth

Jessie Owens

Wayne Gretzky, or Wilt Chamberlain (tough one to decide).

Walter Camp...."Father of American Football"....American Football was just a crude version of Rugby in the late 19th Century. At Yale Univ., Walter Camp developed the American game into what we know it is in the 20th and 21st Century.


TED Z
.

Ruth
jordan
gretzky
tiger
ali

Honorable Mention: Tanner Boyle

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...7%20Topps.webp

Tanner Boyle: Those Yankees are real turds.

Tanner Boyle: Hey Yankees... you can take your apology and your trophy and shove 'em straight up your ass!

My list exactly

Ruth
Gretzky
NickLaus
Phelps

Mt. Rushmore
 

Mine would be:

Curt Flood
Lance Alworth (barely over Gale Sayers)
Bill Russell
Mike Bossy

Ken Phelps getting some love...as greatest platoon hitter ever. :)

I was thinking Digger Phelps :)

Jim Phelps

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...im_Phelps.webp

"This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim."

Reporter : Have you been doing a lot of heavy intervals?

Ruiz : Someone else asked me about that, and I'm not sure what intervals are? What are they?

Reporter : Intervals are track work outs designed to make your speed improve dramatically, and if you've went from a 2:55 to a 2:31 one would expect that you've done a lot of speed work. Is someone coaching or advising you?

Ruiz : Um, no I advise myself.

Reporter : Congratulations. Rosie Ruiz the "mystery woman" we missed her at all our check points.

Ruth
Gretzky
Jordan
Ali

I knew someone would push back against Peyton Manning. However, there is a difference between being the most successful player and being the greatest.

The award winning columnist, Bob Kravitz, formerly of the Indianapolis Star, used to get local hate mail for writing his opinion that Brady was the G.O.A.T. of the NFL, and not Peyton Manning. However, he had to write a retraction piece after the Colts followed up a 14-2 season in 2009 with a 2-14 season only two years later. The difference was that, in 2011, Manning received surgery for his career-shortening neck injury at the hands of the headhunting defensive coordinator Greg Williams, and what a difference it made for the Colts, who were still thought to be a decent team. Kravitz then wrote, in his column, an apology to Manning, implying that Peyton's greatness had covered up so many team deficiencies, that he had to be the greatest QB ever, after all, and not Brady, whose Patriots sill managed to make the playoffs without him on the roster for a full season.

In no particular order:

Katie Ledecky
Jim Thorpe
Pele
Dan Gable

Michael Phelps.

Oh yeah on Dan Gable! What a champion. How well I remember those 1972 Olympics. In the midst of the terrible Israeli wrestler murders, I still recall some events that made me smile and marvel at. I especially remember Frank Shorter (USA marathon gold medalist), Lasse Viren (the flying Finn who won the mens 10,000 and 5,000 meter run), Olga Korbut (still remember vividly her backwards flip on the uneven parallel bars and Jim McKay's astonished response at this move), Mark Spitz (GREATNESS!!!), Dave Wottle (the greatest 800 meters track race ever run; should you doubt me, check it out on YOUTUBE. Every once in a while, I watch Dave, and get teary-eyed, while I beam with national pride!

However, with all these magnificent moments, my heart has a very special place for Chris Taylor, the USA super heavyweight wrestler. I honestly think he was gyped out of a medal. He was a good one, that one. A very dear man, and family man.

Thanks for listening. --- Brian Powell