Late last week, I had a conversation with a neighbor who is a sports fan and an infrequent reader of these rants. He asked me the kind of question that is difficult to answer on the fly:
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Who is the most over-rated athlete in all sports?
I gave him the first answer that came close to that criterion that flashed into my head and said, “Danica Patrick.” Fortunately, he knew who Danica Patrick is and so he accepted my answer without forcing me to embellish on the topic or defend my position. Over the past few days, I have had some time to reflect on that question and I would like to present here four candidates who never came close to living up to the reviews:
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Danica Patrick: I leave her on the list because her fame and celebrity far exceed any domination of her chosen profession. She has been on the scene as a race car driver for about a decade; in that time, I believe she has won exactly one race. I doubt that comes close to living up to the reviews …
Anna Kournikova: She was around on the pro tennis circuit for only about 5 years and in that time she managed to win exactly zero tournaments as a singles competitor. Even more than Danica Patrick, her celebrity and fame was based on her looks far more than her achievements on a tennis court. The late Bud Collins who was the dean of tennis journalists once said of Kournikova that she was the center of attention at Wimbledon – or some other major tournament I do not recall exactly – because of her beautiful backhand and backside.
Maurice Clarett: After a freshman year that saw him as a star player on a national championship team, he managed to get himself in the middle of an academic scandal at Ohio State and was dismissed from school. He challenged the NFL rule about draft eligibility in court and lost. When he was finally drafted by the Broncos, he never saw the field in an exhibition game let alone a real NFL game. He did play one season in the United Football League before that organization went “paws up”; in that season, he rushed for 154 yards (4.2 yards per carry).
Ryan Leaf: I put him on this list because back in 1998 as the NFL Draft was approaching, there was serious debate about who would be the better NFL QB, Peyton Manning (taken #1) or Ryan Leaf (taken #2). I remember thinking at the time that the Chargers (picking second) would get themselves a quality QB no matter whom the Colts selected at #1. Boy, was I wrong; and so were the folks who thought the Colts should have taken Leaf with the #1 pick.
There is my list. I am sure that folks here can add other names to that list. I toyed with putting Art Schlichter and/or Todd Marinovich on the list but chose Leaf instead. I also toyed with putting Trent Richardson on the list but chose Clarett instead. I could not come up with any MLB or NBA players who fell short of the hype to the degree that these four did. I suspect that others here may come up with worthy candidates and justifications for their inclusion on this infamous listing.
Looking at the world through the opposite end of the telescope, I really do not like arguments about who is the “best whatever of all time”. Let me use the example of “best basketball player of all time” as an example. For the sake of argument here, assume that I believe that Magic Johnson was the best player ever and two other folks believe the right answer is either Michael Jordan or Bill Russell. Here is my problem in a nutshell:
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In order to bolster my assertion and advance my argument in favor of Magic Johnson (a great player to be sure), I need to find fault with and denigrate to some extent the achievements of both Michael Jordan and Bill Russell (both great players to be sure). My preference in a situation like that concocted one is to acknowledge and celebrate the greatness of all three players and to marvel in the skills and achievements of all of them.
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[Aside: In a similar vein, the baseball arbitration system is set up to create the same kind of adversarial relationship where no such relationship need exist. In order for a team to justify its lower offer to a player than the player demands, it has to show that the player is not as good as the player claims to be. Just what both sides need to advance a constructive relationship over the short term let along the long term.]
Ichiro got his 3000th hit in MLB on Sunday against the Rockies. If he is not a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee, they ought to initiate drug testing on all the voters for the Hall of Fame.
The NFL cancelled the Hall of Fame Game on Sunday because the playing field was unsafe. The league and the NFLPA jointly said that the cancellation was because player safety was paramount. Actually, a large portion of the decision was that player safety was important and the game itself was barely up to the level of meaningless. Nonetheless, give all those folks credit for canceling a game that would have been played under sub-standard conditions.
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[Aside: I wonder if Roger Goodell will find a way to blame this fiasco on Tom Brady.]
Here is the thing that gets me. After last year’s Hall of Fame Game, players roundly criticized the field as unsafe and unplayable. The stadium folks had a year to get the field into “playing shape” and botched that responsibility about as badly as one could imagine. Here is an interesting speculation:
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This year will prove conclusively that there can be an induction ceremony for the Hall of Fame without a meaningless 5th exhibition game for 2 of the 32 NFL teams. So, might this lead the league – and the NFLPA – to conclude that the Hall of Fame Game should go the way of the late-but-hardly-lamented Playoff Bowl?
We can only hope …
Finally, here is a comment from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times with regard to the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony from last weekend:
“Brett Favre said he wanted his induction speech at Saturday’s Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement to mirror his career.
“Which explains why he quit speaking and then re-started three times.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………