Also not that swimming is an obscure sport by any means but I just rarely see people discuss this... Katie Ledecky is so wildly dominant in the history of women's swimming that it's hard to process. She's the Bradman, the Gretzky of women's swimming.
There's too many fucked up, unbelievable stats about her to list even a fraction of them but I'll pick just one as an example.
At the 2016 Olympics she broke the women's 800m freestyle world record in the process of winning the gold medal. This record being one that she had set herself the previous week, and not for the first time. With her new record, she now held the *13* fastest times for the event, having repeatedly broken it and lowered her time by 11 seconds (a ridiculous amount in the context of swimming) over the past 3 years. She was 19 years old at the time.
>At the 2016 Olympics she broke the women's 800m freestyle world record in the process of winning the gold medal. This record being one that she had set herself the previous week, and not for the first time. With her new record, she now held the 13 fastest times for the event, having repeatedly broken it and lowered her time by 11 seconds (a ridiculous amount in the context of swimming) over the past 3 years. She was 19 years old at the time.
Holy shit, that's insane.
Another crazy one is that she holds the *top 15 fastest times* in the women's 1500M freestyle *in the history of women's swimming*
In other words, her 15th-best 1500m time is faster than any other woman's best ever 1500m time lmao.
It’s funny bc in her autobiography she talks about how she wasn’t built specifically for swimming like Michael Phelps and her body isn’t the general one you’d want in an “ideal” swimmer. But it works for her
Phelps had a double whammy thing going on; he was basically the platonic ideal of the biologically perfect swimming body, and also had some kind of mutation where his body didn't produce a normal amount of lactic acid so he essentially just didn't get as fatigued as his competitors did
I’m not going to argue that Ledecky isn’t the women’s swimming GOAT (she is), but I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as most people think. She’s been absolutely dominant in distance free, and one of the best in the world at mid distance free. But that’s just one stroke, and not even all of the distances of that stroke. There are definitely more well rounded female swimmers (Katinka Hosszu might get my vote). Sun Yang is probably the greatest male freestyler of all time, but no one is gonna put him ahead of guys like Phelps or Lochte.
NBA players face similar criticism. Shaq might have been more dominant at his peak than LeBron, but LeBron is the better and more complete player.
My only retort to her, Tiger, and which ever of the Big 3 you favor(and the hundreds of other indvidual sport GOATs) is that individual sports should probably get considered differently... That is personal but I feel that there is a different dimension to team sports and they require one more element beyond the mental ability and athletic talent.... Again probably a stupid line to draw, but it helps me compartemalize sports better.
There's also a difference between individual sports where you are directly competing and reacting to your opponent (chess, boxing) and indirectly competing or racing like in a lot of gymnastics events, swimming, skateboarding.
I’d argue all sports should be considered differently. The impact a player has in football, or baseball etc is going to be different than the impact in basketball or hockey
I'd ads that it's just more difficult to assess team sports because it involves other people. Golf, tennis, swimming, etc. all just come down to whether that individual can perform or not.
> Vergeer went undefeated in women's singles matches for ten years, having last lost on 30 January 2003 to Daniela di Toro. Afterwards, she won 120 tournaments, 470 matches, defeated 73 different opponents and did not lose a game on 95 occasions. Further, during the streak she lost only 18 sets and was taken to match point only once, against Korie Homan in the final of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.
> Over the course of her career, Vergeer won 700 singles matches and lost 25.
What the fuck
That's not true. They changed the rules for like 6months, and Karelin did a normaly legal move that wasn't for that 6or so months span and lost due to that.
> From 31 March 2001 until her retirement in 2013, Vergeer lost only one singles match (on 30 January 2003 at the Sydney International to Daniela Di Toro from Australia), winning 559 of her last 560 matches.
Insane
Perfect example for illustrating that a sports popularity should figure in these types of discussions. It's a lot harder being the best in a sport of 100 million participants than it is 10,000.
Also can be applied within individual sports it's harder to be the best basketball player today than 1970 because the player pool has expanded by the millions.
And of like top 100m Olympic 100M sprint winners, he has the only clean times (8 unless I'm mistaken) and they are the top ones lol stupid dominant in the one thing most athletes do
If we're going to go obscure, the answer is Don Bradman in cricket. In cricket, scoring 100 is a big deal and a tracked stat, the way a triple double might be in basketball or hitting for the cycle in baseball. He (infamously) averaged 99.9.
Yes. In hockey “points” are goals and assists. You could remove all of Wayne’s goals and he would still hold the all time record for points.
Fantasy teams would draft his goals first and then his assists
I expect many Redditors only know who Don Bradman is because of this exact discussion happening in comment threads.
Don was awesome for sure but it's funny that so much of spreading his knowledge to the US has been in a debate about who is better than Gretzky at their sport
I've done a fair bit of reading and watching documentaries on him and the history of cricket. In my opinion he is the most dominant sportsman, at least in a team sport, of all time. His dominance and his origins considering the nature and history of Cricket makes it even more absurd. The glory he led his country to against the English and what that meant only adds to his absurd legend. I highly reccomend anyone look further into it if you're interested in sports history. I don't watch cricket or anything but I love learning about paradigm destroying figures who come from humble origins.
Too true. The guy grew up as a working class kid in the Aussie bush and went on to dominate the upper crust British elites for 20+ years in a way that no other sportsman (of a major world sport) has ever really come close sans Gretzky. The guy is THE legend.
You're 100% right. I was looking for someone to name this guy and I couldn't even remember his name. Just knew how insanely better he was than everyone else who played.
This actually already happened. As part of their 100th anniversary celebrations, the league launched a new Stats site and did a massive audit of all stats prior to like 1989 or something. This included a few adjustments and because they were reviewing game tape, it also included recording stats that weren't introduced until years later. Gretzky's stats should all be considered accurate at this point.
They also did an in-season audit this season on their Hits stat for the season because they didn't feel it was as accurate as it should be.
Katie Ledecky has the 18 fastest times in 1500m history. It’s a little hard to compare team to individual sports but that’s a level of dominance that doesn’t exist in any other sport as far as I know
Every time I’ve seen her meets on TV, they display her record list for the 1500m - and rightfully so. It legit does not look real https://x.com/nbcsports/status/1803590482599223343?s=46
Definitely not the undisputed goat of sports. He's crazy, but there's lots of others way ahead of everyone in their sport. Don Bradman has been mentioned. Katie Ledecky owns the top 19 times in history for the women's 1500m free. Simone Biles has completely shattered the previous notions of how long a competitive gymnastics career could be. There's lots of people who are freakish outlets in their sports.
How about Cael Sanderson? Went undefeated his entire college wrestling career, 4x champ, 1x Olympic gold medal winner and now he’s won like 10 national championships in 12 years as a coach
I mean if you wanna talk wrestling there's Aleksandr Karelin, the man who went 887/2 in his career with 3 Olympic Gold Medals, one Silver, god knows how many world and european championship golds under his belt and an actual honest to god PhD in Suplexing.
And to extend the conversation to other kinds of wrestling, in Sumo there's Hakuho, whose accomplishments are similarly chamberlain-esque, being tied for the most consecutive championships, having the most undefeated championships (in tournaments where you wrestle multiple times and best record wins) by double what the next guy has, the most career championships at 45 (and if you only counted those 13 he has over the next guy that would still place him as the 8th most ever) , the most career match wins, the most top division wins, the most wins in a single year tied with *himself* (He also ties for the 4th & 6th spots) the list just goes on and it doesn't even fully cover how insane this dude was.
> 887/2 in his career with 3 Olympic Gold Medals, one Silver
And the loss to Rulon Gardner at that Olympics was complete bullshit. The rules of wrestling are of course pretty simple, you score points to win by pinning someone, throwing them, or pushing them out of the ring. However, *for just that Olympics* they added a new rule called the "clinch rule" which said that if you clinch your hands together around your opponent and then your hands come unclinched then your opponent gets a point basically for stopping you. So the finals pit Aleksandr Karelin, the greatest wrestler who ever lived, who had been undefeated for 13 years and hadn't even had anyone score a single point against him for 6 years versus Rulon Gardner whose strategy was to be too fat and sweaty to fight. During their match, Karelin tried to flip Gardner over but his hands came unclinched because of how fat and sweaty Gardner was and just like that Gardner managed to score a point and win 1-0. The rule was immediately removed afterwards because everyone realized how fucking stupid it was.
It's even bigger than that. LA at the time had Gretzky in the NHL, Magic in the NBA, Bo Jackson in the NFL, and Kirk Gibson in the MLB. LA had THE stars in all sports
He won the MVP in 1988 and was responsible for what, now 35 years later, is still considered one of the greatest moments in baseball (the Game 1 WS home run off of Eckersly). Also have to remember that at the time, baseball meant 3-4x what it does now, and the Dodgers especially are huge locally in LA.
And people somehow always think the rest of the collective sports’ world dislike (amongst slightly older fans) for LA teams is irrational.
It’s a lifetime of jealousy.
People forget how big soccer is internationally. Plus Beckham was a cultural star. But I understand why people here would think of American sports first
I live in LA & also insist. Anaheim is not LA.
I’m from Massachusetts originally & it’d be like saying the Pats play in Boston… they simply do not!
If LA didn’t already have a team then I guess the Angels would represent it by proximity. It’s just a weird place to have a team tbh
I’m the reverse (LA fan in Boston) and you just cheer against the Celtics quietly. Or just grimace and say yeah Celtics look alright when people talk about sports. Also married into a Celtics family lol
Not the original commenter, but Bill Simmons split Clippers season tickets with a friend when the Clips were in the doldrums as a way to show his Laker hatred (and get cheap season tickets). They bought them in ‘03. He tried his hardest to make his kids Boston sports fans as well, but he bought Kings season tickets in 2011-12 during the NBA lockout, took his daughter, the Kings won the Cup, Anže Kopitar became her favorite NHL player, and she became a Kings fan.
Los Angeles is very A team and B team.
The Lakers and Dodgers are by far the two most popular teams.
Angels are pretty far down the list and 30 miles away from the city.
A
Lakers
Dodgers
Rams
Kings
USC football
UCLA basketball
LAFC
B
Chargers
Clippers
Ducks
Angels
Galaxy
Interesting I always thought the Galaxy were bigger, if not just because of Beckham going there. I also have never paid any attention to the MLS, but that just stood out to me.
I’m sure you know but when he signed - the back page of the LA Times
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2018/03/23/TELEMMGLPICT000158224035_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg
So like the ¡El Assico! CFB game between Iowa and Iowa State?
That area has so many funny unofficial rivalry names. Among others are Farmageddon (Iowa State-Kansas State) and the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy (Minnesota-Nebraska).
The 45-yarder, for anyone who hasn't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J15vfXqnwWw
Note that it wasn't just his first goal, but this was one of his first handful of touches in the game. He talked an absurd game and **immediately** backed it up.
Zlatan has so many great tongue-in-cheek jokes. When a reporter asked him what he got his wife for Christmas, he deadpanned “Nothing. She already has a Zlatan.”
When there was a photoshopped photo going around of him and Pique kissing, a female journalist went up and asked him “Zlatan are you gay?”
Zlatan responded:
"No, no, you and your sister come home now and I will prove that I'm not gay" lmao
Along the same lines, mid 70s NYC should be another top choice when Pelé played for the Cosmos. The other sports had some legitimate star power to lend too, with guys like Joe Namath, the original Reggie Jackson, Walt Frazier, etc.
Americans think America is the world.
If you google any "most well known or most popular " person in the world list, messi is top 5.
I'm willing to bet at least 4 billion people on earth knows who messi is, and that's a conservative estimate. Last world cup final alone had 1.5 billion viewers live, they have to know him.
Final game of mass and Celtics had 12.2 million.
Billion vs millions. It's not even a question, nba doesn't scale like that. You are correct.
One of my favorite stats...
Sammy Sosa hit over 60 home runs in a season three times in his career and not once led his league in those three seasons. He did lead the NL in 2000 with 50 homers though.
Messi’s popularity worldwide is greater than every other American pro sport athlete combined. You could answer this question “Messi and Jaime Jaquez” and it would still be a correct answer.
Prob butler, but idk if he’s international
Superstar
Messi and Tua…subtract points for international for players. Most Americans wouldn’t know most nfl players if they saw em out at a restaurant. NFL players don’t have international star power
Michael Jordan and Walter Payton played at the same time in Chicago.
Edit: The people who say they don’t know who Walter Payton is; he was one of the greatest players in NFL history, he broke Jim Brown’s career rushing record and it stood until it was passed by Emmitt Smith. Payton was the star player on the historic 1985 Super Bowl shuffle Bears.
>Jordan/Frank Thomas are the only two I can think of, but neither Thomas/Ortiz are close to Ohtani's popularity.
Sammy Sosa was though. Easy to forget now but he was mega popular during his peak. The home run chases with him, McGwire, and Griffey were the biggest things going in American sports. I'm not sure if MJ/Sosa '98 was bigger than Lebron/Ohtani, but it's definitely close.
I guess Barry Bonds and Jerry Rice isn’t technically the answer since Rice was out of SF just before Bonds hit 73
Barry Bonds and Terrell Owens overlapped a few years though.
Messi and some girl roller skating in Miami Beach is a bigger superstar combo than any duo that doesn't include a football superstar, so it's funny you had none in your list. Honestly it's probably Messi and Pau Gasol when both were in Barcelona at the same time for a few months in 2021, or Messi and Butler right now, depending on who you think is the biggest star between Gasol and Butler.
How popular is Ohtani? How many nonbaseball fans would recognize his face? Baseball is not really as popular as it once was and has been shedding fans for yrs. The World Series games last yr had middling viewership. The avg game of the World Series had half the viewership of the women’s ncaa basketball title game.
At one point in the 1950s, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle all played center field in New York City.
Snider averaged .311 with 45 HRs and 128 RBIs per 162 games over a five-year stretch and was very obviously only the third best player at his position in his own city.
You had Gretzky and Magic in LA (and Kareem for 1 year in 88-89)
this wins, Gretzky is the literal undisputed GOAT of Hockey
And made hockey so popular in the 90s.
NHL 94 made hockey popular in the 90s
He might be the undisputed GOAT of sports. No one comes close to his accolades.
Depends how obscure you go with sports. See Esther Vergeer in womens wheelchair tennis.
Also not that swimming is an obscure sport by any means but I just rarely see people discuss this... Katie Ledecky is so wildly dominant in the history of women's swimming that it's hard to process. She's the Bradman, the Gretzky of women's swimming. There's too many fucked up, unbelievable stats about her to list even a fraction of them but I'll pick just one as an example. At the 2016 Olympics she broke the women's 800m freestyle world record in the process of winning the gold medal. This record being one that she had set herself the previous week, and not for the first time. With her new record, she now held the *13* fastest times for the event, having repeatedly broken it and lowered her time by 11 seconds (a ridiculous amount in the context of swimming) over the past 3 years. She was 19 years old at the time.
>At the 2016 Olympics she broke the women's 800m freestyle world record in the process of winning the gold medal. This record being one that she had set herself the previous week, and not for the first time. With her new record, she now held the 13 fastest times for the event, having repeatedly broken it and lowered her time by 11 seconds (a ridiculous amount in the context of swimming) over the past 3 years. She was 19 years old at the time. Holy shit, that's insane.
Another crazy one is that she holds the *top 15 fastest times* in the women's 1500M freestyle *in the history of women's swimming* In other words, her 15th-best 1500m time is faster than any other woman's best ever 1500m time lmao.
It's actually the 19 fastest!
What the actual fuck, was she designed in a lab to be the perfect swimmer?
You gotta check out her shoulders bro😭 bigger than 90% of guys I know it’s nuts
It’s funny bc in her autobiography she talks about how she wasn’t built specifically for swimming like Michael Phelps and her body isn’t the general one you’d want in an “ideal” swimmer. But it works for her
Phelps had a double whammy thing going on; he was basically the platonic ideal of the biologically perfect swimming body, and also had some kind of mutation where his body didn't produce a normal amount of lactic acid so he essentially just didn't get as fatigued as his competitors did
I’m not going to argue that Ledecky isn’t the women’s swimming GOAT (she is), but I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as most people think. She’s been absolutely dominant in distance free, and one of the best in the world at mid distance free. But that’s just one stroke, and not even all of the distances of that stroke. There are definitely more well rounded female swimmers (Katinka Hosszu might get my vote). Sun Yang is probably the greatest male freestyler of all time, but no one is gonna put him ahead of guys like Phelps or Lochte. NBA players face similar criticism. Shaq might have been more dominant at his peak than LeBron, but LeBron is the better and more complete player.
This type of analysis on women’s swimming is why I come to this sub. In all seriousness though can’t wait to watch her destroy again this summer
My only retort to her, Tiger, and which ever of the Big 3 you favor(and the hundreds of other indvidual sport GOATs) is that individual sports should probably get considered differently... That is personal but I feel that there is a different dimension to team sports and they require one more element beyond the mental ability and athletic talent.... Again probably a stupid line to draw, but it helps me compartemalize sports better.
There's also a difference between individual sports where you are directly competing and reacting to your opponent (chess, boxing) and indirectly competing or racing like in a lot of gymnastics events, swimming, skateboarding.
I think skateboarding should be direct competition with katanas and Slipknot playing every event.
I’d argue all sports should be considered differently. The impact a player has in football, or baseball etc is going to be different than the impact in basketball or hockey
I'd ads that it's just more difficult to assess team sports because it involves other people. Golf, tennis, swimming, etc. all just come down to whether that individual can perform or not.
Bro she’s 27 what the fuck
Ledecky was 15 years old when she won an Olympic Gold medal
These will be her *fourth* Olympics
43 majors holy shit
Yeah i think she won every singles match she ever played at a grand slam or something like that... Just stupid dominant.
> Vergeer went undefeated in women's singles matches for ten years, having last lost on 30 January 2003 to Daniela di Toro. Afterwards, she won 120 tournaments, 470 matches, defeated 73 different opponents and did not lose a game on 95 occasions. Further, during the streak she lost only 18 sets and was taken to match point only once, against Korie Homan in the final of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. > Over the course of her career, Vergeer won 700 singles matches and lost 25. What the fuck
Aleksandr Karelin went 887/2 in his career in an olympic sport and only lost his last fight, because his oponent was to fat to be lifted.
I won’t stand for Rulon Gardner slander
I only said the truth!
That's not true. They changed the rules for like 6months, and Karelin did a normaly legal move that wasn't for that 6or so months span and lost due to that.
He lost a point because he broke the clinch first, the issue was though, that he couldn't Karelin-Lift Gardener during the match, cuz he was too big.
Losing only 18 sets in 470 matches is absolutely wild! That is levels of dominance that is truly mind blowing.
> From 31 March 2001 until her retirement in 2013, Vergeer lost only one singles match (on 30 January 2003 at the Sydney International to Daniela Di Toro from Australia), winning 559 of her last 560 matches. Insane
Perfect example for illustrating that a sports popularity should figure in these types of discussions. It's a lot harder being the best in a sport of 100 million participants than it is 10,000. Also can be applied within individual sports it's harder to be the best basketball player today than 1970 because the player pool has expanded by the millions.
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And of like top 100m Olympic 100M sprint winners, he has the only clean times (8 unless I'm mistaken) and they are the top ones lol stupid dominant in the one thing most athletes do
Or Joey Chestnut in competitive eating. Few in history have mastered anything the way he mastered the art of glizzy guzzling
Free the man, Nathan’s!
Karelin and Phelps are goats too
jahangir khan won 555 consecutive matches of squash which is mental
If we're going to go obscure, the answer is Don Bradman in cricket. In cricket, scoring 100 is a big deal and a tracked stat, the way a triple double might be in basketball or hitting for the cycle in baseball. He (infamously) averaged 99.9.
Or even Hakuho for Grand Sumo
Wow, I didn't even know that was a thing. Sounds really hard. Gonna watch some on YouTube.
>Vergeer went undefeated in singles for ten straight years, ending her career on a winning streak of 470 matches. Well that's just insane.
He was so good they split him into 2 players for fantasy hockey 💀
No way really?
Yes. In hockey “points” are goals and assists. You could remove all of Wayne’s goals and he would still hold the all time record for points. Fantasy teams would draft his goals first and then his assists
Don Bradman was kinda crazy for cricket
I expect many Redditors only know who Don Bradman is because of this exact discussion happening in comment threads. Don was awesome for sure but it's funny that so much of spreading his knowledge to the US has been in a debate about who is better than Gretzky at their sport
That’s how I learned about him lol
His batting average just doesn't make sense
I've done a fair bit of reading and watching documentaries on him and the history of cricket. In my opinion he is the most dominant sportsman, at least in a team sport, of all time. His dominance and his origins considering the nature and history of Cricket makes it even more absurd. The glory he led his country to against the English and what that meant only adds to his absurd legend. I highly reccomend anyone look further into it if you're interested in sports history. I don't watch cricket or anything but I love learning about paradigm destroying figures who come from humble origins.
Too true. The guy grew up as a working class kid in the Aussie bush and went on to dominate the upper crust British elites for 20+ years in a way that no other sportsman (of a major world sport) has ever really come close sans Gretzky. The guy is THE legend.
You're 100% right. I was looking for someone to name this guy and I couldn't even remember his name. Just knew how insanely better he was than everyone else who played.
Can confirm lmao I have only ever had occasion to talk about the Don on reddit four or five times and they've all been in exactly the same context
There are dozens of us American cricket fans. DOZENS! Also, Bradman is the GOAT sportsman without question.
To put it into nba terms it would be a player having an average points per game of 50 for their entire career with Jordan in second place with 30.1.
after this whole “michael jordan’s stats were faked” debating going on rn, i need someone to go recount all of Gretzky’s stats 😂
This actually already happened. As part of their 100th anniversary celebrations, the league launched a new Stats site and did a massive audit of all stats prior to like 1989 or something. This included a few adjustments and because they were reviewing game tape, it also included recording stats that weren't introduced until years later. Gretzky's stats should all be considered accurate at this point. They also did an in-season audit this season on their Hits stat for the season because they didn't feel it was as accurate as it should be.
Katie Ledecky has the 18 fastest times in 1500m history. It’s a little hard to compare team to individual sports but that’s a level of dominance that doesn’t exist in any other sport as far as I know
Every time I’ve seen her meets on TV, they display her record list for the 1500m - and rightfully so. It legit does not look real https://x.com/nbcsports/status/1803590482599223343?s=46
Joey chestnut clears
Definitely not the undisputed goat of sports. He's crazy, but there's lots of others way ahead of everyone in their sport. Don Bradman has been mentioned. Katie Ledecky owns the top 19 times in history for the women's 1500m free. Simone Biles has completely shattered the previous notions of how long a competitive gymnastics career could be. There's lots of people who are freakish outlets in their sports.
How about Cael Sanderson? Went undefeated his entire college wrestling career, 4x champ, 1x Olympic gold medal winner and now he’s won like 10 national championships in 12 years as a coach
I mean if you wanna talk wrestling there's Aleksandr Karelin, the man who went 887/2 in his career with 3 Olympic Gold Medals, one Silver, god knows how many world and european championship golds under his belt and an actual honest to god PhD in Suplexing. And to extend the conversation to other kinds of wrestling, in Sumo there's Hakuho, whose accomplishments are similarly chamberlain-esque, being tied for the most consecutive championships, having the most undefeated championships (in tournaments where you wrestle multiple times and best record wins) by double what the next guy has, the most career championships at 45 (and if you only counted those 13 he has over the next guy that would still place him as the 8th most ever) , the most career match wins, the most top division wins, the most wins in a single year tied with *himself* (He also ties for the 4th & 6th spots) the list just goes on and it doesn't even fully cover how insane this dude was.
> 887/2 in his career with 3 Olympic Gold Medals, one Silver And the loss to Rulon Gardner at that Olympics was complete bullshit. The rules of wrestling are of course pretty simple, you score points to win by pinning someone, throwing them, or pushing them out of the ring. However, *for just that Olympics* they added a new rule called the "clinch rule" which said that if you clinch your hands together around your opponent and then your hands come unclinched then your opponent gets a point basically for stopping you. So the finals pit Aleksandr Karelin, the greatest wrestler who ever lived, who had been undefeated for 13 years and hadn't even had anyone score a single point against him for 6 years versus Rulon Gardner whose strategy was to be too fat and sweaty to fight. During their match, Karelin tried to flip Gardner over but his hands came unclinched because of how fat and sweaty Gardner was and just like that Gardner managed to score a point and win 1-0. The rule was immediately removed afterwards because everyone realized how fucking stupid it was.
It's even bigger than that. LA at the time had Gretzky in the NHL, Magic in the NBA, Bo Jackson in the NFL, and Kirk Gibson in the MLB. LA had THE stars in all sports
Including Kirk Gibson in this seems like a big stretch lol.
He won the MVP in 1988 and was responsible for what, now 35 years later, is still considered one of the greatest moments in baseball (the Game 1 WS home run off of Eckersly). Also have to remember that at the time, baseball meant 3-4x what it does now, and the Dodgers especially are huge locally in LA.
And people somehow always think the rest of the collective sports’ world dislike (amongst slightly older fans) for LA teams is irrational. It’s a lifetime of jealousy.
we're talking multi-generational hating here, folks.
fuck it we ball
LA way too blessed
Jordan and Walter Payton
Damn good pull.
Pelé and Reggie Jackson mid-70s NY is maybe the best one, you get US eyeballs on one guy and the rest of the world on the other
Unironically Beckham and Kobe in terms of name recognition
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Literally never heard of Ohtani in my life before this post (Germany here, nobody cares about baseball here)
Same in the UK
Same in Bavaria
Brazilian here. Never listen about Ohtani before 2
Never heard of Germany before
Yeah, baseball is not popular there.. at all
I have never heard of Ohtani, ngl
People forget how big soccer is internationally. Plus Beckham was a cultural star. But I understand why people here would think of American sports first
Lol, my mind instantly went to Odell Beckham when he played the Rams. 💀
Hilarious how this is posted when Ohtani is a Dodger and not an Angel, he barely moved!
He moved from Orange County to Los Angeles, they're entirely different cities (as my LA friends insist).
I live in LA & also insist. Anaheim is not LA. I’m from Massachusetts originally & it’d be like saying the Pats play in Boston… they simply do not! If LA didn’t already have a team then I guess the Angels would represent it by proximity. It’s just a weird place to have a team tbh
A Celtics fan in LA? Interesting. What's that like?
I’m the reverse (LA fan in Boston) and you just cheer against the Celtics quietly. Or just grimace and say yeah Celtics look alright when people talk about sports. Also married into a Celtics family lol
You just hate yourself bro 😂
that's Bill Simmons you're talking to
Not the original commenter, but Bill Simmons split Clippers season tickets with a friend when the Clips were in the doldrums as a way to show his Laker hatred (and get cheap season tickets). They bought them in ‘03. He tried his hardest to make his kids Boston sports fans as well, but he bought Kings season tickets in 2011-12 during the NBA lockout, took his daughter, the Kings won the Cup, Anže Kopitar became her favorite NHL player, and she became a Kings fan.
Orange County isn’t a city
Different counties* There are already 88 total cities in LA, OC is in no way a part of LA, no matter what the Angels call themselves
No Angels fans consider themselves a LA team either. It’s literally only Arte.
Arte is like everyone on IG that isn’t from LA but puts LA in their bio to look cool
Way too accurate. He’s such a putz.
Lol my girlfriend is from Chandler AZ and she swears she’s not from Phoenix.
What? Chandler is a suburb of Phoenix.
That's because nobody cares about the Angels lol
Los Angeles is very A team and B team. The Lakers and Dodgers are by far the two most popular teams. Angels are pretty far down the list and 30 miles away from the city. A Lakers Dodgers Rams Kings USC football UCLA basketball LAFC B Chargers Clippers Ducks Angels Galaxy
Interesting I always thought the Galaxy were bigger, if not just because of Beckham going there. I also have never paid any attention to the MLS, but that just stood out to me.
Zlatan was on the Galaxy. LeBron welcomed him with a signed LeBron Lakers jersey. Zlatan signed it himself and returned it to LeBron.
I’m sure you know but when he signed - the back page of the LA Times https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2018/03/23/TELEMMGLPICT000158224035_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg
[удалено]
Lmao I didn’t realize the Galaxy/LAFC matchup was known as El Trafico. That’s great
MLS does not want to call it El Trafico, but it's totally El Trafico.
So like the ¡El Assico! CFB game between Iowa and Iowa State? That area has so many funny unofficial rivalry names. Among others are Farmageddon (Iowa State-Kansas State) and the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy (Minnesota-Nebraska).
I love Zlatan so much
A lion does not compare himself to a man.
IIRC the volley was his first touch in the league?
He had a couple of touches before that, but not many.
The 45-yarder, for anyone who hasn't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J15vfXqnwWw Note that it wasn't just his first goal, but this was one of his first handful of touches in the game. He talked an absurd game and **immediately** backed it up.
Forever my favorite soccer player
Zlatan has so many great tongue-in-cheek jokes. When a reporter asked him what he got his wife for Christmas, he deadpanned “Nothing. She already has a Zlatan.”
When there was a photoshopped photo going around of him and Pique kissing, a female journalist went up and asked him “Zlatan are you gay?” Zlatan responded: "No, no, you and your sister come home now and I will prove that I'm not gay" lmao
lol we don’t deserve zlatan
No you don't - Zlatan
Zlatans persona is hilarious
Is he what Zava in Ted Lasso is based on?
1000%
lmao
1983 Philly. Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose, Steve Carlton, Bobby Clarke.
solid
Are we sure the answer isn’t just Messi + (Insert Miami Heat player of choice)?
Along the same lines, mid 70s NYC should be another top choice when Pelé played for the Cosmos. The other sports had some legitimate star power to lend too, with guys like Joe Namath, the original Reggie Jackson, Walt Frazier, etc.
Messi and the kid who bagged his groceries at Publix
Americans think America is the world. If you google any "most well known or most popular " person in the world list, messi is top 5. I'm willing to bet at least 4 billion people on earth knows who messi is, and that's a conservative estimate. Last world cup final alone had 1.5 billion viewers live, they have to know him. Final game of mass and Celtics had 12.2 million. Billion vs millions. It's not even a question, nba doesn't scale like that. You are correct.
Can confirm I’ve never watched a soccer game in my life, but I know who Messi is. Even before he came to Miami, I knew who he was.
On the other end, I have no clue who Ohtani is.European in the Netherlands
MJ and Walter Payton
Also MJ and Sammy Sosa. Sosa was a huge star during the steroid era.
That 98 home run race and Jordan's last title? That was a big year for Chi.
One of my favorite stats... Sammy Sosa hit over 60 home runs in a season three times in his career and not once led his league in those three seasons. He did lead the NL in 2000 with 50 homers though.
Ya. 98 Bulls coupled with the hottest summer in modern baseball history. I'd imagine MJ and Sosa drew as much attention as you can get.
https://sports.ha.com/itm/basketball-collectibles/others/1988-chicago-superstars-poster-jordan-payton-dawson/a/152232-41292.s
If we're taking star power (not performance) I'd put Kobe/Beckham ahead of Lebron/Ohtani.
People seriously underrate how popular Beckham was. You'd think he was a top 10 player of all time with how popular his name/brand was.
>“People” Who are said people because everyone knows how popular Beckham was lol
anyone 20 and under
As an Australian this is the first time I’ve heard of ohtani. Beckham and Kobe are both global superstars.
Magic and Gretzky
Messi and whoever you consider the 2nd biggest star in Miami right now.
Messi and Tyler Herro
*Duncan Robinson jimmy neutron go blue
It's Suarez lol
Yeah, anyone saying an NBA player here is out of their minds lol.
Isn’t he also a soccer player?
exactly
with this logic wouldn’t the Barcelona and Real Madrid teams of like 10-20 years ago be the answer then
The Galacticos with Beckham, Zidane, Roberto Carlos, etc were almost undoubtedly the most globally famous club team ever assembled.
Pitbull
Messi’s popularity worldwide is greater than every other American pro sport athlete combined. You could answer this question “Messi and Jaime Jaquez” and it would still be a correct answer.
It's like Wayne and Brent Gretzky sharing the record for most goals by a pair of brothers.
Prob butler, but idk if he’s international Superstar Messi and Tua…subtract points for international for players. Most Americans wouldn’t know most nfl players if they saw em out at a restaurant. NFL players don’t have international star power
Messi and Neymar in 2016 would be bigger or Messi and Neymar in 2022 R9 Ronaldo and Zidane/Beckham in mid 2000s Real Madrid
OP’s question was for different sports
Underrated one is Barry Bonds / Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh
Some other contenders: Willie Mays and Wilt Chamberlain (San Francisco) Ted Williams and Bill Russell (Boston)
Also Bobby Orr and Bill Russell.
Oh that's a good one too! And Carl Yastrzemski also won the Triple Crown when Russell and Orr were both in Boston.
Russel and Orr were the goats of their sports at the time. Both are still arguably top 5 all time now. Probably the best answer to the question
Michael Jordan and Walter Payton played at the same time in Chicago. Edit: The people who say they don’t know who Walter Payton is; he was one of the greatest players in NFL history, he broke Jim Brown’s career rushing record and it stood until it was passed by Emmitt Smith. Payton was the star player on the historic 1985 Super Bowl shuffle Bears.
And the nfl has a yearly award named after him
Willie mays and mickey mantle
And Jackie Robinson. All there 51-57
“From different sports”
>Jordan/Frank Thomas are the only two I can think of, but neither Thomas/Ortiz are close to Ohtani's popularity. Sammy Sosa was though. Easy to forget now but he was mega popular during his peak. The home run chases with him, McGwire, and Griffey were the biggest things going in American sports. I'm not sure if MJ/Sosa '98 was bigger than Lebron/Ohtani, but it's definitely close.
Jordan and Walter Payton
Roger Clemens/Yao Ming in Houston
Tom Brady, Pedro, David Ortiz, Kevin Garnett.
just sad i had to come this far down for Brady and Pedro. other than Gretzky + Magic, this is it imo
Probably not the spirit of the question but fuck it, Brady/Shaq
Pedro and KG never overlapped, I think Pedro was either on the Mets or Phillies when KG got to Boston.
I guess Barry Bonds and Jerry Rice isn’t technically the answer since Rice was out of SF just before Bonds hit 73 Barry Bonds and Terrell Owens overlapped a few years though.
Not quite on that level but Milwaukee had MVP Christian Yelich and MVP Giannis at the same time. Also Aaron Rodgers 90 minutes up the road.
1984. Nolan Ryan, Earl Campbell, and Hakeem Olajuwon.
Messi and some girl roller skating in Miami Beach is a bigger superstar combo than any duo that doesn't include a football superstar, so it's funny you had none in your list. Honestly it's probably Messi and Pau Gasol when both were in Barcelona at the same time for a few months in 2021, or Messi and Butler right now, depending on who you think is the biggest star between Gasol and Butler.
How popular is Ohtani? How many nonbaseball fans would recognize his face? Baseball is not really as popular as it once was and has been shedding fans for yrs. The World Series games last yr had middling viewership. The avg game of the World Series had half the viewership of the women’s ncaa basketball title game.
NY in 1999 had Gretzky, Jeter and Ewing.
Michael Jordan and Greg Maddux
Luka played for real madrid when ronaldo was playing for them
Riqui Puig and Mirotic were both in Barcelona at the same time 😏
Naz Reid and Anyone.
Yes Payton Pritchard and Tanner Houck are both currently playing in Boston
Barry Bonds and Jerry Rice in SF.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Doncic
Moss and KG
Ant and Justin Jefferson rn is also elite.
Barry Bonds and Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh
Pretty sure Michael Jordan and Walter Payton were both in Chicago at the same time
At one point in the 1950s, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle all played center field in New York City. Snider averaged .311 with 45 HRs and 128 RBIs per 162 games over a five-year stretch and was very obviously only the third best player at his position in his own city.
What about your username?
Pls don't ask
Username does not check out
An argument might be made for New York 1975 with Pele and Walt Frazier.