Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Skip Rates His Greatest Athlete Ever


Skip has decreed it, so it is law: Deion Sanders is the greatest athlete ever. It doesn't matter who you throw at him. (Although Skip, with you bad knee, you shouldn't throw anybody.) Bo? Fuck him. Winfeild? Sucks. Wilt? Garbage. Decathletes? They've never done an athletic thing in their life. I mean, honestly, how could anybody deny this? Just look at Skip's methodology:


Hmmm. All right. This actually seems pretty good. I'm not sure if everyone would agree that greatest athlete = most all around talent, but I am willing to accept that as a valid position. So, I would think that Skip will now go through this list of talents and show where Deion ranks on them. Assumably, Deion will rate highly on all of them and we all agree that he is the greatest athlete ever and everything will be just peachy. And would you look at that - most of these are tangible qualities which can actually be measured with numbers. I'm glad Skip will look at these numbers when deciding on his greatest athlete ever. That is the smart and well-reasoned thing to do.


Oh wait. I forgot. There is no way that Skip would ever look at actual numbers when doing an exercise like this. He'd rather base his opinions in unquantifiables like "the biggest stages." So the greatest athlete isn't just the "most all-around talents" anymore? Now it's the most all-around talents on the biggest stages, which are, obviously, the Super Bowl and the World Series? Because if anyone were going to be the greatest athlete ever, they would have to play in these sporting events. Screw the Olympics. The Olympics tell you nothing about athletes.

Skip though, to his credit, does provide some actual numbers here. Deion was a .348 postseason hitter. That's got to mean something, right. If you are going to be considered the great athlete ever, you probably should be able to swing an elongated, wooden club to hit a small, leather ball well in the baseball playoffs. Does it matter that Deion only had 23 at-bats in his post-season career? Does it matter that outside of the 1992 World Series, his post-season stats are 0 for 8 with 4 strikeouts? Actually, to Skip, that's probably a good thing. He didn't waste any hits on those meaningless NLCS games. He saved 'em up for the big one. He played well on the biggest stage, damn it! He didn't waste it on that pussy NLCS-shit!

And while we're on the subject of baseball, we should probably bring up another baseball/football player that Skip mentions: Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson has a career WAR of  7.8 compared to Deion's 3.8. Bo Jackson played in 53 more baseball games than Deion despite playing one fewer season. Bo Jackson has a career OPS+ of 112 compared to Deion's 89. Obviously these statistics don't tell the whole story and there are others which would make Deion look better, but it's clear that Bo was a very good baseball player and was arguably better than Deion. But, Bo never played in the World Series, so, who the fuck cares what else he did? Besides:


FLORIDA!? Holy shit! That's serious. What's that? HE COULD 360 DUNK!? WHAT!? That's insane! I am so sorry for ever doubting you, Skip. You are so right. Bo didn't even know basketball. Never met it. If you showed a basketball to Bo he'd punch you right in the face. He called them "demon oranges." True story.

They both played football, though. Let's talk about that. I mean, how difficult could it be to compare a corner back to a running back?

 

This is just all bullshit. I know that this is twitter, but still, this is horrible. Could a comparison be any worse than this?


...

So lets get this straight. Deion is the best athlete because:

1. He has the most all-around talents (No evidence provided)
2. He did it on the "biggest stages" (Ignores evidence that Bo was a better baseball player)
3. He could do a 360 dunk, while Bo didn't even know basketball (I think the stupidness explains itself)
4. Bo wasn't as shifty or fast as Deion (No evidence provided)
5. Even though Bo was stronger than Deion, Michael Irvin says Deion was pretty strong too, so those pretty much cancel each other out.

There you have it folks. Deion Sanders is the best athlete ever.