The comparison should be between Pele and Muhammed Ali. Ali after all won out as player of the century.
Impressive the black presence among the great geniuses ever in sports that demand explosion & quickness: Pelé, Ali, Jesse Owens, Michael Jordan, Carl Lewis, Usain Bolt, Marta, etc etc. With some extremely well succeeded into 'white' sports: Tiger Wood, Arthur Ashe as perfect examples.
She also is (black, Am indian, white). Besides in US - under the all-encompassing 'one drop rule' - she'd be considered a typical black. The same for 'cablinasian' Tiger Woods (or Barack Obama).
Maybe by the blacks but not by the whites, no?... At least when I lived in US (early 70's) the 'one drop rule'...reigned. But maybe you're right and in 30 years things changed a lot.
Most black people would probably think Marta and Ronaldinho were Mexican at first glance These days it seems there are four ethnic groups in the US: White Black 'Mexican' (anything between white and black) Asian
That's black people view. Wouldn't whites label them as 'black' though?... Funny, because Mexicans don't have black blood in their veins, and Marta & Ronaldinho evidently do (although mixed with Am Indian and white). There are light-colored blacks though which are definitely not Latinos. Mulattoes, for example: Jimmy Hendrix for instance was one. He's very far from being black as a Michael Jordan or a Pelé.
Sorry, I misunderstood your first statement. White people would put Marta and Ronaldinho somewhere in the Latino category. Hendrix would fit quite comfortably in today's black category (that's a very disingenuous pic of Hendrix).
Over the years, Sachin Tendulkar has been compared to Viv Richards, Sunny Gavaskar, Brian Lara etc. However, he has left all of them way behind. Critics started comparing Sachin to Don Bradman (who played before World War II) first when the Don himself said (in mid 90s) that in the long history of cricket, Sachin is the only player who batted just like him. They seriously started contesting Bradman's supremacy when Sachin became the only player ever to score 200 in a one-day international. Although most people are not putting Sachin at the same level as Don Bradman just now, they will start doing so when Sachin gets his 100 international hunderds. There will always be doubts because Sachin will never match Don's test average of 99. However, a 100 international hundreds is as staggering as a test average of 99. Add to that 20000 runs in one-day cricket and 15000 in test cricket. I think it's fair to say that Don Bradman was the greatest of the bygone era while Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest of the modern era.
Ali wasn't even the best in boxing. Sugar Ray Robsinson is accepted by almost every expert as having been markedly superior.
Hugely debateable this. I would really question that he ever left Viv Richards or Brian Lara behind, let alone way behind. But put simply it's not. Bradman averaged 100. The next best average in the history of cricket is 61. Sachin averages 55. So Bradman's average is basically double that of Sachin. Sachin's record of hundreds is due to the fact that more cricket is played these days. Nothing more. Bradman scored 29 centuries in 80 innings. It took Sachin double the number to reach the same mark. Sachin is a marvellous player, certainly among the best ever, but Bradman is head and shoulders above every player in the history of the game.
Visit Veracruz and Tabasco. It had more to do with flash and the style he developed. He would have been a marketer´s dream today.
Interesting article and these lists are always begging for debate. Since it's fun to discuss these things, I'll throw in another perspective. Keep in mind that I lived about 2 miles from Michael Jordan when he played in Chicago. I think there are a clear top 4 people who should be at the top, not only for their pure dominance of their sport, but because of the way they've revolutionized it. They are: Michael Jordan, Pele, Wayne Gretzky, and Tiger Woods. For these four, it's virtually impossible to declare a clear order, since their sports have such different dynamics. That being said, I think there are better athletes out there. On the list created by CNN, you could argue a lot of people should be taken off, and some should be added. For example, a post was made earlier that Ali was not even the best boxer out there. Was it Sugar Ray that was better...I forget? For baseball, I always thought it was consensus that Willie Mays was the best player ever. He did it all: Speed, fielding, throwing, batting average, power. He practically invented the term 5-star player. That being said, Babe Ruth did completely reinvent the game. I remember reading once that he hit more home runs in a season than some teams did. That's classic. Aaron simply played consistently over a very long period of time. In terms of athletic ability, I'll throw out a name that is on no one's "best of" lists: Bo Jackson. In reality, this guy was a freak of nature. He ran a 4.12, the fastest verified time in the history of the combine, and he was also a tough, big guy...a bruising running back. He was an all-star in two sports. I think he was the ultimate athlete.
I always find it bizarre the way that people will put figures from some very minor sports at the summit of the sporting ladder. Ice hockey for instance is a sport with little impact outside of a narrow band of the globe including the USA, Canada and Russia. On an objective approach there is no way that an ice hockey player could ever be at the top, because it's a small sport. I understand that people come at this from their own regional perspective, but the US in partcular has a very parochial approach to sporting greatness, with their own sports like American Football and Baseball given a status that their global impact just doesn't merit.
I feel like Pele has had more of a global impact as basketball tends to not be nearly as popular worldwide as footy.
Great call- totally agreed. The young Brazilian Ronaldo totally reminded me of Bo, an unprecedented freak-like combination of speed, size, strength, moves, coordination, and agility. Both of those guys could outrun you like they were shot out of a cannon, go through you, or stop on a dime and go around you. Whenever they wanted. It seemed to me that both of them pushed the human athletic envelope way too far resulting in injuries that took both of their primes, as if people weren't meant to be that good. People often forget that if Ronaldo didn't have the seizure the day of the 1998 WC final against France Brazil wouldn't have been in such disarray and probably would have won (let's not argue about this too much- ok at least the oddsmakers thought so). That would have meant Ronaldo is on three WC winning teams in a row...something even Pele didn't accomplish. The seizure was reportedly caused by an injection to treat his keee- shame.