Top 10 Athletes in Sports: Part I

Chris,
In regards to ESPN's best athlete in the world series, I was wondering who you would pick as the top 10 athletes. I think it is a pretty tough call b/c everyone has a different opinion on which sport requires the most athleticism. For instance, I don't think a tri-athlete should be number 1 because I think eye-hand coordination is a big factor in being athletic, and whose to say that the tri-athlete can catch a football any better than some of the morons that I play with. I think you have to look at the person, and decide how many different sports that person could have excelled at had they chosen a different path. I really can't decide who that person is.
I think the number one women is a lot easier to pick. I believe that Serena Williams is hands down the greatest female athlete. I bet she could have been a pro athlete in any sport her dad had wanted her to.
- Stephanie Chase, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

Stephanie, I have been paying attention to ESPN’s listing of the best athletes in the world, but until now have put off from writing about it because I thought it would be too hard to decide. But since your e-mail is the first I have received in a few weeks that hasn't tried to a) sell me Windows Millenium b) increase my width and girth or c) advertised a Hall & Oates/Average White Band concert, I figured I had to respond.
I’m not going to even begin to discuss what defines an athlete. Is it harder for Lance Armstrong to bike up the hills the Pyrenees during the Tour de France or for Kobe Bryant to find an open man while on the fast break? Oh wait, Kobe doesn’t pass anymore… bad example.
What’s tougher? Running a marathon or sweating through two-a-days in Alabama? Swimming 15,000 yards-a-day or scrambling away from 250-pound linebackers while trying to throw to a spot where your receiver will be in two seconds?
You can’t compare them. Sure, it’s harder to run a marathon then to make it through a football practice, but that doesn’t mean that all marathoners are better athletes than football players. And just because Michael Vick couldn’t make it through two minutes of a local club team swim practice, doesn’t mean that the swimmers could shoot a basketball any better than him.
So what I’ve tried to do with this list is rank athletes based on the athletic prowess they show in their own sports, plus, how I think they could compete in other sports. Shaq is the most dominant player in the NBA since Wilt Chamberlin. But that doesn’t mean I think he could play any sport besides basketball. He doesn’t make the list.
I’m sure I will leave some deserving people off the list, and probably will include somebody that you disagree with.
E-mail me with your own thoughts, criticisms, additions and deletions.
Onto the list.

#10 – Chris Drury
Hockey player for the Colorado Avalanche. Drury sneaks onto the list because of his memorable pitching performance against Taiwan in the 1989 Little League World Series Championship Game, but more so because now my buddy Phil won’t have to write to complain that I haven’t included any hockey players on this list.

#9 – Joe Mauer
The Minnesota Twins rookie catcher was selected #1 in the 2001 MLB draft, ahead of Mark Prior. It says a lot about Mauer that people in the Twins organization are still convinced they made the right pick.
After a quick start to his first season in the big leagues, Mauer suffered a knee injury and was placed on the disabled list.
In addition to being the top baseball prospect in the country out of high school (while playing the most physically demanding defensive position), Mauer was the highest-rated quarterback prospect in the country and signed with Florida State.
He eventually chose to play minor league baseball instead of taking snaps in Tallahassee and quickly ascended through the minors and was named Minor League Player of the Year by Baseball America.
Other sports are littered with ex-baseball prospects who couldn’t cut it in the minors (Chad Hutchinson, Drew Henson, Josh Booty, Chris Weinke, etc.) but it’s rare to find a pro baseball player who abandoned another sport (only Devil Rays pitcher Mark Hendrickson comes to mind, but I’m sure there’s been more).

#8 - Tony Gonzalez
ToGo (why hasn’t that caught on) is one of the best pass-catching tight ends in NFL history, and probably could have been a pro basketball player had he chosen to focus on that sport while at Cal. Plus, I think he’s the only person in the NFL that can boast ethnicities that include Indian, Jamaican and Cape Verdien.

#7 – Michael Phelps
If Michael Phelps was forced to practice with the San Antonio Spurs, he would have no problem getting through the day. If he had to spend a day training with the Florida Marlins, again, no worries. Same with the New England Patriots and whoever it is won the Stanley Cup last year.
But if you put every single one of the players on those four teams in the pool to practice with Michael Phelps, they’d last five minutes… tops.
Phelps isn’t too famous now, but if he come close to breaking Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in swimming this summer in Athens, he’ll be huge. Rory Calhoun huge.

#6 – Lance Armstrong
Yes. It’s true. The mighty Lance Armstrong doesn’t crack the prestigious Top 5.
Here’s why… Armstrong is the best cyclist in the world. He has concrete thighs and determination so fierce that he makes Ray Lewis look like Katie from the Real World/Road Rules challenge. But he’s only a cyclist.
I don’t think that Armstrong could have any sort of success in another sport and, frankly, I’m only including him on this list because he somehow landed Sheryl Crow. Bravo my friend. Bravo.

Check out the Top 5 at: http:chazsports.blogspot.com