Author Topic: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play  (Read 8965 times)

Offline Pistol Pete

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Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« on: May 12, 2004, 05:08 PM »
Both in person and on TV is fine

In Person and on TV!

Baseball Barry Bonds
Football Joe Montana
Hockey Wayne Gretzky
Basketball Magic Johnson

Never got to see Bird or Jordan play live and I'd say Jordan is better than Bird so he is my TV choice.  The rest though are definite locks both ways.  
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Offline Morgbug

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2004, 05:25 PM »
Hockey:  Gretzky.  Got to see Bobby Hull play quite a bit and Gordie Howe, but both were well past their prime.

Basketball: Bird, has to be Bird.  Never saw Jordan either though yes, a better player.  Missed Magic and Kareem as well.  

Baseball:  Kirby Puckett.  Pre wife beater.  

Football: Fran Tarkenton.  Yes, for real.  The only NFL game I have ever been to.  

Those are all in person.  On TV or otherwise is too tough to rank, mostly because I go back too far and you can't have very good Jordan vs Russell vs Mikan vs Robertson conversations.  
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Offline Jeff

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2004, 06:01 PM »
I'll stick with the best I got to see live (not on TV).

Football:
Joe Montana - man, could he run that West Coast offense.

NHL:
The Great One - I pity anyone that neve got to see him skate at a game.  No matter where he was on the ice, he could find an open person for a pass.

Baseball:
Kirby Puckett - By far the best I've see.  Although, I'd give a nod to Nolan Ryan.  I loved watching him pitch.  40-yr old dude striking out 200+ a season (just like The Rocket is doing now).

Basketball:
Jordan.  I saw Bird and Magic on TV a lot, but never saw them in person at a game.  His Air-ness was incredible though.  I remember him being really tall, but that was probably because I was shorter.

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Offline Force Guy

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2004, 06:41 PM »
Let's see, way back, I saw Steve Young play when he was with BYU.  I've also seen Tim Duncan do his magic on the court.    
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Offline Jesse James

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2004, 07:11 PM »
I've seen the true great one play...  

Mario Lemieux.  

And he's still magic to watch play...  Never lost a step.

I've also seen many MANY other great NHLers play, including Gretzky, but nothing and nobody will top Lemieux to me.  I've witnessed first-hand his skill on the ice.  I've never seen anyone parallel  him.

Beyond that...  I've seen some great football players.  Pittsburgh's been known to sport some of the best, even in our off years like last year.  Jerome Bettis is my fav currently, and though he had a tough year last year he's still one of the all-time great RB's.  Miss the old Jerome is all.
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Offline Morgbug

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2004, 09:05 PM »
Best two-pack-a-day athlete???

Hands down, Dale Hawerchuk.  Always entertaining to watch him come back to the bench, gasping, wheezing and hacking.  He could have been scary if he hadn't been a smoker.
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Offline Nicklab

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2004, 11:00 PM »
These are all in person....

Baseball:  Roger Clemens

Football:  Lawrence Taylor, Emmitt Smith

Basketball:  Kareen Abdul Jabar & Magic Johnson


...and to be added to the baseball listings tomorrow:  Alex Rodriguez!
« Last Edit: May 13, 2004, 08:02 PM by Nicklab »
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Offline DSJ™

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #7 on: May 13, 2004, 09:23 AM »
In person... well there was that Edmonton heritage hockey classic game here last yr but to many to list.  ;)

I'll just go with one person. You know who he is!  :-*


Offline Brian

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2004, 09:54 AM »
I'll go with "in person" as well, although my list isn't all that spectacular.

Baseball: George Brett, Bo Jackson, Danny Tartabull, Don Mattingly (we drove down and went to KC Royals games three summers in a row when I was  younger, played the Yankees at the last one I can remember best)  I was fortunate enough to get several autographs back then when I collected baseball cards too.

Football: Being in Nebraska, its mostly Huskers.  My favorite would be Ahman Green, he was awesome and I'm glad to see him being successful in the NFL now too.  We've had some others that have gone on to successful pro careers that I've seen up close and in person as well, including Grant Wistrom, Mike Brown, Mike Rucker, DeJuan Groce, Will Shields, and others.  Although not the greatest pros, they were great college players: Trev Alberts, Tommie Frazier, Scott Frost, and Eric Crouch.  There were also some notables on some of the opponents of Nebraska....Kordell Stewart, Ricky Williams, etc.

Basketball: We went to an NBA exhibition that was held in Omaha when I was in junior high I believe.  It was Sonics-Bucks, so I got to see Shawn Kemp (when he was good), Gary Payton, and some other NBAers.  My dad and I always wanted to make the trip to Chicago to see Jordan play just once, but unfortunately we were not able to.  I followed the Bulls religiously from 1988 until the Jordan-Pippen led team broke up.  Also, again, saw a few Huskers...although not many have had really super careers, but solid:  Erick Strickland, Tyronn Lue, Mikki Moore.

Offline Nicklab

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #9 on: May 13, 2004, 10:18 AM »
Can't believe I forgot about some of these baseball players...

David Cone
Reggie Jackson
Lou Pinella
Ron Guidry
Rich "Goose" Gossage
Don Mattingly
Dave Winfield
Gary Carter
Thurman Munson (I think, I was only 5 or so)
Ricky Henderson
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Offline Scott

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #10 on: May 13, 2004, 10:59 AM »
Baseball: I have to say Nolan Ryan
The game I went to was an awesome one at that.  Me and my buddy had seats right along the first base line in the first row, got to watch Juan Gonzalez go apesh!t in the clubhouse after he didn't hit a homer in BP.  Ryan struck out at least 12.  We got on the jumbotron and we almost got Tom Henke to give us a high five as he walked to the dugout

Honorable Mention: Puckett, Ripken, Henderson in his prime, ARod, the 1993 Blue Jays with Joe Carter, Winfield, Alomar, Molitor and Olerud, Clemens, Pedro Martinez (although the Twins rocked him)

Football: Barry Sanders  Dude is and probably always will be my all time favorite NFLer.  Amazing to watch, glad I got to see him play.

Honorable Mention: Randy Moss and Cris Carter

Basketball KG...that's biased though

Honorable Mention: Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, Malone with the Jazz, Payton and Kemp on the Sonics, Barkley, Olajuwan, Drexler on the Blazers.  Never got to see Jordan live :'(

Hockey  Mike Modano

Honorable Mention: Broten and whoever was on the Blackhawks in the mid 80's (Savard I guess).  Haven't been to a pro hockey game in 15 years

Offline Nicklab

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2004, 06:48 PM »
Today, I add A-Rod & Mariano Rivera to my list.  With as many Yankee games as I've been to over the past few years, this is the first time Mo has come in to save a game I've been to.

Also, forgot to mention Wade Boggs.  I saw him play on the '96 Yanks while on business in Toronto.
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Offline Padawan

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2004, 07:38 PM »
I will go with athletes that I just saw in person, as I have seen pretty much every athlete on TV from baseball, basketball, & football since I was six years old.  

Baseball: Sammy Sosa & Andre Dawson
Basketball: Scottie Pippen, sadly I never got to see Jordan play as the few games I went to were during his first retirement
Football: Derrick Brooks
« Last Edit: May 13, 2004, 07:39 PM by Padawan »

Offline Morgbug

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #13 on: May 13, 2004, 11:25 PM »
Damn, I forgot Julius Erving.  Played an exhibition game here in Winnipeg.  Mo Cheeks, Moses Malone and a few others from my heyday of NBA fandom.  But Erving.  Surreal.  
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Offline Scott

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Re: Greatest Athletes that You Saw Play
« Reply #14 on: September 20, 2004, 05:31 PM »
I was thinking about my 2 sporting claims to fame today for some reason...here's one...

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/wintetr01.html

Trevor Winter plays 5 minutes against Shaq-Fu and gets 5 fouls

Here's the other

Over the next several years he continued to pile up impressive power totals for a series of mediocre Tiger teams. In the ninth inning of an April 2nd game at the Minnesota Metrodome, Fielder took off from first on a hit-and-run and lumbered safely into second when Melvin Nieves swung through the pitch and catcher Greg Myers' throw kicked off the heel of shortstop Pat Meares. It was Fielder's first stolen base at any level since 1984, and his first ever in 1,096 major-league games, a record for the most games at the start of a career without a steal. The Minnesota crowd cheered wildly after learning that it was his first steal, and after the game a Twins' attendant delivered the base to his locker. "The pressure is off now," Fielder said. "He (manager Buddy Bell) might start moving me a little more now that he has seen me run. Hopefully he won't."