Random Thoughts (August 19, 2008)

It so hard to compare who is the greatest player in a sport. Sure, Babe Ruth crushed 714 home runs and was a dominant pitcher before turning into the "Sultan of Swat" but he never played against African-American players. Was he better than Willie Mays? Worse than Joe DiMaggio? The same as Hank Aaron? Comparable to Alex Rodriguez? We can not say and that is the fun part. We can compare stats, we can compare eras but we can not make a decision. This goes far beyond baseball. The greatest football player? Hockey player? Bill Russell or Michael Jordan in basketball? You still have to ask about the futures of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. However, there is one sport in which we know who is the greatest athlete. That would be swimming. There is no better swimmer than Michael Phelps. Phelps turned the Olympics into his own personal marketing campaign. Imagine a young Shaquille O'Neal showing up at your local playground and running a few games against the local high school competition. Phelps was more dominant than that. Any company would kill to have Phelps push their product. He crushed the Beijing Games. Eight gold medals in eight events. He set the world record in seven of the eight events, hitting only the Olympic record in the 100m Butterfly. And in the 100m Butterfly, he failed to break his own world record (he owns more than 25 of them). Phelps now has 16 total medals in his Olympic career, 14 gold and 2 bronze. With the 2012 London Games a strong possibility, followed by the chance to compete in America should Chicago be granted the 2016 Games, Phelps could end up with over 20 gold medals and maybe as many as 30 total medals. In addition to his Olympic dominance, Phelps has 17 career gold medals at the World Championships. Arguments about who is better are always fun but in the sport of swimming, the argument has been put to rest for the time being... Come on, even the biggest Tampa Bay Rays fan would have trouble keeping a straight face if they tried to say that they pedicted the Rays would lead the Red Sox by 4.5 games and the Yankees by 10 games in the A.L. East on August 19... Cliff Lee of the Indians and Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays are the leading contenders for the A.L. Cy Young Award right now but with another solid outing tonight, Daisuke Matsuzaka can make this a three-horse race... I'm not so worried that Tom Brady hasn't taken a single preseason snap in the two Patriot losses. Brady is practicing and looking great by all accounts. The snaps in the games are going to the three young quarterbacks -- Matt Cassel, Matt Gutierrez and Kevin O'Connell -- trying to backup Brady. I am much more worried that Matt Light and Stephen Neal are not even practicing yet. Without those two protecting Brady, we might be seeing a lot more of Cassel/Gutierrez/O'Connell than we want to in the regular season... Enjoy Jed Lowrie tonight...