Who Is The Greatest Sports Hero of All Time??? (page 3)

confusedjw

Blondie:

Ted Willams

A gal after my heart. I just read "What do you think of Ted Williams Now?" - an evening well spent.

Double Edge

Jim Thorpe .... Native American.

Other little known facts:

1. Believe it or not, a player once hit 3 home runs into 3 different states in the same game...Olympic champion Jim Thorpe played in a semi-pro baseball game in a ballpark on the Texas-Oklahoma-Arkansas border...He hit his first homer over the leftfield wall with the ball landing in Oklahoma...Then he hit a homer over the rightfield wall, into Arkansas...His third homer of the game was an inside-the-park home run in centerfield, which was in Texas!

2. Thorpe is one of two men in history who played for both the New York football (running back) and the baseball (outfielder) Giants.

3. Thorpe played football professionally well past his prime, retiring in 1928 at age 41.

4. Jim Thorpe played major and minor league baseball for 20 years, starting with the New York Giants in 1913, later playing for the Boston Braves and the Cincinnatti Reds, plus several others.

5. Thorpe was the first president of what is now the National Football League.
6. Thorpe was .252 in his six seasons (1913-15, 1917-19) as an outfielder with the Giants, Cincinnati Reds and Boston Braves.
7. Thorpe's best baseball season was his last, when he batted .327 in 60 games for Boston.
8. In October 2003, an early 1900s football jersey worn by Jim Thorpe attracted a winning bid of $210,000.

groovycat.

Any man that can rescue Ferrari (though it pains me to say they needed it) from a long period in the wilderness gets my vote.

Michael Schumacher - World Champion (again and again and again and again ...)

Might not be a hero, but it's history in the making people!

blondie

http://www.boston.com/sports/redsox/williams/

So he went 6 for 8 against the Athletics ? four singles, a double, and a home run that gave him the American League championship with 37 ? as he hiked his final average to .406.

The accomplishment was hailed as remarkable, but it was not considered an epic. A .400 average was a rarity, but not an endangered species. It had last been reached by Bill Terry (.401) of the National League New York Giants in 1930. The AL ?s last .400 hitter had been the Detroit Tigers ? Harry Heilmann (.403) in 1923. There had been an appreciable gap before Williams joined the club,but it wasn?t a lifetime.

??Even after he hit .400, I don?t think the magnitude of the accomplishment was realized,?? says Williams's outfield partner that season, Dom DiMaggio.??Maybe when a couple of guys hit .370, people said .400 was such an achievement.??

The deed has become honored through its absence. In the past 60 years, only the Kansas City Royals? George Brett (.390) and the San Diego Padres? Tony Gwynn (.394 in a strike-shortened season ) have come within hailing distance of .400, and the mark now has assumed mythic proportions. Williams?s feat is regarded as not necessarily once-in-a-lifetime but one-last-time- forever.

teejay

Dang, Double Edge!! Mr. Thorpe did all that?

I may have to reconsider....

minimus

I admire Ali for his courage and his outstanding achievement in the ring. No one was smarter as a boxer and he made boxing history so many times against all odds. Plus, couple his achievements in the ring with his humanitarianism outside the ring and he was more than unique. No one was like him. Not even now.