Tuesday, January 17, 2012

THE GREATEST:  Muhammad Ali turns 70 today.

When ESPN did their SportsCentury list of the top 100 athletes of the 20th Century, Ali came in third behind Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth. I think you can make a legitimate case for six of the athletes in the top seven (which also includes Gretzky, Owens, and Thorpe), but I still think they got it wrong. (At a minimum, it shouldn't have been Jordan, who did not do to his sport's record books or overall popularity what Ruth or Gretzky did, and who carried none of the burdens of Ali, Owens, or Thorpe.)