Thoughts after watching Sports Center

So I watched SportsCenter tonight after watching the Mariners’ come-from-behind victory against the Padres, and then I started washing up a few remaining pots and pans from dinner. While I was scrubbing away, I got to thinking: what does it mean to be an “all time great”? I know, sort of abstract, but it occurred to me that it can a person can be an “all-time-great” in either a subjective or objective sense. In other words, somebody can be an “all-time-great” friend or spouse, but there really isn’t any way to quantify that. There is also an objective sense, and that is most commonly seen in sports. Because I’ve played a lot of sports and continue to love watching/coaching/playing sports, I began to think about how we’re pretty lucky right now to be watching several “all-time-great” athletes.

For example, Roger Clemens won his debut for the Yankees tonight. He has struck out 4,611 major league batters. He is clearly, objectively, one of the “all-time-great” pitchers who has ever thrown a baseball. Besides Clemens, Curt Schilling, who just pitched a no-hitter into the 8th inning for the Red Sox, would probably make everyone’s historical lists of all-time great pitchers. And say what you want about him, but Barry Bonds will likely break baseball’s home run record in the next few months (if not before). In the world of tennis, of which I’m not much of a fan, Roger Federer is generally considered to be the one of the greatest players of all time. Tiger Woods will probably be considered the best golfer when all is said and done. All of these labels are based on cold, hard stats and historical comparisons.

So what is my point to all of this? I guess that I often take it for granted that I am living during an era when we are able to see some of the “all-time-great” athletes. I fail to take a step back and realize the historical significance of what is happening around me, and this likely translates outside the arena of competitive sports.

Enough for now – I’m really just trying to put off doing some boring and intellectually strenuous work on the journal competition. But I should get to that…

Currently listening to: Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie) acoustic show, live in Chicago, IL.