BABE RUTH, BOBBY ORR AND STEPH CURRY
The Mount Rushmore of exalted athletes, that pantheon of titans, is represented by a collection of the select few which is assembled purely subjectively.
Sure there are some absolute locks — around here — like Brady or Russell or Teddy Ballgame for example, but everyone’s standards differ.
What ensures that your profile has a reserved spot and gets carved so handsomely and meticulously into the mountainside?
Is it about individual career stats?
Is it about winning championships?
Is it about impact on the sport?
Impact on your teammates?
Longevity?
Sustained excellence in the form of all-around unselfish play?
Leadership?
Toughness?
What are the parameters?
If they’re not “right,” what should they be?
It’s up to you; I guess that’s the point.
Maybe it’s bigger than all of this.
If club membership is based exclusively on revolutionizing the ‘game’ then the roster can be winnowed.
How many have actually accomplished this?
Billie Jean King. Wayne Gretzky. Masanori Murakami. Michael Jordan. Magic Johnson. Sheryl Swoopes. Bo Jackson. Russell Baze. Lawrence Taylor. Nolan Ryan. Seabiscuit. Larry Walker. Edwin Moses. Willie Mays. Reggie White. Carl Lewis. Chris McCarron. Michael Phelps. Hank Aaron. Shaq. Barry Bonds. Laffit A. Pincay, Jr. Jim Brown. Martin Brodeur. Tiger Woods. Venus and Serena Williams. LeBron. Kareem. Lisa Leslie. Roger Federer. Ballyregan Bob. Diego Maradona. Bob Baffert. Althea Gibson. Ali. Secretariat. Jesse Owens. Bill Shoemaker. Russell. Chamberlain. Pele. Jackie Robinson. Seamus Cahill. Wilma Rudolph. Annemarie Moser-Prol (sp). Lindsey Vonn. Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
Forty-eight names, possibilities right there.
So much for winnowing.
It’s fodder for sporting debate, engendering spirited discourse.
That is a good thing indeed.
And there are three as yet unmentioned who could well be at the very top of any list, living eternally at the mountain’s summit.
Persuasive countervailing arguments?
No.
Couldn’t be compelling enough.
These three gentlemen of different generations changed everything in their respective athletic universes, and one of them is still doing it.
Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player who ever lived.
Orphaned, a Baltimore miscreant he was ‘Mr. More,’ ‘Mr. Much,’ a human being defining excess. Enough was never enough.
His prowess on the diamond likewise bordered on the surreal, the incomprehensible.
He pitched. He hit. He took the smallest steps known to man as he circled the bases, watching one majestic blast after another rocket off his bat.
In the 1916 World Series between the Red Sox and the Brooklyn Robins — later the Dodgers — it was Ruth on the hill against Sherry Smith in what would become one of the greatest pitching matchups in hardball history. The game was tied 1–1 through 14 innings until the Sox finally prevailed.
Ruth and Sherry pitched the whole game, the longest WS game ever played.
In the 1918 World Series the Bambino pitched 29 ⅓ scoreless innings, a mark that stood until 1961 when Whitey Ford finally broke it.
George Ruth’s career ERA was 2.28 which ranks fifteenth overall on the baseball ledger. He won the most games thrown by a lefty in the big leagues from 1915–1917 and found himself in the Top 3 in the AL in two of his five full seasons as a pitcher (65 career wins). His W/L percentage was .671 and he led the AL in shutouts (9) in 1916 when he recorded 23 Wins, 170 Ks and a league-leading 1.75 ERA.
Until Hank Aaron came along we knew him better as “The Sultan of Swat,” baseball’s career HR leader with 714.
Nobody did it all like the Great Bambino. He changed the face of the sport both with his other-wordly talent and his larger-than-life persona.
A 7-time World Series champion, he was a member of Major League Baseball’s All-Century Team and was voted Athlete of the Century by the Associated Press. The Sporting News named him the Greatest Baseball Player of All-Time.
Ruth became an icon of the significant social changes that marked the early 1920s and as Glenn Stout noted in his history of the Yankees, he “was New York incarnate — uncouth and raw, flamboyant and flashy, oversized, out of scale, and absolutely unstoppable.”
The Babe’s penchant for hitting home runs changed the way the game was played.
Prior to 1920, home runs were rare. The home run champion in the National League’s inaugural season of 1876 was George Hall of the Philadelphia Athletics with five. In 1901, the year that the American League was founded, Hall of Fame second baseman Nap Lajoie — also of the A’s who had jumped leagues — led the circuit with 14 homers.
Strategy was geared toward what was known then as “inside baseball” or “small ball” in today’s parlance — advancing a baserunner with a stolen base, a bunt or a hit-and-run. The home run was considered a smudge on the purity of the game.
Then along came Ruth and a breakout performance in 1920:
11 HRs in May; 13 HRs in June; 29 HRs by July 15th.; and 54 HRs for the season along with 158 Runs and 137 RBI.
According to sportswriter W. A. Phelon, based on the excitement generated and surging attendance it was Ruth who “settled, for all time to come, that the American public is nuttier over the Home Run than the Clever Fielding or the Hitless Pitching. Viva el Home Run and two times viva Babe Ruth, exponent of the home run, and overshadowing star.”
As Bill James observed, “When the owners discovered that the fans liked to see home runs, and when the foundations of the games were simultaneously imperiled by disgrace [in the Black Sox Scandal], then there was no turning back.”
Perhaps Leigh Montville said it best when citing the continuing relevance even today of Babe Ruth in American culture, more than three-quarters of a century after he last swung a bat in a major league game.
“The fascination with his life and career continues. He is a bombastic, sloppy hero from our bombastic, sloppy history, origins undetermined, a folk tale of American success. His moon face is as recognizable today as it was when he stared out at Tom Zachary on a certain September afternoon in 1927. If sport has become the national religion, Babe Ruth is the patron saint. He stands at the heart of the game he played, the promise of a warm summer night, a bag of peanuts, and a beer. And just maybe, the longest ball hit out of the park.”
When he was a twelve-year-old boy Bobby Orr’s play in Ontario provincial competition attracted the notice of NHL scouts.
He had been playing organized hockey for four years starting as a forward but was moved to defense shortly afterward. Coaches encouraged the Parry Sound native to use his exemplary skating and stickhandling skills to control play from the back end.
At 14 Orr had already been signed by Boston (committing him to the Bruins at age 18. The price tag? A bonus of $10,000Can the equivalent to $83,899Can in 2018 dollars; a new car; and the organization’s agreement to stucco the family home).
He joined the Oshawa Generals, a Bruins’ junior hockey affiliate where he was an Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) First Team All-Star every season.
Scoring 29 goals in his first year and setting a junior record for goals by a defenseman was just the beginning. His goal and point totals increased every season culminating in 1965-’66 his fourth year of junior. That season Orr tallied 38 goals further padding his goal-scoring record and finished with 94 points, averaging two points per game.
He led the Generals to the OHA championship and a berth in the Memorial Cup Final, playing for the junior championship of Canada — the Stanley Cup of junior hockey.
He was seventeen.
Orr made his NHL regular-season debut on October 19,1966 at 18 against the Detroit Red Wings registering an assist and scored his first goal three nights later ripping a slap shot past Montreal’s Gump Worsley.
The Boston Garden crowd went wild, giving the kid a standing ovation.
It would be the first of many.
The team had not won a Stanley Cup since 1941 and had not qualified for the playoffs since 1959. This was all about to change slowly. Boston finished 17–43–10 in ’66-’67 — the cellar dweller of the Original Six — but home attendance was on the rise and Orr was the reason.
His numbers: 13 goals; 28 assists; and 41 points then represented one of the best rookie seasons in NHL history by a defenseman and netted him both the Calder Trophy as the league’s outstanding rookie and a spot on the NHL’s Second All-Star Team.
When the Rangers Harry Howell accepted that year’s Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman, he remarked that he was thrilled to win it when he did, because “Orr will own this trophy from now on.”
In fact he was the runner-up to Howell.
The Bruins’ turnaround began in earnest the next season when they made the playoffs for the first time since ’59. They finished third in the 12-team circuit’s newly-configured East Division winning 37 games — a twenty-game improvement from the year prior.
Despite missing time with multiple injuries, Orr collected the first of his eight consecutive Norris Trophies — Howell was right — along with a berth on the NHL’s First All-Star Team and a fourth-place finish in the Hart Trophy (MVP) voting.
It got better in ’68-’69: 21 goals and 64 points setting records in both categories for a defenseman in a single season; a second Norris Trophy; another First Team All-Star selection; a third-place finish in the Hart Trophy balloting; and a second-round playoff exit in six games.
The lid of the tea kettle was poised to blow sky-high. Hands over ears while you’re at it.
If there would be any doubt that Orr was revolutionizing the game of hockey in general and with particular respect to defensemen, it was summarily put to rest in 1969-’70 when the Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in 39 years. He nearly doubled his scoring output from the previous season finishing with 120 points, six shy of the league record set by teammate Phil Esposito in ’68-’69.
A defenseman leads the league in scoring? The Art Ross Trophy to a defenseman??
Along with winning the Ross Trophy awarded to the league scoring champion, Orr potted the Norris, Hart and Conn Smythe (Playoff MVP) Trophies becoming the only player in league annals to win four major NHL awards in one season.
His numbers continued to skyrocket.
Multiple 100-point seasons (6 in all including one with 139, a record for defensemen which still stands); a 100+ assist season (102 in 1970-’71 setting a mark which would stand for ten years until Wayne Gretzky broke it with 109); and a one-campaign plus-minus of +124, a record for any position player.
There was another Stanley Cup win in 1971-’72.
And a mind-boggling career cut short by injury after 12 seasons, 10 with the Bruins produced the following overall stats and accordant accolades:
— 657 GP; 270 G; 645 A; 915 Points; and +/- +582;
— Only Defenseman to win league scoring title with two Art Ross Trophies;
— Record holder for most points and assists in a single season by a Defenseman;
— Winner of record 8 consecutive Norris Trophies and 3 consecutive Hart Trophies;
— Hockey HOF Induction-1979…at age 31, the youngest ever.
With apologies to Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Jean Beliveau, Maurice Richard, Guy Lafleur, Esposito, Stan Mikita, Gretzky, Mark Messier, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and the world-class goaltenders and defensemen alongside a host of other hockey legends, Bobby Orr was the greatest to play the game.
Ever.
Like Ruth, he changed the way it was played.
Steph Curry is doing that right now before our very eyes.
He is the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA.
Wait what?
True.
Steph Curry is redefining typical point guard/shooting guard play. As of November 9, 2018*** Curry ranked fifth all-time in 3-pointers made with 2191 in just 637 games. The four ahead of him were Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Jason Terry and Kyle Korver.
Allen (1300 GP); Miller (1389); and Terry (1410) played roughly twice as many games and Korver played 1114.
Curry’s .4377 3P% is third on the all-time list. Interestingly his head coach Steve Kerr is #1 at .4540%.
[***Today Curry is third on the all-time list with 2285 having surpassed Korver (2280) and Terry (2282)].
No player in NBA history has ever featured Curry’s package of accuracy and the uncanny ability to create space. His skill set is uniquely his own. He gets his shot off from just about anywhere in any given situation and his combination of efficiency and volume is unprecedented.
Now, due to Curry and the Warriors’ incredible success, every NBA GM places a high premium on 3-point shooting when building a roster.
Copycatting has been around forever but there is not, nor has there ever been anyone like Curry.
He has stockpiled individual awards and is poised to lead Golden State — appearing in the NBA Finals for the fifth year in a row — to its fourth NBA championship and third consecutive in the last five seasons.
Curry is credited with revolutionizing the game of basketball by inspiring teams from high school to the NBA to employ the use of the three-pointer as a simple matter of course.
It didn’t used to be that way.
Pundits and talking heads refer to him as “the Michael Jordan of the three-point era,” contending that he has done for the 3-point shot what Jordan did for the dunk.
The Guardian’s Robert O’Connell cites the February 27, 2013 game against the New York Knicks in which Curry hit 11 of 13 threes on the way to a 54-point performance as the coronation of the three-point era, referred to since as “The Steph Effect” and “the NBA’s Three-Point Revolution.”
His success and incredible range have catalyzed league-wide strategy abandoning physical play around the basket in favor of a ‘pace and space’ and three-point shooting style.
ESPN’s Kirk Goldsberry maintains that “no player in the history of the NBA has combined range, volume and efficiency from downtown as well as Curry” and that “[his] jumper is so lethal that he has become the most efficient volume scorer on the planet.”
Constantly moving — looping — around and changing pace, stopping on a dime off the dribble he hits from downtown with a lightning-quick release — from well beyond the 3-point line (30–35 feet) — if necessary.
Or if he feels like it.
On his command.
None of this comes as any surprise to Tom Junod or Bob McKillop.
In March 2008 as a sophomore star-in-the-making at Davidson, Curry got the basketball world’s attention by leading the Wildcats to an Elite Eight berth where they bowed to Kansas, the eventual national champion.
His coach was Bob McKillop. McKillop decided to suspend his predisposition to discipline and tradition when it came to Curry. He let him shoot the basketball whenever and from wherever the kid deemed it prudent.
And shooting with this kind of seemingly reckless abandon became Curry’s trademark and the birthright of an emerging generation. By giving him freedom McKillop allowed Curry to craft his own version of the game which is perfect for his era and ensures that basketball will never be the same.
Junod, an ESPN Senior Writer, was a student forty-three years ago taking a high school history course called, “Sports and American Society.” Bob McKillop was his teacher.
McKillop had his class read Ball Four by Jim Bouton, Bob Lipsyte in the Sunday New York Times and Harry Edwards on John Carlos and Tommie Smith because Junod recalls he insisted that ‘games’ had meaning and it was incumbent upon the student to decipher it.
His premise was that if the class learned to think critically about sports, they could think critically about anything at all.
Junod surmised that McKillop later taught Curry enough to prepare him for a career redefining the concept of distance.
“He told me when I was a freshman that I had license to shoot any shot I wanted but I’d have to work for it. I’d have to put in the time and actually commit to learning on the job. Even when I failed early freshman year, he stayed in my ear because he saw my potential before I did.”
And work he did, like no other.
Curry’s work ethic in practice and pregame is epic and ritualistic.
Bruce Fraser, a Golden State assistant coach who accompanies Curry during his pregame routine has seen Steph make 77 3-point shots in a row. He starts mid-range, then moves to half court where he unveils the series of shots which has become the centerpiece of both his workout and his exhibition. He has to make five from the jump circle, two on the move. He never flings or hoists a shot regardless of the distance. Says Fraser, “He has perfected not only that accuracy but being able to generate that kind of power from any kind of distance.”
It is as though the court contracts around him and his shot is his shot, always looking the same.
The grand finale of his warm-up defies logic and was birthed at Davidson.
He shoots from the tunnel, the runway where he cannot be seen. All that is seen by those crowding the tunnel’s mouth and tracking the flight and trajectory is the ball flying into the basket.
When aforementioned reigning career sharpshooter Kerr became head coach at Golden State, Curry unwittingly forced him to reassess his thinking.
“My first year of coaching him, he’s taking shots night after night that every coach I ever had would have called horrible shots. And they were horrible shots for every player in the history of the game until Steph Curry. And I realized before too long that Steph was going to take some crazy shots and they were going to look insane and I was going to feel silly for allowing my player to take shots like that and oh yeah, he’s at about 45 percent from 3. So finally I just realized I had to get my old coaches out of my head, and this guy is a new deal who’s different from anyone else who’s played the game, and I have to not only allow what he does but accommodate it.”
Should there be room for the elegant, angular visages of Ruth, Orr and Curry at the mountain-top? Sculpted Borglum-like into the high mountainside?
A better question.
Should there be room for anybody else?
[This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in June 2019.]
