ATHLETES OF DA CENTURY
The approach of the year 2000 has brought with it the inevitable deluge of "Best of the Century" lists. The cable network ESPN2 has thus seen fit to select it's "50 Greatest Athletes of the Century" (or some such rot). Now while I realize the pointlessness of ESPN2's mere existence is beyond question, it occurs to me that some people might think their greatest athletes list worthy of a passing interest. Allow me to dispel that misguided notion.
First of all, let me assure you the only reason I would be caught dead watching ESPN2 was because I was trapped in the room when someone else had the TV on. That said, it was with considerable dismay that I overheard their selections for the top two spots. You ready? Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. Stop laughing - I'm serious. I'm not sure what the exact selection procedure was, but it obviously suffered a systems breakdown of NASA proportions. Half the students of any high school class could outrun and outjump Babe Ruth. Let's face it, baseball barely qualifies as a sport much less a test of athleticism. The only thing Babe Ruth was good at was drinking beer. The fact he could out-potbelly most of us hardly seems worthy of recognition. "But he hit all those home runs," whines the clueless college boy. Well then, if home runs are the measure of an athlete, shouldn't we be crowning Hank Aaron instead? Or one of those other two whatshisnames who recently broke the season record?
Then, of course, there's Michael Jordan. Obviously not a selection based on his baseball prowess. Which raises the question of how a baseball player could be selected the second greatest athlete of the 20th century, when number one absolutely sucks at the sport. Is being good at baseball the true measure of an athlete or not? "But they were both good at the sports they played," whines the brain-dead nerd. Okay, did I ever mention how good Gary Kasparov is at chess? I mean, many experts have proclaimed him the greatest chess player who ever lived; he absolutely dominates the game. Shouldn't his name be up there on the list somewhere? But getting back to Jordan, he's less an outstanding athlete than the result of an intensive marketing effort by the NBA to make us believe basketball isn't really the tremendous waste of time it first appears. Michael Jordan is not a particularly important person. Basketball is a playground sport on the level of kickball, which no one with any semblance of a real life cares about. The only people who think it matters are the same mentally challenged individuals who buy a specific brand of sneakers because Michael Jordan endorses them. Speaking of which, there's some commercial airing on TV now which shows a bunch of images of basketball(?) players combined with saccharine music of the nails-on-a-chalkboard variety. The final shot shows Jordan kewly walking toward the camera as the clouds rush toward us overhead. I have absolutely no idea what this commercial is advertising, but that final shot is so precious it should merit some kind of special recognition from the Academy of Pretentious Commercials. I guess we're supposed to be awestruck that a personage as allegedly great as Michael Jordan (he even has his own cologne!) would grace our TV screen, but I was more amused by the irony of a pointless commercial ending on the image of a pointless "superstar". I think the advertisers are having a laugh at our expense.
If basketball had never been invented, the "world's greatest athlete of the 20th century" would probably be somewhere pumping gas. And all the people who prefer watching life from the bleachers to actively participating in it would be forced to select some other unworthy individual for their hero worship.
