Sports stars are generally like you and me, except with incredible ability.
When an athlete breaks and sets new records spanning their entire career, the benchmarks become the new definition of greatness, but measuring greatness between sports can be a little tricky. I've read recently about Sachin Tendulkar, the Indian cricketer who recorded his 100th century. If you know as much about cricket as I do, I'll explain. A century is when an individual batter scores 100 runs in a single inning. I had to look it up too.
Tendulkar has done it in his career 100 times, 29 more times than the second-place sitter. When feats like this are accomplished, the conversation inevitably starts about whom the greatest athlete of all time is. The better discussion is probably which athlete was the most dominant at his or her sport.
Tendulkar, like Wilt Chamberlain, has the number 100 to his name, after Chamberlain's 100-point basketball game. That number is memorable and sleek.
Wayne Gretzky is certainly part of the discussion, if not the frontrunner, but he has more forgettable numbers, like 50 in 39, 92 and 2,857. After a bit of searching I did find Gretzky's 100 record, scoring exactly 100 regular season and playoff goals in a single campaign, so I guess all the best have something to do with 100.
Looking back at sports' history books there are some accomplishments that can't go unnoticed, but to be truly dominant, an athlete has to keep it up for an entire career.
The season that Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double each game over the course of the 1961-62 season is one of the most dominant seasons in all of sports, but he doesn't have anything on Michael Jordan in terms of a career.
MJ posted a career 30.1 points per game and 866 consecutive games of 10 or more points. Jordan won a scoring title the same year he won defensive player of the year, something Gretzky never did.
Looking back at Tendulkar however, his century record is 41 per cent better than the second-place player. Gretzky, even for how dominant he was, scoring more assists in a career than anyone else has points, his career point totals are only 34 per cent better than No. 2 Mark Messier.
Tendulkar is still dominating the second greatest cricket player of all time seven per cent more than Gretzky was able to better his closest competition.
The greatest athlete is a tough one to measure, but dominance is a whole other thing that can very clearly be measured with math that even I can do. These numbers are tough for me to swallow because I still think The Great One was more dominant in hockey, despite the discrepancy in those numbers.
Maybe it's because I don't know enough about cricket. I respect it as a sport, understanding it takes just as much skill, precision and dedication as hockey, but there's something about Gretzky's numbers that boggle my mind. Maybe if I were a die-hard cricket fan I wouldn't be able to comprehend Tendulkar's 100th century.
Either way, I'm considering suggesting to Gretzky that he change his nickname to The Dominant One. Dominance is better than greatness.
