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Is Tiger Woods the best athlete of all times? Does he beat Barry Bonds, Michael Jordan, and Wayne Gretzky?

I've posted a poll about it on polls boutique, would love to get some serious sports fans' opinion about this poll.

No Jim Brown? He was a god among men while he tore defenses apart

He's not even the best golfer of all time, at least not yet.

I'd say the guy who won the first Olympics.

There is no such thing as best athlete ever in sports.

Eldrick "Tiger" Woods plays golf. That's it. Michael Jordan played basketball. That's it. Barry Bonds played baseball. That's it. Wayne Gretzky played hockey. That's it. None of these guys come close to best ever. Maybe in their respective sports, they are near the top.

How about Bruce Jenner the best decathlete ever. You know.. running, jumping, throwing. Something none of the guys above could do. Try all these in one day. 100 Meters, Long Jump, Shot Put, High Jump, 400 meters, 110 meter hurdles, Discus Throw, Pole Vault, Javelin throw, 1500 meter. I consider Jenner a far better athlete than the four mentioned above.

How about choosing a triathlete for best ever?

Bonds, Woods, Jordan, Gretzky? Not even close.

To me if you say "best athlete", the guy has to do more than just 1 sport. I look at guys like Bo Jackson(at one time he was as good a RB and outfielder as there was) and Dieon Sanders, who were so good that they could play 2 professional sports. That's pretty talented. Jordan might have been on the list if he had tried baseball earlier.

By my criteria, I guess the arguement could also be made that the best athletes are the Olympic decathalon winners.

Before my time, but stories abound of Jim Thorpe and Babe Didrickson Zaharias being incredible athletes. For popular American sport athletes, Dave Winfield was drafted in football, basketball and baseball, aside from the two sport athletes Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders. Many more talented than the ones listed...

However if you are saying better than anyone else in their game, right now Gretzky is solid. Jordan as well, though I have always been a major supporter of Magic Johnson being better than people give him credit for. Tiger is walking the path. Best ATHLETE ever? While all these guys were finely tuned machines and better than others at their chosen games, to say the best athlete is a bit of a stretch.

tiger is the "the best athlete ever to play professional golf"

but far from "the best athlete of all-time"

i actually laugh when i hear that.

Bo Jackson

Babe Zaharias, no one is close.

Runner up Jim Thorpe.

For single sport athletes, my vote goes to Wayne Gretzky. Mario Lemieux may have been as good or better, but health kept him from a full career.

Most talented single-sport athelete could have been Micky Mantle. But again, because of injuries, we just don't know. Thousands of athletes have had incredible talent but had their careers cut short by injuries.

I think to me Michael Jordan would be the best athlete. I am a fan of Tiger, but there's a big difference between swinging a club and running around in between the defense grid and still do a crazy slam dunk. Golf to me is more mechanical than athleticism. Sure, it takes a good athletic movement to hit the ball well, but how many of those PGA players can you call an athletes. John Daly is a case in point. Colin Montgomery? KJ Choi? I bet they can't run 10 miles without collapsing.

It takes a lot more than just physical ability to be a great athlete. ASU had a basketball player who was 6'8'' with a 50'" vertical (he won a dunk contest at 11' 9"), but he was a headcase and just a lousy player. Tiger has the focus of MJ and other greats, but I have a hard time calling any golfer the greatest athlete ever. I would go with MJ.

As for athletic ability I would say Bo Jackson. He could run over people, make them miss, or outrun them all, sometimes on the same play. And he batted .300 too, if I remember right. What a shame.

Bo Jackson's career high batting average was .272, and he was never a great baseball player. He was very exciting to watch, but was never one of the greats in baseball, not even close.

Bo Jackson has always been overrated as a baseball player. He played only 8 seasons, averaging less than 300 At bats per seaon (about half a full time player). His career batting average was only .250, which is somewhat respectable, but his career On Base Percentage was only .309, which is not that good, about what you expect from an average bench player. He had some power, but still only averaged 33 HR for each 162 games played. Good, but nothing incredible by any means.

And there is little from his football career that really stands out. He averaged 850 yds and 4 TDs per season rushing for the 4 years he played, and only added about 90 yds/yr receiving.

Bo was a good player for a short time in both baseball and football, but had no longevity in either sport, and never even had a single year in either sport where he was close to the best player in his sport. I really don't think he did anything to deserve being mentioned as one of the greatest athletes ever.

Deion Sanders on the other hand, was considered the best, or among the best at his position in the NFL for many years. He was an 8 time pro-bowler compared to once for Bo. He was a decent baseball player, comparable in ability to Bo. I could possible entertain some arguments for Deion as on of the great athletes, since he was at least one of the best players in one sport while being pretty good at another. But Bo just doesn't measure up.

Again, go back and look up what Babe Zaharias did as far as multiple sport dominance ...

no but he was better then most people on earth at baseball and in football he one great.

I agree with you. His career was cut short. I said he was the greatest I've ever seen, based on pure athletic ability. Not much of a Deion Sanders fan - he avoided contact too much for me to consider him a great. As a return guy, he was unreal though.