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Greatest Women Athlete - Lindsey or Serena?


crash_davis

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Someone told me about this thread, and I hate to break to you guys, but you are all wrong. Joan Joyce is the greatest female athlete the USA has ever produced.

 

She played Professional softball for over 20 years. She once struck out Ted Williams and Hank Aaron in exhibitions, and as the story goes, she threw almost 30 pitches to Williams who never made contact....

 

But that is not all, she also played on the Women's National Basketball and Volleyball team. Then when her softball career ended she played on the LPGA tour for 10 years and was also a pro bowler.

 

She now coaches the softball team at FAU.

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10 minutes ago, FloridaHorn said:

Someone told me about this thread, and I hate to break to you guys, but you are all wrong. Joan Joyce is the greatest female athlete the USA has ever produced.

 

She played Professional softball for over 20 years. She once struck out Ted Williams and Hank Aaron in exhibitions, and as the story goes, she threw almost 30 pitches to Williams who never made contact....

 

But that is not all, she also played on the Women's National Basketball and Volleyball team. Then when her softball career ended she played on the LPGA tour for 10 years and was also a pro bowler.

 

She now coaches the softball team at FAU.

Pretty impressive.  On par with Babe DZ.  Babe was born in Texas, though, so she wins.

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4 hours ago, immortal13 said:

What about Danica Patrick?

 

4 hours ago, perfectchaos007 said:

To her credit, if NASCAR had a women’s league like most other sports, she would have dozens of career wins

I respect Danica, but she's not even the best female racing driver of her own time, much less 'all time'. Definitely not in the discussion for best female athlete imho. Not even close.

Edited by wood
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On 2/10/2019 at 10:30 AM, ztejas said:

Lindsey isn't even in the top 10. Are you serious?

For starters, only rich white people snowboard/ski so who gives a fuck. 

 

On 2/10/2019 at 10:32 AM, ztejas said:

Jenny Thompson, Swimming: 12 medals (8 G, 3 S, 1 B)
thompson_jenny_092300_800x375.jpg?la=en&

Thompson dominated the Olympic scene from 1992-2004. Her swimming career started when she was attending Stanford University, where she won a record 19 NCAA titles. She won a total of 31 world championship medals, including 16 golds, and is now a respected anesthesiologist and surgeon. All eight of her Olympic gold medals came in relay events, as did two of her silver medals. Individually, she earned 100-meter freestyle silver in 1992 and bronze in the same event in 2000.

Wait, so you call out another entry because only rich white people do it and then post a swimmer.

tenor.gif

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Ha, yep. Here's the video of last year's girls 200 yard freestyle sprint relay final at the 6A state championship meet. Schools in the finals were a laundry list of inner city athlete hotbeds:

Austin Westlake
Round Rock
The Woodlands
Humble Kingwood
Houston Stratford
Cy-Fair
San Antonio Reagan
Katy Taylor

There's a noticeable lack of pigment occupying the 32 $300+ racing suits in that video.

Edited by Huckleberry
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On 2/12/2019 at 3:12 PM, FloridaHorn said:

Someone told me about this thread, and I hate to break to you guys, but you are all wrong. Joan Joyce is the greatest female athlete the USA has ever produced.

 

She played Professional softball for over 20 years. She once struck out Ted Williams and Hank Aaron in exhibitions, and as the story goes, she threw almost 30 pitches to Williams who never made contact....

 

But that is not all, she also played on the Women's National Basketball and Volleyball team. Then when her softball career ended she played on the LPGA tour for 10 years and was also a pro bowler.

 

She now coaches the softball team at FAU.

Babe >>>> this lady. 

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On 2/10/2019 at 1:24 PM, Llano Estacado said:

Babe DZ has T&F gold medals and is in the Hall of Fame of her alternate/later in life sports.

 

She completely changed the way women’s sports were viewed and played. Serena changed women’s tennis vis a vis power like the men’s game as it evolved since Billie Jean King’s era. Babe played every sport that way.

 

Nelson was quoted at the time that Babe could out drive and out finesse all but the top 10 men.

 

yeah but Babe didn't happen in the last 5  years, so it doesn't count with young folks.

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5 hours ago, slorch said:

yeah but Babe didn't happen in the last 5  years, so it doesn't count with young folks.

Feel free to put her in a time machine and see how she would stack up against the best athletes of today.  She was certainly the best athlete of her time, but of all time, I have my doubts. 

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9 minutes ago, idigTexas said:

Feel free to put her in a time machine and see how she would stack up against the best athletes of today.  She was certainly the best athlete of her time, but of all time, I have my doubts. 

 And Jim Thorpe would be pedestrian too right?

Edited by slorch
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14 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

No, it's understood. If you're not comparing based on dominance with respect to their peers then "best of all time" doesn't even mean anything because it just becomes a discussion of who's the best right now or in the future.

Now we're speculating on future greats ?  Modern athletes have the benefit of modern training methods, modern equipment, better technology all around.   The greats of the past didn't do shit in the off season compared to todays 24/7/365 training athletes.

Tennis is maybe the best example. Rackets today that make every player a little harder hitting, and the volleyball net sized racket heads have bigger sweet spots, and more ball generating speed.

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I don't like the "dominance with respect to their peers" perspective.  It assumes that all variables have evolved at exactly the same rate over time.  Past athletes had considerably fewer peers, and the disparity of training resources and environmental factors was much greater, making it easier for a good athlete to dominate the competition.   

I think we are now arguing the merits of the argument itself, which for me, is as pointless as comparing athletes from different eras. 

Oh look, there's another windmill over there...I'm going to go attack it.  Carry on if you wish. 

 

 

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On 2/13/2019 at 2:32 PM, Huckleberry said:

Ha, yep. Here's the video of last year's girls 200 yard freestyle sprint relay final at the 6A state championship meet. Schools in the finals were a laundry list of inner city athlete hotbeds:

Austin Westlake
Round Rock
The Woodlands
Humble Kingwood
Houston Stratford
Cy-Fair
San Antonio Reagan
Katy Taylor

There's a noticeable lack of pigment occupying the 32 $300+ racing suits in that video.

How are those school's downhill ski teams doing this year?

I guess I should have added "rich white people with access to ski slopes 7 months of the year" which basically cuts out 98% of the already slim demographic. 

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7 hours ago, idigTexas said:

Feel free to put her in a time machine and see how she would stack up against the best athletes of today.  She was certainly the best athlete of her time, but of all time, I have my doubts. 

If we we do that without her getting the benefit of today's training knowledge, nutrition, etc, then yeah, maybe. Give her those same advantages though, and she'd still be an absolute beast.

This is the same argument we always hear about past athletes, and it's extremely weak, imho.

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5 hours ago, idigTexas said:

I don't like the "dominance with respect to their peers" perspective.  It assumes that all variables have evolved at exactly the same rate over time.  Past athletes had considerably fewer peers, and the disparity of training resources and environmental factors was much greater, making it easier for a good athlete to dominate the competition.   

I think we are now arguing the merits of the argument itself, which for me, is as pointless as comparing athletes from different eras. 

Oh look, there's another windmill over there...I'm going to go attack it.  Carry on if you wish. 

 

 

yeah, Jim Thorpe had all of those training advantages and always had elite equipment.

Thorpe's final event was the decathlon, his first (and as it turned out, his only) decathlon.[34][39] Strong competition from local favorite Hugo Wieslander was expected. Thorpe, however, defeated Wieslander by more than 700 points. He placed in the top four in all ten events, and his Olympic record of 8,413 points would stand for nearly two decades.[19] Even more remarkably, because someone had stolen his shoes just before he was due to compete, he found a mismatched pair of replacements, including one from a rubbish bin, and won the gold medal wearing them.[40][41] Overall, Thorpe won eight of the 15 individual events comprising the pentathlon and decathlon

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4 hours ago, wood said:

If we we do that without her getting the benefit of today's training knowledge, nutrition, etc, then yeah, maybe. Give her those same advantages though, and she'd still be an absolute beast.

This is the same argument we always hear about past athletes, and it's extremely weak, imho.

This is extremely weak as well.  There is no way in hell to know whether she would be a beast compared to taday's athletes, even when given the same advantages.  There is no way to compare athletes from different eras, because they can't compete against each other.  It's like every sport that is decided by judges.

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55 minutes ago, idigTexas said:

This is extremely weak as well.  There is no way in hell to know whether she would be a beast compared to taday's athletes, even when given the same advantages.  There is no way to compare athletes from different eras, because they can't compete against each other.  It's like every sport that is decided by judges.

Isn't that what you did when you said you doubted she'd hold up in the modern era?

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On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 9:36 AM, Onboard 2.0 said:

Now we're speculating on future greats ?  Modern athletes have the benefit of modern training methods, modern equipment, better technology all around.   The greats of the past didn't do shit in the off season compared to todays 24/7/365 training athletes.

Tennis is maybe the best example. Rackets today that make every player a little harder hitting, and the volleyball net sized racket heads have bigger sweet spots, and more ball generating speed.

Would love to see modern players play with a wooden racket 

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1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Hilarity would ensue for a while. Would slow the game down a bit.  Loved playing with both wood and metal rackets, but my TAD Davis wood racket was my favorite of all time.  

I remember going from wood to a T3 metal and then graphite composite but quit playing before Prince came out with that big headed aluminum, never played with a big headed racket.

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