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Who is your "what could have been" athlete
Tomi
Posts: 643 ✭✭✭
Who would be your one athlete in history that got injured sometime in their career and kept them from being even bigger and better then they already were?
I would have to go with Bobby Orr. Regarded by many as the greatest hockey player ever and did it on bad knees from the start.
I would have to go with Bobby Orr. Regarded by many as the greatest hockey player ever and did it on bad knees from the start.
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Where was that done?
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Edited to add - Sandy Koufax - that guy was at the top of the game when he quit at age 30 for arthritis. If he pitched in 1968, he might have had an ERA half of Bob Gibson's that year.
And Sidd Finch.
honorable mentions: Bo Jackson, Mickey Mantle
<< <i>I saw him play both sports. His numbers were pretty decent as a baseball player and could have been better with time, but as a football player he was up there with the best. I only put him in Barry Sanders company as a running back, the difference being that Barry went around people and Bo went through people. Both a pleasure to watch. >>
I couldn't have said it any better. Without injury Bo would've gone down in history as the greatest athlete ever in a class all to his own. He still gets mentioned in the class with that contains the other "best" athletes, but a longer career would've given him distance away from everyone else.
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One karate kick away from greatness??
Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron? Move over.
I put Tiger Woods up there, since his divorce, the legacy couldve been unrivaled in his accomplishments.
On a more serious note, Bo Jackson might be hands down the "could have been" athlete of the century.
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Another one who people don't think about since he made it to the HOF anyway, is Bill Walton. If he hadn't had to deal with plantar fasciitis, and had two good ankles, there's no telling what he could've done!
Steve
<< <i>Bo Jackson. More yards per carry in his career than Jim Brown.
Edited to add - Sandy Koufax - that guy was at the top of the game when he quit at age 30 for arthritis. If he pitched in 1968, he might have had an ERA half of Bob Gibson's that year.
And Sidd Finch. >>
Def Sidd! So much potential.
I'd have to go with Bo and Griffey jr. No one going to say Len Bias?
<< <i>
<< <i>Bo Jackson. More yards per carry in his career than Jim Brown.
Edited to add - Sandy Koufax - that guy was at the top of the game when he quit at age 30 for arthritis. If he pitched in 1968, he might have had an ERA half of Bob Gibson's that year.
And Sidd Finch. >>
Def Sidd! So much potential.
I'd have to go with Bo and Griffey jr. No one going to say Len Bias? >>
Tar Heel fan here. He was a one man gang in 1986 at the Dean Dome for Maryland. Almost single-handedly willing Maryland over UNC that night. Nightmares for me after that one. Would have been interesting to see him with Bird, McHale, Parrish, etc.
<< <i>Marcus Dupree >>
+1
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I'm gonna go with Bo, Herb Score, Marcus Dupree, and Robert Edwards.
MLB: Hitter - Mickey Mantle (had he had healthy knees), Pitcher - Herb Score
NFL: Gale Sayers (see Mickey Mantle)
NBA: Maurice Stokes
NHL: Bobby Orr (see Mickey Mantle)
if he just would of had his head in the game and would of stayed away from the "girls". If he would of just tried.
To be honest, no direction, but...
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his career may not be over , but I think there was a lot of left behind after becoming injury prone
<< <i>JR Richard, I disagree. He was already 30 when he had his heart attack. He was a career 108 ERA+ guy. I'm not sure there were a lot of great seasons missed there. >>
I'll concede the age part, but not that last sentence. He was at the zenith of his career when he suffered a stroke.
Also, Penny Hardaway.
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<< <i>Marcus Dupree. Check out the 30 for 30 documentary done by ESPN.
honorable mentions: Bo Jackson, Mickey Mantle
<< <i>
Great show. Dupree was unreal.
For Baseball, how about Mark Prior? He was pretty good until he started getting hurt every other day, maybe not one of the best but could have been great.
Bjorn Borg
Sean Taylor
Len Bias
Jeremy Lin
Phil Plantier
Kevin Maas
Sam Bowie
Sihugo Green
JR Reid
Andrew Bogut
Scott May
Sean May
Jason Williams
Joe Delaney
Denny McLain
Brian Taylor
Hockey - Bobby Orr
Baseball - Lou Gehrig
Football - RG3, Randy Moss
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2. Barry Sanders = how many yards could he have ended up with?
3. Doc Gooden/Darryl Strawberry (kinda 2 sides of the same coin)
<< <i>rob gronkowski
his career may not be over , but I think there was a lot of left behind after becoming injury prone >>
On that note: Aaron Hernandez
Honorable Mention- Sean Taylor. He was killed early in his career. In his short career, he showed that he had the potential to be one of the great safeties of all time. Tragedy that he wasnt given the chance to show his talents for a longer period of time. He was a monster on the football field. Great ball instincts and one of the hardest hitters I have ever watched play the game.
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He lost his life to ALS at age 37, and the disease began crippling him a few years before that, of course. As good as his stats were, he could've put up numbers that still may be considered out of reach.
In my lifetime though, like most of you, it's Bo Jackson.
Bo Jackson.Nick Eddy former Notre dame great who was injured early in his professional career and never played again.
<< <i>
<< <i>JR Richard, I disagree. He was already 30 when he had his heart attack. He was a career 108 ERA+ guy. I'm not sure there were a lot of great seasons missed there. >>
I'll concede the age part, but not that last sentence. He was at the zenith of his career when he suffered a stroke.
Also, Penny Hardaway. >>
JR Richard WAS just coming into his own...all you have to do is look at the indicators, in his last two/three years his SO/BB ratio, and BB/9IP ratio both took big jumps from his previous career norms, and those are good indicators of a pitcher 'getting it'. Those are also his two best ERA+ years.(he was age 29, and 30 his last two years).
Age of 30 is not bad at all for a pitcher. Another big strikeout pitcher, with poor control early on, that didn't put it together until age 29(the first year he saw a marked jump in his SO/BB ratio), his name was Randy Johnson
Looking at the above explanation, that leads to the one player that we really did miss out on...and his name was Sandy Koufax
Koufax similarly had to find himself...thrust into the bigs by age 19, he found himself by age 25, then we all know what he did next. But he was then done by age 30(at the top of his game)!!
Rumor has it, that in Dodgers practice before the 1977 World Series, that Koufax threw some batting practice...and was breaking bats
Imagine Koufax getting all the way up to having '77 and '78 Topps cards!