A new generation of sports greats

Ray Lewis, Super Bowl MVP. You'd think that title would establish his greatness once and for all. You'd think that people might not blink when they heard a respected football fan compare him to Jack Lambert or Mean Joe Greene. You'd think that when a veteran broadcaster says that Lewis goes side to side better than anyone he's ever seen, people might take him at his word. After all, they watched the game. Some people do—but not everyone.

SCOTT HANNARAN/NEWSMAKERS Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis is one of the many athletes currently challenging predecessors for the title of 'best ever.'

Let me state one thing at the outset: I am not saying that Lewis is the greatest middle linebacker in history. I am saying, however, that we should consider the possibility that he might be. You see, whenever you start comparing the present to the past, people have a knee-jerk reaction against what we have now. I might expect that kind of behavior from our middle-aged brethren longing for some "Golden Age." They just want their youth back. Right now baseball's Golden Age is the 1950s. In the '50s it was the '20s. The same goes for the rest of the world. There are two possibilities: either the world is continually getting worse, or people just think it is. Which one seems more likely?

The fact is that today's athletes, far from being lousy or underachieving, are right up there with the greats of the past. Let's not forget that Wayne Gretzky, almost certainly hockey's greatest player, just retired last year. Or that Michael Jordan, second only perhaps to the late Wilt Chamberlain, bowed out only two years ago. He may have been the greatest athlete ever.

Nowhere is the unfortunate trend more popular than in baseball. As the granddaddy of American sports, baseball has the most nostalgic fans. The old stereotypes exist for a reason. "You see these players?" says the gray-haired man, shaking his wrinkled finger at the AstroTurf. "They wouldn't have survived a month in the game I grew up with, back when men were men!" That is not objective analysis. That is regret over departed youth.

Go to San Francisco and you will see Barry Bonds patrolling left field in Pac Bell Park. He may be the best left fielder ever. He's won multiple MVPs. He gets on base more than 40 percent of the time every year. Nobody else in history has matched his 400 homers and 400 steals. Soon he may have 500 of each. Who can rival him? Rickey Henderson is a great player, but can he really match Bonds' production at the plate? Can Stan Musial? Maybe Ted Williams can, but he wasn't much of a fielder. Bonds has a shelf full of Gold Gloves. He does everything, and he does many things better than anybody else. One day he will be in Cooperstown with Musial and Williams, and they will not be ashamed to see him there.

Go to New York. I hate the Yankees, but Roger Clemens just might be the best right-handed pitcher ever. It might sound like a stretch. But he's won five Cy Youngs and six ERA titles. Doesn't seem like a lot? Go find someone with more. And that isn't all: his 3.70 ERA this season was second only to the peerless Pedro Martinez in 2000.

Visit his cross-town rival, Mike Piazza, who is easily—easily—the best-hitting catcher in history. Don't like his defense? Fly down to Texas. Pudge Rodriguez catches for the Rangers, and Johnny Bench won't be ashamed to have him as a colleague in Cooperstown when the time comes. If Pudge doesn't float your boat, there's always the other Rodriguez, who's better than all of 'em. All except the aforementioned Martinez, anyway, who has strung together two of the best pitching seasons in baseball history. You could double his 2000 ERA and he'd still take the title home. There's no reason to think he won't keep it up in 2001.

Back to Lewis. His sport is no worse off; in the past decade, we bade farewell to Dan Marino, John Elway, and Joe Montana, three of the greatest quarterbacks in history (the latter is the greatest, if you ask me), not to mention Warren Moon, whose stats are nearly as impressive. Barry Sanders was well on his way to breaking every record in the book when he retired. Emmitt Smith may yet do that. And Jerry Rice, undoubtedly the best wide receiver in NFL history, is still running slant patterns. Maybe Lewis is as good as there ever was. And maybe he's not. We'll know in 10 or 15 years. Too often we forget that the athletes of today are every bit as good as those of years past. We are blessed to live in these times. And when we watch Lewis, we should appreciate our good fortune.

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