My Sport is Better Than Your Sport: the GOAT thread

[DMC]

27 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I mean, I'd never refer to basketball as a niche local sport.

Well, it's ludicrously ignorant to write off baseball as a "niche local sport" either, unless you want to pretend much of the western hemisphere along with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan encapsulate "niche local."  Seems rather offensively eurocentric to me, but you do you!

5 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Looking at the top 10 participation sports, and the next few, there is pretty much no advantage/an actual disadvantage in any of them by being freaky big. It's such a weird argument to be making.

....except basketball and baseball, which was the argument I was making.

4 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

But football is about 700 times as big as both combined. 

LOL, holy hyperbole Batman!

[polishgenius]

Getting really angry over mild jokes involving sport seems offensively America-centric to me, but you do you. 

[DMC]

Just now, polishgenius said:

Getting really angry over mild jokes involving sport seems offensively America-centric to me, but you do you. 

I didn't know you could also divine my mood.  Not angry at all, just thought your bit of trolling deserved the same in kind - particularly considering mine included, ya know, facts.  Seems as if you can dish it out but can't take it.

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

Not angry at all,

mmhmm

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

mmhmm

Great Crash Test Dummies song!

[polishgenius]

I wanna take another poke in response but they're Canadian and I like Canada. Foiled.

[Which Tyler]

By fanbase:
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-most-popular-sports-in-the-world.html

 

By participation:
https://www.sportshubnet.com/top-10-most-popular-sports-in-the-world-by-participation/

 

  

35 minutes ago, DMC said:

....except basketball and baseball, which was the argument I was making.

I suspect that people are seeing past the poster, and still hung up on Tywin's point - which was that for sport as a whole, normal sized people "are a dying breed".

  ETA:

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Normal size is less desirable. Basketball players are getting taller all the time while gymnasts are getting smaller. The all-around average athlete is a dying breed.

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Which Tyler
Added Tywin's quote

[BigFatCoward]

33 minutes ago, DMC said:

 

....except basketball and baseball, which was the argument I was making. 

Average baseball player height is 6'1" tall but not excessively. Unless there is some stat that shows bigger is better? 

[DMC]

Just now, BigFatCoward said:

Average baseball player height is 6'1" tall but not excessively. Unless there is some stat that shows bigger is better? 

Sorry, I meant to say "increasingly for" baseball - particularly with hitters lately but, again, has also been the case for pitchers (or at least starting pitchers) for quite awhile now.  That was the entire argument I was making in the first response I made to you.  Also, yes, 6'1" is significantly above the mean for males in the aggregate (albeit no, certainly not "freakish"), and the players (hitters and pitchers alike) are getting more buff even since the steroid era (which, well..we'll leave that at that).

12 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

By fanbase:
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-most-popular-sports-in-the-world.html

 

By participation:
https://www.sportshubnet.com/top-10-most-popular-sports-in-the-world-by-participation/

Aye I saw both of these doing a quick google too.  I don't believe hockey has 2 billion fans.

[polishgenius]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

Aye I saw both of these doing a quick google too.  I don't believe hockey has 2 billion fans.

 

Hockey is apparently popular in India and Pakistan, so I can believe it. 

[Which Tyler]

20 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Average baseball player height is 6'1" tall but not excessively. Unless there is some stat that shows bigger is better? 

I'd argue that if a height is average anywhere, then it's (comfortably) within the standard deviation, or "normal" for everywhere.
Average (Male)heights range from 6'1 down to 5'4

https://www.worlddata.info/average-bodyheight.php

14 minutes ago, DMC said:

Aye I saw both of these doing a quick google too.  I don't believe hockey has 2 billion fans.

I don't think it really matters if you believe it or not - Personally, I can easily believe that the 2 forms of hockey combined could get to that number.

Remember, India... exists.

ETA: Mind, I suspect you're forgetting that field hockey exists - either that, or wildly underestimating how popular it is (remember, it's also 3rd on the most popular sports for participation, and that's without ice hockey).

Edited September 10, 2022 by Which Tyler

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Hockey is apparently popular in India and Pakistan, so I can believe it. 

Yeah I saw they were combining ice and field hockey.  Still seems pretty silly to me but ok.

5 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Average (Male)heights range from 6'1 down to 5'4

This is a pretty absurd statistical argument since the vast majority of baseball players don't come from the Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark, etc.

Edited September 10, 2022 by DMC

[Which Tyler]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

This is a pretty absurd statistical argument since the vast majority of baseball players don't come from the Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark, etc.

Which is also a pretty absurd argument, because baseball isn't the only sport

Edited September 10, 2022 by Which Tyler

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Which Tyler said:

Which is also a pretty absurd argument, because baseball isn't the only sport

Yikes...baseball is decidedly unpopular in the countries the link you gave me listed at anywhere around 6'1" as a mean height for males.  That's why it's a patently fallacious statistical argument.

[Tywin et al.]

Just want to say on the front end after my last post I spent nearly half a day traveling and it ended at a big party, so...

14 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

The most popular sport in the world deals almost entirely in athletes of more-or-less average size.

Fair point, and that plays a role in its popularity. It's the most accessible sport in the world for several reasons.

14 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

What about for sports that aren't Basketball? Even gymnastics only works if you forget the men exist.

Ever stood next to a male gymnast? I have and they're small too, height wise (they're insanely strong though).

Quote

Where are all these physical monsters on the athletics track? the football pitch? rugby has a mix of both monsters and normal people (though they also all lie about being bigger than they are), plenty of normal sized tennis players, golf, hockey, cricket, swimming...

Track? Bolt, fastest man ever, super tall for his sport. Rugby, idk a lot about it, but I watched a match with a super jacked dude who was 6'3 and multiple guys on his team were a head taller than him. Tennis, on both the men's and women's size, keep getting bigger. There are literal 7 footers playing now. That's new. Swimming, just look at Phelps, etc. A trend towards bigger, faster, stronger doesn't make them all mutants compared to 25 years ago, but on average they're getting bigger.

Golf is unique, but even one can point to Tiger and say that was a jump, even if it wasn't purely height based.

11 hours ago, baxus said:

Depends on what sport you're making the athlete for, doesn't it? LeBron is big and strong and quick, but I doubt he'd ever make a world-class level swimmer, for example. Or a cyclist, or triathlete, or high-jumper, or rower or...

Idk why he couldn't be a world class swimmer or rower if that's what he wanted to be great at. Again, I'm not saying he'd be as great at other sports as he is at basketball, but it's fairly easy to see how he could be a pro at a number of sports. There aren't a lot of athletes you can reasonably say that about.

8 hours ago, dbunting said:

Quantify this statement. Hot take or not or not that's horrible!

I'd equate defensive skills, more to hand eye coordination than anything else. Jordan, defensive player of the year once, 9 time all def first team.   LeBron, no def player of the year and 5 time all def first team despite playing three more seasons.

No and no. Passing at an extremely high level is a great way to evaluate hand eye coordination. And news alert, regular season defensive awards don't mean a lot. Everyone knew LeBron at his peak, and his peak was extremely long, was one of if not the best defenders in the NBA.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Tywin et al.

[Tywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Hockey is apparently popular in India and Pakistan, so I can believe it. 

This might be the single most shocking thing this thread has produced. 

[BigFatCoward]

LeBron could not be a swimmer. It would take absurd power to move that mass through the water. 

[Which Tyler]

 

3 hours ago, DMC said:

Yikes...baseball is decidedly unpopular in the countries the link you gave me listed at anywhere around 6'1" as a mean height for males.  That's why it's a patently fallacious statistical argument.

 Which means what?

I can't find anywhere that gives me a standard deviation for height; so I took the tallest and shortest locations where 1/2 the male population is taller / shorter than as the closest workable alternative to a standard deviation.

If you've got anything with the normal distribution curves and / or standard deviations for the heights of human males, I'm all for it.
Until that information is presented, it's the best statistical argument available, actually , scratch that, it's the only statistical argument available - everything else is just bias.

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Ever stood next to a male gymnast? I have and they're small too, height wise (they're insanely strong though).

Yes.

I also had a quick look at the heights of the medal winners at the recent European Gymnastics Championship.

1 was 5'2, the rest were 5'6 to 5'10 (based on wikipedia, so...), not outliers

   

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

This might be the single most shocking thing this thread has produced. 

That anyone is surprised by this is the most shocking thing for anyone who isn't American.

3rd most popular participation sport in the world is also one of the most popular spectator sports... hardly shocking.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Which Tyler

[Which Tyler]

Now I've a little more time than I did early; I have found a normal distribution curve. Though I can't comment on its accuracy.

In the USA (where the Average male height is 177cm (5'9.7"), 68.3% of the male population sits on a range of 5'6 to 6'2

 

So I stand by, 6'1" is not an outlier; nor is 5'6" - you'd have to push further out than that before you get into "outlier" territory (which would generally be the top and bottom 1-2% or so.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Which Tyler

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Now I've a little more time than I did early; I have found a normal distribution curve. Though I can't comment on its accuracy.

In the USA (where the Average male height is 177cm (5'9.7"), 68.3% of the male population sits on a range of 5'6 to 6'2

 

So I stand by, 6'1" is not an outlier;

Because I never said anything about a standard deviation/normal distribution.  I said it was significantly higher than the mean height for males.  When I said that, I was thinking about 5'10" - without looking anything up.  And, yeah, turns out that's pretty much the case outside of a handful of European countries.  In other words, you're cherrypicking the top countries that make up the aggregate mean. 

It'd be one thing if those countries had any type of involvement with baseball as a sport, but outside of Didi Gregorius, they don't.  The reason it's an absurd statistical argument is because you were suggesting 6'1" was close to the mean of any country that has anything to do with baseball.  I guarantee if I made a similarly misleading comparison about European-centric sports on here the pushback would be massive.