Who was the most dominant player in any sport, EVER?

Statistically how?

 

Ali
Jordan
Tiger Woods
Tom Brady
Barry Bonds
Michael Phelps
Christiano Ronaldo/Messi

All Goats.

 

He hit more home runs in less at bats than anyone in history. He basically hit a home run every 10.5 at bats for his career, which is astonishly insane. Babe Ruth was almost 12 at bats per home run. Barry Bonds is 13ish.

When you look at a chart of the all time Home Run leaders in MBL history, make sure it includes at bats. Its an insane number. He effectively had 30-50% less at bats as everyone else around him on the chart.

At any point in his career, on average, he was 30% more likely to hit a HR than Barry Bonds in an at bat.

 

What about steroids Bonds? That's the guy in consideration in this thread. Not the outstanding 4 to 5 star player he was through the early part of his career.

 

Football Bo Jackson

 

Its hard to pick a guy that never played a full season, never led the league in rushing, and only had 38 career games. His yards per carry are amazing in his rookie year, but he never had to actually grind a full season.

For perspective, I find Jamaal Charles's 5.4 yards per attempt over 119 career games more impressive than Bo Jackson's 5.4 yards per attempt over 38 career games.

And yes, I watched Bo Jackson play professional football.

 

I can buy that, but I was considering the entire career. For those 2 years, Bonds basically will never be matched, but for a whole career, I'd argue that McGwire takes the cake.

Also, if you factor in their dominance against the competition in which they played, the actual answer is Babe Ruth for baseball.

 

Steroid Barry was better than Steroid McGwire who was better than Steroid Sosa

 

I don't disagree with anything you said, but he was pretty damn special.

 

Phelps was king in swimming for a long time. Times are still getting faster in the water tho .

bolt is insane .

pedro Martinez had an unbelievable 2 year run

frankly , Clemens Era with us was crazy , but not all -time dominant like the question asks .

hakeems run ofc

giannis has looked dominant recently . He and harden had beef , but the guy is a fantastic player . He could still be getting better and he could be paired with a great guard . 5 more years as a top player and a ring or two and things get interesting.

Nolan Ryan , strikeout king .

sandy koufax’s run

 

Wilt and Babe essentially lapped the field.

Joe Louis held the heavy weight title for 12 years (June 1937 to March 1949) and 25 title defenses.

 

When you factor in level of cimpetition and tiers above anybody prior or after, it’s most likely MJ.

there’s a reason those 2 syllables are synonymous with things like Mecca etc.

Gretzky is another, but people are really missing the obvious

 

People out here pretending Paavo Nurmi never existed.

22 official distance running world records, nine Olympic golds, went undefeated for 121 straight races, never beaten in cross country or the 10,000 meters. He set two Olympic records within one hour of each other, first in the 1500 meters and then the 5000 meters. (If you count races that aren't run today, he had 29 world records across 16 different distances.) 121 straight races is Harlem Globetrotter type dominance except the Washington Generals just happened to be the rest of the world. Not one country, not one league. The world.

WWI, the Finnish Civil War, and military service delayed the start of his running career until the age of 23. He would have undoubtedly racked up more records and medals if he had been competing from 18 on. At the other end of his career, he became so popular that people paid to see him run and he was compensated for travel expenses to go to events and exhibitions. This led the IAAF to label him a professional and a week before the 1932 Olympics, where he was heavily favored to win gold in the marathon, he was forbidden from participating.

 

objectively speaking