Playing For Your Soul

Today i read an intresting article on the notion of playing for your soul, which has raised a number of interesting thoughts within my mind. Here's the game, you're trapped listening to some girl talking about her cat's personality for hours, when the devil pops up and tells you he can get you out of this nightmare and take you to whereever you want to be, all you have to do is pick one sportsman, from any era to play for your soul and free you from the crazy cat lady. There are some rules however, all you are allowed to do is pick the sportsman in their prime and the sport. The devil then gets one pick of athlete to go against yours and he gets to pick the venue and set up to try and stop your sportsman winning.

So for example, one popular choice would be to pick Roger Federer in his prime at Tennis, however the devil could counteract this by making him play Nadal in his prime at Roland Garos on clay, and could anyone say for definate that Federer would win this match? Personally i would rate his chances as low as 20% in this situation.

Another popular pick would be someone like Muhamed Ali and boxing, undoubtably the greatest heavyweight boxer ever, however how would he fair in a 45 round fight, outdoors in Reno, Nevada against Jack Johnson???

From these two examples you can see how hard it actually is to pick sportsmen to play for your soul in this situation. So here is my crude list of near misses and my top 5 i would want to play for my soul, (due to the examples above i have decided to exclude boxers, golfers and tennis players from my list).


Near Misses (in no particular order)

1) Secratariat. Possibly the greatest horse ever, winner of the U.S. Triple Crown in 1973, setting records in the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes which still stand today. However, he would be an unviable choice as the devil could simply pit him against Red Rum circa 1974 over the gruelling Grand National course at Aintree and Secratariat would easily be beaten.

2) Michael Jordan. Jordan was a great great great basketballer as we all know. He was a 6 time NBA champion, a 5 tim MVP, a 14 time All Star, a 6 time NBA Finals MVP, the list goes on forever. He finds himself on this list though because i believe he would not be an absolute certainty to win the game for you soul despite possibly being the greatest player of all time. For instance, imagining the other 4 players on each team we of equal ability, could you really say for sure that Jordan would beat a team lead by Larry Bird in the old Boston Gardens with its lack of airconditioning? Sure Jordan may beat Bird, but i couldn't be sure he would, and when you're playing for my soul, I have to be sure.

3) Pele/ Maradonna. Two of the gretest players ever, both of whom won pretty much everything there was to win. I would not choose either of them though to play for my soul, much for the same reason i would not choose Jordan. The Devil could put them on an absolute 70's mudbath of a pitch in England, in an era where there were virtually no fouls and where the weather was cold, against a particularily dirty Leeds United side and in that situation i dont think either of them would be the same player meaning they would be far from guarenteed to win for you.

4) Any Baseball pitcher or hitter- This near miss is really a question of eras. If you were to take a player from any era there would always be an era and a team the devil could counteract you with. So if you took Babe Ruth and baseball he could take Barry Bonds during the steriod era, if you took Sandy Koufax he could make him pitch in the steroid era off a lower mound against hitters with much greater power, you simply cant win with a baseball player.

5) Ed Moses. Moses was a fantastic 400 metre hurdler, a double Olympic gold medalist (he would have almost certainly been a triple olympic gold medalist were it not for the American boycott of the 1980 Olympics), and a man who went 122 consecutive races unbeaten. All of this makes Moses look an absolute shoe in as a pick to compete for me, but for one thing, the fact he only holds the second fastest time in history. That of course means that the devil could pick his opponent to be Kevin Young in Barcelona on the 6th of August 1993, the day he ran a 46.78 400 metre hurdles, a time Moses in his prime never ran, meaning he would be unlikely to win this race for me.

As you can see the majority of the near misses suffer from the fact that they played team sports, and there are just too many variables as there have been so many great teams and differing conditions it is impossible to have full faith that they will win for you. Here now are my top 5 who i would pick to play for my soul and to help me escape the story of Mr Snuggles the cat's personality.

1) Donald Bradman (Cricket). Bradman is without doubt the greatest batsman who has ever lived. His average of 99.94 will remain forever as one of sports truely unattainable records which will never be caught. Bradman is so dominant that the nearest person to his test average is Graeme Pollock with an average of 60.97, nearly a full 40 runs below Bradmans average.

Despite Bradmans obvious greatness i realise that this may still be somewhat of a contencious choice. Many will point to the bodyline series of 1932-33, to show that Bradman could not handle short pitched bowling very well, and thus say the devil could choose to have Bradman play against the West Indies side of the mid 1980s on a bouncy track at Sabina Park. I would counter this assertion though by mentioning that in the bodyline series Bradman still averged 56.57 which expanded over a whole career would still be good enough for the 11th best test average ever. Also against the West Indies team of the mid 1980's Bradman would be playing with a better bat, better protection and early helmets as well as playing on a covered pitch with a much much smaller outfield and perhaps most importantly under different rules, so the West Indies couldn't have 5 fielders behind square on the leg side as England did in 1932-33. All of this to me indicates the greatest batsman ever would still have a very rel chance of winning for me.

2)Jahangir Khan (Squash). I was not too familiar with Khan until i began to write this entry, so i looked him up and was simply amazed. Khan was a 6 time World Open champion and a 10 time British Open winner. He also holds couple of simply mindblowing records, the first of which is tht he went 555 games unbeaten between 1981 and 1986, remember this record isnt against anyone, this is against the worlds best players!! The second mindblowing record Khan holds is that he won the International Squash Players Association Championship in 1982 without losing a single point!!!! I don't know about you, but a man who wins 555 consecutive matches, is defininatly someone i want playing in a must win scenario.

3) Phil "The Power" Taylor (Darts). Taylor is a 15 time world champion and winner of 150 proffessional tournaments. The man is simply the best there will ever be. Not only is Taylor clearly the best player ever by miles, he has played in venues from the Dog and Duck pub to the O2 Arena, giving that deadly combination that there isn't anyone, in any venue that could in all likelihood beat him, except himself.

4) Shaun White (Freestyle Snowboarding) White has been absolutely unstoppable as a snowoarder. He is only 25 yet he already has 2 Winter Olympic gold medals and 12 Winter X Games gold medals and he is constantly taking the sport to new places and to new levels as shown by his unveiling of "the Tomahawk" at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 and his perfect 100 score in his victory lap in the 2012 Winter X games, unless this guy falls over a lot, hes pretty much unbeatable.

5) Jonathon Edwards (Triple Jump) There were a number of similar candidtes for this last spot, most notable Mike Powell and Bob Beaman, but in the end i went with Edwars because of his amazing consistancy. For instance when he broke the triple jump world record in Gothenburg in 1995 he jumped a distance of 18.29 metres. To put that jump into context no one before had ever jumped over 17.97 metres and since only Kenny Harrison has jumped anywhere close to Edwards with a jump of 18.09 metres at the 1996 Olympics. During this time Edwards has managed to clear 18 metres FIVE times and he has also a wind assisted jump of 18.43 metres to his name. The fact he seemed to be so far ahead of anyone ever, means he would clearly have suceeded in any era and any conditions making him my final choice.


Although this started out as a game there is quite a serious point behind it, namely that it is harder to quantify unbeatable greatness with regards to team sports and also it begs the question are some unquestionable greats such as Federer and Woods just great because of their era? As it happens i think the answer to this question is no, but if this is the case, why dont i trust them enough to gamble my soul on it?