Is there anyone else in the sporting world that's such a statistical outlier?
Apparently, a good batting average for a modern-day batsman is 40+ with those above 50 being exceptional. Bradman's average was 99.94. The second highest average of all time is 60.97.
As the parent poster points out, the next highest average is in the low 60s (actually 61.87 now[1]). Looking at the stats though, we see averages are roughly a normal curve, centered on 40 with a standard deviation of a little over 9[2]. This puts Bradman over 6 standard deviations above average!
[1] https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282910.htm...
[2] https://www.significancemagazine.com/sports/24-did-don-bradm...
He's probably not as well known as someone like Gretzky in North America, so his name wouldn't immediately spring to mind on forums like this. In cricket, there just isn't any debate about the greatest - the only area of interest is about who comes next (Viv Richards or Brian Lara in my opinion)
I think you might find there are a fairly large number of Indian, Australian and English people on this forum who will find his name does spring to mind immediately. It's more about the timezone than numbers.
> who comes next (Viv Richards or Brian Lara in my opinion)
Tendulkar.
Viv Richards was amazing at his best but declined badly. Lara's best innings were better than anyone (maybe even Bradman) but he wasn't as consistent and unfortunately he was playing in a declining team.
But I'm old enough to remember his 1993 innings of 277 at the SCG. In some ways that was enough to hold off Australia being undisputably the best team in the world for another couple of years.
If you don't count his goals, he still has more points than the next guy. Points are goals plus assists.
Something like 15 of the best 20 seasons in history by points are him.
Player of the year every year for a decade.
The only thing that makes it look less spectacular is that ice hockey is not the world's favourite sport.
Messi is the goat of a game that is massively popular on every continent, that you can find people playing in a park in almost every city.
However, these records are incredibly influenced by the era he played in. Look at a list of the highest scoring seasons for teams ever and it’s either far pre expansion or the late 70s and 80s - Gretzky’s era.
Messi’s records are astounding for the reason that soccer scoring trends have remained far more stable (imo)
p.s. Schumacher drove a car, so I'm not sure he is a fair comparison to physical sportsmen
> would destroy most athletes from other sports
This is pretty hyperbolic, I wonder if you might like to reconsider it.
If you read my other comment you will see my line of reasoning. At no point have I denigrated racing drivers, so there's no need to rush to their defence.
Going past an opposition player in basketball, football or rugby is very similar. Sprinting to the line to keep a ball in play is something tennis players, footballers and cricketers all do.
Driving is entirely different, and not really comparable.
And he just got his finals MVP in 2022, kind of the only thing people lamented about for their careers.
They have pretty interesting similarities: * their teams in their primes, GSW and Barcelona are both dynasty teams with highest level teamplay. GSW rountinely have the highest number assists in the league, Barcelona have more successive passes than almost any other teams. * they are both considered more technical and humble comparing to peers like L. James, and C. Ronaldo, which pocess more physical talents and show dominant personalities