Arthur Solomon

Arthur Solomon
Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist Red Smith once said that Stanley Woodward, his Hall of Fame sports editor at the New York Herald Tribune, thought Smith was “godding up those ballplayers.” And Smith said Woodward may have been correct.

Woodward is long gone, as is Smith, but the recent Super Bowl showed that the practice is still with us, and the comments about Tom Brady is prima facie evidence.

Sports writers and commentators went gaga — not to be confused with Lady Gaga’s performance — over Brady directing his team’s incredible comeback.

“Unmatched,” “matchless,” “exceptional,” “incomparable,” “superlative,” “unsurpassed,” “greatest,” were some of the many other flattering adjectives used to describe Brady’s dominant performance.

But proclaiming Brady as the “greatest ever?” Nonsense.

How is it possible to determine who’s the best quarterback ever, considering how football, and other sports, has changed over the decades? The truthful answer there isn’t a way to measure today’s athletes with those of even a couple of decades ago, much less a half century ago.

Here’s why:

• Quarterbacks today are protected from hits of past eras; only a President has better protection.

• Quarterbacks are only one facet of a team. The make-up of receivers, offensive lines and the defense are extremely important factors in a quarterback’s performance.
• Sports authorities who’ve seen Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning and Brady play disagree about who is the best.

• The “greatest ever” proponents only think in the present, ignoring history.

• In addition to better equipment and technological aids, athletes participating in all sports today have the advantage of better nutrition, medical services and conditioning. Certainly that’s a modern benefit not available to the past Babe Ruth’s of all sports.

That’s why, in my opinion, it’s impossible to truly select the “greatest ever” in any sport. Choosing the “greatest ever,” when you’ve never seen past greats in action is simply entertainment; it provides story lines for sports writers and commentators. The games and conditions, meanwhile, have changed too much to take these claims seriously. And yes, it’s easier to set records now: The seasons are longer.

Some years ago, when I was managing the publicity campaign for Gillette, the sole sponsor of baseball’s fan election for the All-Star teams at that time, I asked then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn if he would select his all-time, all-star team for an Associated Press story. He did, but it was limited only to ballplayers that he’d personally seen play. That’s a more reasonable approach, I think, then saying that Tom Brady is the “greatest ever” or is not the “greatest ever” based on a few Super Bowl games.

A more reasonable gauge would be to rate players over a 10- to 20-year span. That makes considerably more sense than measuring a ballplayer of 2017 against someone who played decades earlier. And more people would personally have seen the modern day “greatest evers” compete in real time against the modern day “best evers.” Even then, designating an athlete as the “greatest ever” of a decade might be nonsensical considering the numerous rule changes in various sports that can occur each year.

The “godding up of ballplayers” is not limited to the praise of Brady after his memorable Super Bowl achievement. It is prevalent in all sports and in other subjective businesses too.

For years, I’ve heard sports writers and commentators say that Mike Schmidt is the “best third baseman of all time.” How would they know, considering that other “best third baseman of all time” played in the 40s, 30s, 20s and earlier, before many current sports writers were born? Is Pele the “greatest soccer player,” as I’ve heard said? It’s only recently that soccer has been covered in the U.S., so how would any U.S. sports writer know? Is Wayne Gretzky the greatest hockey player? Maybe. It depends on who you ask. Olympic athletes are always being called “the best ever,” the designations awarded by those covering the games at a given time.

In the performing arts, rather than designating persons “the best ever,” praise is often limited to “the best in many years.” Lifetime achievement awards are also presented. That makes sense. How can you compare the talents of a Lady Gaga, Beyonce or Madonna to singers and dancers who performed when the rules of their game was different?

“Greatest ever” labels in sports are as ridiculous as saying things haven’t changed since the beginning of time. If there’s one thing that’s sure: Someday there will be a new “greatest ever” and the journalists who designate the new sovereign might never have seen Brady play.

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Arthur Solomon was a senior VP at Burson-Marsteller. He now is a contributor to public relations and sports business publications, consults on PR projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].