Diminished heroes.

"The sophistication of modern sport workd against freakish solo-domination. In skill- centred sports rather than purely physical sports, some records are virtually unbreakable"

Which means..

"There truly was a time when great men were greater -but human progress means those days witll never come back, there really will never be another Don Bradman"

Which is immensely sad. It seems like blokes need high mimetic heroes today more than ever.

From 'What Sport Tells Us About Life" by Ed Smith. If you fresh insight into sport,or life for that matter, because sport is really a mirror for everyday life, you should read it.

This also puts the arrogance of planners into sharp focus. It's not that most are genius strategists, it's just that others are even less good. 

My career in a nutshell..........

 

Comments

[John]

True, but Bradman's average is so far ahead of his generation that it's not unreasonable to impute that he might have excelled in the modern era. Of course, the nature of the test match has changed in that time (via the influence of one day cricket) so that has tobe factored in as well.

[northern]

He would have excelled in any era, but the gap between Bradman and others today wouldn't have been as great, he would have been a hero, but not as great, because standards are so much higher.

[John]

Standards are higher? In fielding and fitness yes, but those aside I'm not yet convinced. Maybe the compression of averages http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282910.html is more to do with averaging down? Who knows?

And why were Richards, Sobers and Lara such great heroes (the equivalent of Bradman arguably as he certainly wasn't the only hero in his team let alone tets cricket at the time) - it's not because their avergaes were exceptional.Very good but not exceptional.

[northern]

But you proved my point, 'Bradmans average was so far ahead of their generation'
When Botham was around their was Hadlee
When Richards was around there was Border
Of course there will be leaders, but not towering behemoths. Coaching, professionalism etc mean too many people are too good.
Federer isn't actually that far ahead of Sampras, and in terms of 1 on 1 Nadal - but no one will ever do a double grand slam like Laver.

[John]

But Richards was perceived as a towering behemoth - even though his average is not exceptional.

As for Bradman's era - playing on uncovered wickets would have made it tougher for those batsmen in rainier climates to excel. But maybe that's being snippy.