Are the Greatest Players the Ones Who Were Most Dominant in Their Era or Not?

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What truly makes someone the greatest player in his position or sport as a whole? As I was reading a fascinating article by Bryn Swartz, which claimed that Don Hutson, a wide receiver from the 1940s, was the greatest receiver in NFL history, I couldn’t help but wonder this exact question.

It seems to me that everyone has a different definition as to what makes someone the greatest player.

Even in the dictionary, the word "best" doesn’t have one definition, as it is defined as surpassing all others in excellence, achievement, or quality.

Therefore, are the greatest players the ones who were most dominant in their era or not?

Should Don Hutson really be considered better than Jerry Rice because he was more dominant in his era? Would Babe Ruth be considered the greatest baseball player of all time if he had played in the modern era?

The problem with saying that a player is the greatest of all time if he was the most dominant in his era, is that generally the rules, the training methods, the schedules, the strategies, and the pure physical abilities, in past eras were not as advanced as they are now.

In addition in many sports, African–American and Latino athletes were denied the right to play. How can Don Hutson actually be considered the greatest wide receiver of all time when, if he and Jerry Rice were able to be on the same field during their prime, Rice would clearly be better?

The truth is that in spite of Hutson’s dominant statistics few consider him to be the greatest ever at his position. But on the other hand, guys like Babe Ruth and Wilt Chamberlain are often mentioned as either the greatest in their position or sport.

It seems to me that it’s not fair to make that claim about Ruth or Chamberlain, but not consider Hutson to be the greatest. In reality, the only reason Ruth and Chamberlain are considered the greatest is because statistically, they are also two of the greatest.

The problem is that while Hutson’s run-heavy era and smaller schedule hurt his statistics, Chamberlain’s era, which was full of big man-friendly rules and shorter players, inflated his stats. In fact, the key was only 12 feet and was moved to 16 feet in 1965, in large part due to Chamberlain.

The offensive and defensive schemes weren’t as advanced as now, and frankly Chamberlain was much taller than everyone and exploited that. Also, during Chamberlain's early years, the NBA was fairly new to African Americans. The first African American had only broken the color barrier in the NBA in in 1950, and thus many potential great players weren’t even playing in the NBA.

As good as Chamberlain was, do you really think that he would be better than a player like Shaq in his prime?

Although the rules of baseball have not changed considerably since Ruth’s time, he played with some advantages as well. I have no doubt that playing in a strictly white-dominated era made it easier for him to be the greatest.

It seems as though we should either have all players who were most dominant in their era be considered the greatest, and not make exceptions, or have none of them.

Maybe we should just go by athletic ability and talent. The pure definition of the greatest player would be the one who is better than everyone else. If we were going by the pure definition, players like Ruth, Jim Brown, and Chamberlain wouldn’t be considered the greatest. As good as these players were, the players nowadays are frankly more talented.

However, there are two main problems with saying that the best player of all time isn’t the most dominant in his era

First of all, in reality we can’t compare eras. While it’s easier to assume that teams in the '60s are inferior to teams now, it’s not as easy to assume that the best teams in the '80s are worse than the teams right now.

Secondly, if we don’t base it on dominance in eras, then eventually as athletes inevitably get bigger and stronger, the greatest players of all time are going to be the ones who are playing or have recently played their sport, and the history of the game will be forgotten.

An easy solution to this problem would be for us not to try to name the greatest players of all time, but rather just of their eras. But of course that is not a real solution, because the arguments are inevitable.

We are all infatuated with the question of who is the greatest. And as we continue to argue it, unfortunately nobody will ever be right, and nobody, no matter how unintelligent their answer is, will ever be wrong. However, despite this and the fact that there are so many problems with this question, we are always going to keep asking it, because being the greatest is the ultimate goal of playing the game.

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