Robert W. Cohen - The 50 Most Dynamic Duos in Sports History. Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey

Contents

Contents

Introduction

Inspiration for This Book... and Definition of Dynamic Duo

Being an extremely structured and well-organized person (some might even say neurotic), I have always had a tendency to place things in what I perceive to be their proper sequential order. Even as a young boy, I recall assigning a numerical order to just about everything, from my favorite athletes to my favorite movies, songs, and musical artists. Therefore, people who know me well could hardly have been surprised that my first book, A Team for The Ages: Baseballs All-Time All-Star Team , represented a ranking of the greatest players in baseball history. Those people closest to me should now feel a similar lack of astonishment when they learn of my latest undertakinga ranking of the most dynamic duos in sports history.

Yet, surprisingly, it was not my compulsion to assign a numerical standing to practically everything that provided me with the impetus to write this book. Instead, the idea came to me a few years ago after I watched one of the many top-20 countdowns presented on ESPNthis particular one dedicated to sports most dynamic duos. Although the members of the selection committee made several wise choices, I disagreed with many others, feeling that they revealed a failure to grasp the true meaning of the term dynamic duo . Furthermore, I found several tandems missing from the stations list whom I consider to be among the most dynamic in sports history.

My first point of contention with ESPNs ranking centered on its exclusion of some of the greatest athletes who performed together more than 40 or 50 years ago. It seemed that such twosomes received recognition only if their accomplishments were so overwhelming that their names have since remained synonymous with their respective sports. As an example, the combination of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig received an appropriately high numerical ranking on ESPNs list of dynamic duos. But completely missing from the list was the tandem of Jimmie Foxx and Al Simmons, which was one that rivaled Ruth and Gehrig during the late 1920s and early 1930s. In fact, Foxx and Simmons provided most of the offensive firepower for a Philadelphia Athletics team that dethroned the Yankees as American League champions from 1929 to 1931.

ESPNs list also failed to mention several combinations that competed more recently than Foxx and Simmons but carved out a place in history greater than that of many of the other tandems that received acknowledgment. Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews hit more home runs as teammates than any other duo in baseball history, yet they failed to make it into the top 20. ESPN recognized Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, but another powerful pair of M & M sluggers from the same periodWillie Mays and Willie McCoveyfailed to make the cut. ESPNs list also correctly included the basketball duo of Karl Malone and John Stockton. However, the even more potent pairing of Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, which performed some 30 years earlier, failed to receive recognition.

Another problem I had with the selections made by ESPN was the inclusion of several combinations whose contributions extended beyond the playing field. Among the pairings recognized by the station were Bill Russell and Red Auerbach, Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell. The duo of Auerbach and Russell won nine NBA titles in 10 years as coach and player. But while Auerbach was a brilliant coach and the architect of that Boston Celtics dynasty, he didnt play one minute of any game the Celtics won over the course of those 10 seasons. Therefore, there is no way to measure the contributions he made to the team. In integrating the game of baseball in 1947, Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson performed a service of incredible social significance to this country. They helped raise the social consciousness of most people in this nation, eliminating some of the barriers that existed and bringing us out of the Dark Ages. By doing so, they made baseball the true national pastime. But, as with Auerbach, it would be impossible to measure the contributions that Rickey made to the Brooklyn Dodgers on the field, since he didnt play one inning of any game. Furthermore, the feeling here is that the significance of the contributions made by Rickey and Robinson to society as a whole places them in a separate categoryone in which they would have to be considered number one on any list. And as for Ali and Cosell... they certainly formed quite a unique pairing: a Jewish attorney turned sportscaster who, in spite of his pompous attitude, really did not know a great deal about sports, and a charismatic Muslim prizefighter who arguably became the most recognizable man in the world. Ali and Cosell created magic together, making each other far more famous than they otherwise would have been in the process. But Cosell never stepped in a boxing ring, and the two men, at least in my opinion, represented much more of a form of entertainment than a dynamic sports duo.

While on the subject of Ali, the former three-time heavyweight champion of the world brings to mind my final point of contention with ESPNs ranking, which included a couple of the greatest individual rivalries in sports history. No rivalry was greater than the one between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Their three matches were among the most exciting in the annals of boxing. Their first contest in particularheld in New Yorks Madison Square Garden in 1971 and billed as a battle of undefeated championstranscended the sport in that it was considered to be as much a social event to those in attendance as it was a boxing match. Two other great individual rivalries were waged on the tennis court. The countless matches between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova helped to popularize womens tennis by generating a tremendous amount of fan interest in the sport. Two of the greatest beneficiaries of this growth in popularity were the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, who dominated womens tennis for nearly a decade.