Sports legends doing legendary things

Most sports legends have a legendary story to share. Most of these stories are embellishments of the original tale, but some are unexplainably true.

THE BLEACHER REPORT has complied some of these legendary stories for your amusement. Did Deion Sanders really run the fastest time at the NFL Combine? How many goals did Pele average during his career? How many reverse dunks did Earl “The Goat” Manigault pull off to win a $60 bet? Find out below.

Soccer

Pele

At the age of 17, the great Pele, established himself as the definition of Brazilian football, as he scored a hat trick in his first World Cup Tournament. During a time when the game was much more physical and bookings were much less frequent, its said that Pele put the ball in the net 1280 times in 1363 career fixtures with international and club teams. That’s nearly a goal per game!

Pele won a total of 32 titles during his career. Perhaps his most amazing feat was bringing soccer to a new level in America in the 70’s while playing for the Cosmos.

Baseball

Satchel Paige

Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige is best known for his long career and high salary.  While Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams were overseas fighting with the armed forces, Satchel was the highest paid athlete in America.

However, Satchel is a legend for intentionally walking loaded bases in the 1942 Negro World Series to face the most feared slugger of his time, Josh Gibson.

Paige went on to strike Gibson out in 3 pitches. Gonads, my friends, gonads!

And rumor has it, Page won 104 out of 105 games in 1934.

Josh Gibson

Now Josh Gibson’s story will make Paige’s tale even more unbelievable.
Josh Gibson was known at the time as “The Black Babe,” because of his home run power.  Sadahara Oh from Japan is known as the all-time baseball home-run leader with over 800. Behind him there’s Barry Bonds, Hank Aarons, Babe Ruth, and the list goes on.

There are no precise numbers, but Gibson was said to have hit 962 homers in his career, with 84 in 1936!
The first thing fans usually say to discredit Gibson’s accomplishments is, “He was playing in the Negro League.”  However, Paige played in both the Negro League and the majors.
During his MLB career, Paige had an era of 3.29. That’s not bad even by today’s standards.

Football

Deion “Prime-Time” Sanders

I think we all know how great of an athlete Deion was. He played pro baseball and football, excelling at both. In college he was also a track and field star, while being named an All-American three times in football.

But the Deion story most fans forget, that I love the most involves his 40 yard dash at the NFL Combine.
Legend has it, in 1989, Prime Time walked on to the field with nothing but a pair of gym shorts, flip-flops, a t-shirt and a gold chain. Sanders proceeded to slip off his sandals and run a 4.12 40 yard dash - barefoot!

Enough said!

There are many more sports legends that have redefined expectations.

Earl “The Goat” Manigault, a 6-foot-2 guard from Harlem, is known to have done 36 consecutive reverse dunks to win a $60 bet. He also set the record in New York City for most points scored by a junior high student with 57.

Manigault’s other accolades involve a double dunk, where he’d finish one dunk, grab the ball after it goes through the net while still in the air, only to slam it one more time before landing. His acrobatics were on display for money once again, when he leapt to the top of a backboard to snatch $20 someone had stuck to a piece of bubble gum.

It’s amazing what some sports legends can do. How about the NIKE commercial where Tiger Woods continuously bounces a golf ball off one of his clubs and then drives it into the distance?

Arnold Palmer

“The King” Arnold Palmer is highly regarded as one of the best players in golf history. He is an American-born player who turned pro in 1954 after attending Wake Forest University.

Arnold Palmer started in 142 major championships. Of those 142 starts, he had seven wins, 10-second place finishes and 19-third place finishes. Arnold Palmer also has the longest streak of top-10 finishes in major championship history with six.

Arnold Palmer’s first major championship was at The Masters in 1958 when he beat fellow American golfers Doug Ford and Fred Hawkins by one stroke. He also won the 1960 Masters by one stroke, tipping Ken Venturi with a winning score of 282. Arnold Palmer defeated Kel Nagle by six strokes in the 1962 Open Championship, as well as Dave Marr and Jack Nicklaus by six strokes in the 1964 Masters.

Of his seven major champion wins, Arnold Palmer won four Masters (1958, 1960, 1962, 1964), two British Opens (1961, 1962) and one U.S. Open championships (1960). Arnold Palmer also won three PGA Championships (1964, 1968, 1970).

Arnold Palmer racked up 29 PGA Tour events in four seasons from 1960 to 1963. In 1960, Arnold Palmer won the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year and Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year” award. He also earned the Vardon Trophy – given to the golfer with the lowest scoring average – four times in years 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1967.

Arnold Palmer is often ranked behind Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, Sam Snead and even Byron Nelson on the all-time greatest golfers list. But what’s most significant about Arnold Palmer’s legacy is how he became one of the first stars of the sport’s television age, which began in the 1950s.

For his legacy, Arnold Palmer won the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998 and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.

Jack Nicklaus

While the current or “new school” generation of golf fans are infatuated with what Tiger Woods can do on the links (and rightfully so given Tiger’s talents), true golf enthusiasts note that the best golfer of all time might be the “Golden Bear” Jack Nicklaus. 

No golfer has accumulated as many major championships (18) as Jack Nicklaus has. His 73 PGA Tour victories are second to only Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus also holds the record for most wins at the Masters with six. He also topped the PGA Tour money list eight times and has 10 Senior Tour wins. 

Jack Nicklaus turned pro in 1961 and it didn’t take him long to establish himself as a great golfer. He won his first major championship in 1962 when he won the U.S. Open with a score of 283. Jack Nicklaus proceeded to win both The Masters and PGA Championship in 1963 and back-to-back Masters championships in 1965 and 1966. (He also won The Open Championship in 1966 and the U.S. Open in 1967). 

Jack Nicklaus didn’t slow down in the 1970s. He won The Open Championship for the second time in 1970, the PGA Championship for the second time in 1971, The Masters for the fourth time in 1972 and the U.S. Open for the third time in 1972. Jack Nicklaus also won two more PGA Championships in the 1970s (1973, 1975) and The Open Championship for the third time in 1978. 

Jack Nicklaus finished off his amazing career by winning the U.S Open for the fourth time in 1980, the PGA Championship for the fifth time in 1980 and The Masters for the sixth time in 1986. 

To date, no other golfer has won The Masters as many times as Jack Nicklaus, with Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods coming in a close second with four apiece. Jack Nicklaus is also tied with Walter Hagen for the most PGA Championship wins with five, and is tied with Willie Anderson, Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan for the most U.S. Open victories with four. 

If Jack Nicklaus wasn’t winning championships, he was finishing close to the top. In his 163 starts, he had 18 wins, 19 second-place finishes, 46 third place finishes, 57 top five finishes and 73 top ten finishes. He also holds the longest streak of top-10 finishes in major championship play with 13. 

Besides the hoards of achievements, Jack Nicklaus was mostly known as one of the greatest putters of all time. Rather ironically considering his short game was so good, he was also among one of the longest hitters on the tour in his prime. Jack Nicklaus perfected the term “course management” by only taking risks when he felt necessary and often relying on his strengths (putting) to keep his score low. He was also known for eating bananas on the course for what he noted as “energy food.” 

Tiger Woods has certainly become a golf legend, but before him, “The Golden Bear” Jack Nicklaus owned the links for two and a half decades.

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods was born Eldrick Tiger Woods on December 30, 1975 in Cypress, California.
Tiger Woods is a professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time.

Tiger Woods is currently the highest paid professional athlete, in 2006, having earned an estimated $100 million from winnings and endorsements. It is predicted that Tiger Woods will be the first billionaire athlete and should reach that status by 2010.

Tiger Woods has won 13 professional major golf championships, the second-most of any male player, and 63 PGA Tour events, the fourth-most of all time. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the Career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on Tour. Woods has held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record nine times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has tied Jack Nicklaus’s record of leading the money list in eight different seasons. He has been named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year four times, a record he shares with Lance Armstrong.

Tiger Woods, who is multiracial in the truest sense of the word. Tiger Woods is one-quarter Chinese, one quarter Thai, one quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch. He refers to his ethnic make-up as “Cablinasian”, a term he coined made up from the words Causasian, Black, American-Indian and Asian.

Tiger Woods is credited with prompting a major surge of interest in the game of golf. Tiger Woods is said to have doubled attendance at tournaments he plays in and improved TV ratings just as high, and generated interest among a multicultural audience in a game that used to be considered elitist.