Watching NBC, I’ve come to appreciate swimmer Michael Phelps and was starting to buy in to the belief that he may be one of the top athletes of all time. Then I participated in a lively debate with a few Astros who didn’t consider Phelps much of an athlete.

“I would not agree that he’s the greatest athlete ever, but he’s clearly the greatest swimmer ever,” Berkman said of Phelps.

“Guys that can hit a baseball and are fast and are powerful and can play football and can catch, that kind of thing those are guys that I look at,” Berkman said. “You talk about a complete set of athletic skills, they got it.”

Some guys even said Tiger Woods was more of an athlete than Phelps. I don’t buy that.

So Berkman and I made a list of the top American athletes we know about. Neither of us included Phelps. I also included my top five athletes on the 2008 Astros.

Justice jokingly asked Berkman Air Jordan 19s if he thought Phelps was a greater athlete than Craig Biggio.

“I think Biggio comes closer to being a great athlete than what I know of Michael Phelps,” Berkman said.

Berkman did have a great line when he Air Jordan Women Size told Justice that he may have covered Jim Thorpe as an athlete.

Thorpe, a record setter in the decathlon and pentathlon, was an amazing football player as well. Oh, and he was a Air Jordan 12s semi pro baseball player, too.

Jordan: You know about Mr. Nike, who also did a brief stint in the minor leagues for the Chicago White Sox. He’s the greatest basketball player of all time. Flag in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. (As a matter of fact, I’m reading the book right now).

Jim Brown was a bad man, one of the legendary running backs in NFL history and quite a lacrosse player in college.

Bo Jackson: Bo knows baseball and football, as the commercial said. Even a few days ago, Brad Ausmus was saying Jackson was the best athlete he had ever seen.

Michael Bourn: Loves to talk brag about his basketball skills.

Darin Erstad: Great college punter on some of Nebraska’s best teams, great speed, good baseball career.

Reggie Abercrombie: He’s joked that as a star football quarterback, he was Vince Young without throwing ability. Ouch, guess he really, really couldn’t throw.

Brandon Backe: A former outfielder and quarterback at Galveston Ball High.

Is Michael Phelps really a great athlete or just a great swimmer? Who would you rather have on your rec league baseball team, flag football team, basketball team, volleyball team of these players: Berkman, Phelps, Michael Bourn, Darin Erstad or Brandon Backe?

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Billygoat will never see this in track field correct, because it much more difficult than repeating in swimming. As I mentioned previously, collecting a bunch of medals in swimming is historically common. It not unusual for a swimmer to pick up a few medals. Phelp accomplishments pale in comparison to, say, Carl Lewis 2 sprint medals along with a long jump medal.

Look at the basketball team; this involves speed, quickness, jumping ability, specific skills, etc. They play several games against different opponents. Yet, they only can get ONE medal. Maybe we should have 3 on 3, 2 on 2, 1 on 1 and also half court with each one,too. Then they could all have a chance at 7 8 medals. The skills are different at these also but, like swimming, one person could surely compete in all of them.

Like I said, if it wasn for the fact that swimming lends itself to multiple awards, nobody would be paying nearly as much attention to Phelps or ranking him with the greatest athletes of all time. The fans you speak of like to see lots of shiny things.

Phelps is the greatest swimmer of all time, but surely not the greatest athlete. Not even close. Swimming events are MUCH more repetitive than running events why you don ever see someone winning the 100, 200, 400, 800, hurdles,etc. Isn it obvious when so many swimmers in the past have copped multiple medals? Give Phelps his props, but he in a sport where collecting a stockpile of medals is much easier. Without that stockpile, he would never get the attention he gets, nor the consideration for greatest athlete.

Professional baseball is the biggest joke of a sport as are most professional sports. Any spirit has been sucked away by commercialism, greed, doping, and warped celebrity players that exist with so much entitlement it makes me sick. To be a great athlete (beyond physical ability and championships) requires inspiration that comes from loving the act of competing in that sport. A desire to be at your best and be challenged win or lose. Phelps definitely is a great athlete in this sense, and, oh, just so happens to have won 7 golds and broke 6 world records in the last five days (what did you accomplish this week?) not to mention competing in his third Olympics at age 23.

Is he diverse? As a swimmer myself I can appreciate just how difficult it is to be great at multiple strokes and distances be a world champ at so many is unbelievable. Nike KD 7 You will never see this in track and field.

Clearly, anyone who doesn put Phelps in that category of athlete knows nothing about swimming, nor about the true spirit of sport. Its sad just how ignorant and pop culture centric (not to mention Air Jordan CDP American centric) most athletes and fans really are.