What's the most overrated accomplishment in sports?

[x129]

Scratch  is much harde than a 2:53 marathon. I would go with something like ~10 but I do know lots of good distance runners. Finishing a marathon is easy (see all the fat or out of shape people who can do it). Racing one  is hard.

Now a 1.46.4 800m would be like +4 or so. It gets you the finals in the US national championship in a lot years. Maybe not quite PGA level but you would definitely be on the nationwide.

I don't see how being there can be over rated as no one in the world rates it at all.

Holes in one are probably the most over rated.  Just need to play a 10k 130 yard par 3s and you will get a couple.....

Originally Posted by TourSpoon

Still, running a 2:53 is amazing and probably the equivalent of "scratch" or +1.

[bplewis24]

I wouldn't consider a hail mary much of an accomplishment, so I voted for the "no hitter."  I honestly wish they would get rid of the statistic or at least stop promoting it.  Last year or the year before a guy threw a no-hitter with 9 (!) walks.  And they were celebrating.  Eventually a guy will throw a CG, no-hitter and lose...hopefully.

Brandon

[darkhunter139]

Originally Posted by TitleistWI

Being in the stands.  Anyone can buy a ticket to a game, no big deal there.

I disagree.  I have been to a few amazing sports events that I will never forget.  Its more about getting lucky and ending up at the ball park during a perfect game/amazing comeback  ect.

[x129]

Already happened.

Quote:

On April 23, 1964, Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt 45's became the only pitcher to lose a complete game no-hitter in nine innings when he was beaten 1-0 by Cincinnati. The winning run was scored by Pete Rose in the top of the ninth inning via an error, groundout, and another error. In 1967, Steve Barber and Stu Miller of the Baltimore Orioles pitched a combined no-hitter, but lost 2-1 to the Detroit Tigers .

Quote:

Three pitchers – Silver King (1890), Andy Hawkins (1990), and Matt Young (1992) – have lost eight-inning unofficial no-hitters where the home team won the game. They are not credited with no-hitters because they did not go nine innings

A lot of stats are just lucky streaks/flukes. As a player, would you rather than a 57 game hitting streak with 57 hits or 100 hits in those 57 games but have a couple games where you don't get a hit. As basketball player isn't 40-9-9 better than 10-10-10 in pretty much every case even though one isn't even a double double. And so on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bplewis24

I wouldn't consider a hail mary much of an accomplishment, so I voted for the "no hitter."  I honestly wish they would get rid of the statistic or at least stop promoting it.  Last year or the year before a guy threw a no-hitter with 9 (!) walks.  And they were celebrating.  Eventually a guy will throw a CG, no-hitter and lose...hopefully.

Brandon

[baseballfrk8998]

The Miami Heat...

But I guess that wouldn't be a good answer because of the word accomplishment.. I guess if you left that out and only included overrated then you'd have your answer..

[Dartguy]

Hole in one has to be right at the top of the list.  There are tour pros that have never had one. And there are complete duffers that have had more than one.  I remember seeing a video of a hockey player, playing for the first time (maybe) acing a hole in a celeb tourney!

Of course, I may just be bitter.

[clubchamp]

Double Double... they are fairly common anymore

No hitter... still a tall order at any level of baseball even with walks

Howe hat trick... nothing impressive about it

Regular hat trick... tough one to accomplish on a regular basis but I'm not amazed when it happens

Hole in one... hands down the hardest thing to attain on list

Marathon... this one is tough because it's not about being competitive 95% of the people have no chance of competing when the race starts. I think it's more based on what are your goals in terms of finishing the marathon if you have a 4 hour goal and beat it that's an accomplishment. I've run 2 and beat both my goals the first one was 3:30 and the 2nd was 3 hours. I felt like I accomplished something both times but to say finish a marathon isn't really an accomplishment.

Being there... not really an accomplishment more of a I was lucky enough to be there

Bowling a 300... a tough thing to do but it happens quite often with professional or even very good bowlers in general

I voted other since really each sport has it's own accomplishments that are very hard to attain.

[LankyLefty]

To me the most overrated "Accomplishment" in sports is getting drafted (or signed).

It wasn't too long ago that the average signing bonus for an international baseball prospect was 10,000 dollars and if you were super talented maybe 25 or 30 grand. Now they get millions for looking like they might one day be a good player.

Basketball has a slotting system I guess so it may be the least silly of the 3 major US sports but still every year half of the first round cashes a 3 million dollar check and then gets sent to the d league or ends up buried on the back of a bench. Basketball has the most busts of any sport...

But football has the biggest busts of any sport. Jamarcus Russel made roughly 100x what the average American makes in a life time in 2 years, and all he did was get fat and be so bad not even the most dysfunctional sports franchise of the past decade wanted him. Football lore is full of overpaid overhyped high draft picks who collected checks worth half the GDP of a small country and then were never heard from again.

Getting drafted is the most overhyped shit in American Sports by far.

[WUTiger]

Once upon a time, rushing for 1,000 yards in a college football season was quite an accomplishment. When college football Div. 1 went to 11 games, the feat was somewhat diminished. Since 2006 Div. 1 teams have 12 regular-season games, plus better teams also have a bowl game, and some top teams a conference championship game prior to bowl season.

Now, some conferences don't allow bowl game stats to count in season comparison totals. But still, rushing for 1,000 yards in twelve games rather than the original 10 diminishes the feat.

[bplewis24]

Originally Posted by WUTiger

Once upon a time, rushing for 1,000 yards in a college football season was quite an accomplishment. When college football Div. 1 went to 11 games, the feat was somewhat diminished. Since 2006 Div. 1 teams have 12 regular-season games, plus better teams also have a bowl game, and some top teams a conference championship game prior to bowl season.

Now, some conferences don't allow bowl game stats to count in season comparison totals. But still, rushing for 1,000 yards in twelve games rather than the original 10 diminishes the feat.

Well, you can imagine how diminished the feat is in the NFL.  Some RBs can start for just over half of their team's games after coming off injury and get to 1,000 yards.  I think Jamal Charles has technically been the "backup" running back for the Chiefs the past two seasons and eclipsed the mark.

Brandon

[Timmy]

Great point.  Some teams have even had 2 players rush for 1,000 in the same season.  The 08 Giants, the 09 Panthers.  Now CJ2k has set a whole new standard for "good yardage" in a single season.  It doesn't take much in the NFL to get 1,000.

Originally Posted by bplewis24

Well, you can imagine how diminished the feat is in the NFL.  Some RBs can start for just over half of their team's games after coming off injury and get to 1,000 yards.  I think Jamal Charles has technically been the "backup" running back for the Chiefs the past two seasons and eclipsed the mark.

Brandon

[baseballfrk8998]

Originally Posted by Timmy

Great point.  Some teams have even had 2 players rush for 1,000 in the same season.  The 08 Giants, the 09 Panthers.  Now CJ2k has set a whole new standard for "good yardage" in a single season.  It doesn't take much in the NFL to get 1,000.

1600+ yards in an NFL season is a real accomplishment.. 2000+ is amazing. 1600 yards in a season is 100 yards per game, which shows great consistency.. 2000 yards in a season is 125 yards per game and that is just hard to believe with as much as teams have went to passing the ball with the west coast style offenses and such..

[turtleback]

I'll probably take flack for this but for me the most overrated achievement is sports is Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak.

He hit .408 during the streak while Ted Williams hit .406 for the WHOLE YEAR.  He had a .717 slugging percentage for the streak while Ted Williams had a .735 slugging percentage for the WHOLE YEAR.  During the streak his On Base Percentage was .463 while  Ted Williams' OBP was .553 for the WHOLE YEAR.  Ted Williams performed at a higher level for the entire year than Dimaggio did for his streak.  The fact that he had the streak was a bit of a  fluke.  Finally, during the same time period of Dimaggio's streak when he hit .408, recall) Williams actually hit .412, andhe reached base 15 times more than Dimaggio did.

[sean_miller]

Even in the steroids era nobody came close to that record. Ted Williams was a better player, and had a better season, but the streak is what it is. Amazing!

Originally Posted by turtleback

I'll probably take flack for this but for me the most overrated achievement is sports is Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak.

He hit .408 during the streak while Ted Williams hit .406 for the WHOLE YEAR.  He had a .717 slugging percentage for the streak while Ted Williams had a .735 slugging percentage for the WHOLE YEAR.  During the streak his On Base Percentage was .463 while  Ted Williams' OBP was .553 for the WHOLE YEAR.  Ted Williams performed at a higher level for the entire year than Dimaggio did for his streak.  The fact that he had the streak was a bit of a  fluke.  Finally, during the same time period of Dimaggio's streak when he hit .408, recall) Williams actually hit .412, andhe reached base 15 times more than Dimaggio did.

[bplewis24]

I don't think that's underrated as much as it underscores how impressive Ted Williams' season was.  Hit streaks are definitely potentially overrated, but I don't think this one was.  If a guy averages .250 during a hitting streak, that's overrated.  But .408?  That's still impressive.  Ted Williams just had a ridiculously insane season.

Brandon

[baseballfrk8998]

Originally Posted by bplewis24

I don't think that's underrated as much as it underscores how impressive Ted Williams' season was.  Hit streaks are definitely potentially overrated, but I don't think this one was.  If a guy averages .250 during a hitting streak, that's overrated.  But .408?  That's still impressive.  Ted Williams just had a ridiculously insane season.

Brandon

+1

Hitting .408 for 50+ games, almost 1/3 of a season, is ridiculous. The fact that 2 guys did it in the same time frame is even more amazing. When you're batting .408 for 50+ games then nothing you do is a fluke, that's consistency my friend.

[x129]

It is a fluke in the sense that williams hit .412  (I am assuming that is right) and didn't have a longer streak (I think his max was 22 if a quick google was right). To some extend streaks signify consistency but a lot of time they are just luck.  When you only have 4-5 samples a game, you need to be really talented and really lucky to get a long streak

Originally Posted by baseballfrk8998

+1

Hitting .408 for 50+ games, almost 1/3 of a season, is ridiculous. The fact that 2 guys did it in the same time frame is even more amazing. When you're batting .408 for 50+ games then nothing you do is a fluke, that's consistency my friend.

[baseballfrk8998]

Originally Posted by x129

It is a fluke in the sense that williams hit .412  (I am assuming that is right) and didn't have a longer streak (I think his max was 22 if a quick google was right). To some extend streaks signify consistency but a lot of time they are just luck.  When you only have 4-5 samples a game, you need to be really talented and really lucky to get a long streak

Well I do agree with both of your statements. It does amaze me that Ted Williams never had a hit streak that long considering what a great hitter he was. The luck factor comes with anything though. You have to be lucky to hit .412. Every hit Ted Williams had that year wasn't a line shot to center or a homerun. He had some seeing-eye singles and little bloopers mixed in there I'm sure. I know the comparison isn't great, but I'm just trying to make the point that you always have to have some sort of luck on your side at some point to accomplish anything significant such as a 50 game hit streak or batting .400+ for an entire year.