The cricket player Donald Bradman [1] is the outlier among outliers. Even compared to greats like Michael Jordan, the statistical significance of his achievements almost defy belief.
Marion Tinsley may be the best checkers player of all time, but his achievements are nowhere near unbelievable given the nature of the sport and achievements that are similar to his. Statistically, Donald Bradman is much more of an outlier when compared to other people who have played his sport.
physical sports sometimes come with sustainable competive advantages
until he gets old, LeBron is always going exceptionally big, and athletic
in contrast, checkers exists on a much more fragile competive advantage
To understand how Bradman’s 99.94 average compares with other batsmen,
consider that a typical topflight batsman has an average in the range 45 to
55. Batsmen with averages above 55 are once-in-a-generation phenomena who
dominate the entire game. After Bradman, the second highest average in
history [2] belongs to South African Graeme Pollock, with 60.97, and the
third highest to West Indian George Headley, with 60.83.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_McKay
> When she retired in 1981 at the age of 40, McKay had gone nearly 20 years undefeated (with the only two defeats to her name occurring at the beginning of her career).
Interestingly, both come from Australia.
I wonder how he would've fared against the present day Akhtars, Akhrams, Donalds, Steyns, Warnes or Muralitharans.
Would older greats have stood out as much faced with the technological and biological advances of the present day?
During the recent radio coverage of the current Ashes tour, between England and Australia, I heard a great quote about Sir Donald Bradman, the famous Australian cricket player. It went as follows: In the 1980s, England's fast bowler Bob Willis had the fortune to meet Sir Donald Bradman, legend of cricket. Bradman had been the dominant player from the 1930s and 1940s and the Australian had amassed stats that are unlikely ever to be bettered. Willis was keen to get The Don's view on what he might have averaged if he had played in the modern game. Bradman looked at Willis and replied that he reckoned that he would have averaged about fifty runs per game. Willis expressed surprise, having thought that the great man might have expected to have averaged more. Bradman looked Willis in the eye and then responded along the lines of "Well, I am in my seventies now!".
from http://www.sportinglife360.com/index.php/donald-bradman-cric...
I think he would do just fine today.
Don't forget, in Bradman's time, there were no covered pitches, leg side theory was legal, batmen didn't wear helmets or much in the way of protection (and bowlers weren't that much slower than they are now).