In a lot of ways, Curt Schilling is the Manny Ramirez of pitchers. Ramirez never won a league MVP award, which is a glaring hole on any elite baseball resume, and he alienated fans and Hall-of-Fame voters with his alleged PED use. Similarly, Schilling never won a Cy Young award, which leaves a glaring hole on any elite baseball resume, and he alienated fans and Hall-of-Fame voters with ignorant rhetoric. Neither are sympathetic figures, which leaves both historically underrated strictly from a production standpoint. Now, let’s not get it twisted. Any knowledgeable baseball fan knows that Schilling was a fantastic starting pitcher. However, like Ramirez, it’s just how fantastic that seems to get lost in the noise.
The two most important traits a pitcher can have are limiting contact and avoiding walks. Schilling’s arsenal might have featured the best mix the league has ever seen. He is the only pitcher since 1920 to pitch 3,000+ innings with a K/BB ratio of at least 4.38. He led the league in strikeout-to-walk ratio five times, which is the most by any pitcher to debut since 1927. He’s the only pitcher in history with 3,000+ strikeouts and fewer than 715 walks. Schilling and Juan Marichal are the only two pitchers since 1920 with at least 215 career wins and fewer than 715 walks. What makes Schilling’s power/control mix so remarkable is that he was able to maintain it while also being one of the preeminent workhorses in Major League Baseball. He’s the last pitcher to throw back-to-back seasons of 250 innings, and he led the league in complete games four times. Since 1988, only Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux have more complete games. Perhaps most impressive is that he’s the last pitcher to have three seasons of at least 21 wins. In fact, he might be the last pitcher ever to accomplish that feat.
The comparison to Ramirez extends beyond the regular season. Schilling’s regular-season numbers are Hall of Fame-worthy on their own, but it’s the success he had in the postseason that makes him one of the most unique pitchers baseball has ever seen. In 133 and 1/3 career postseason innings, Schilling went 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA and .97 WHIP, while winning three World Series titles in four appearances. He was named the 1993 NLCS MVP and 2001 World Series MVP. He holds the record for most innings pitched in a single postseason without a loss (48 and 1/3 in 2001). His 56 strikeouts in the 2001 postseason are nine more in a single postseason than anyone else in history. He holds the record for Win Probability added in a single postseason (2.1 in 2001), and he has the highest postseason winning percentage among starting pitchers with at least 55 postseason innings. Schilling–like Ramirez–has given baseball fans and Hall-of Fame voters plenty of ammunition to look everywhere other than the back of his baseball card. Those who do will discover one of the greatest postseason pitchers in history, and one of the most accurate workhorses the league has ever seen.
If I told you that a basketball player averaged 22.5 rebounds per game, then you’d probably be quite impressed. If I told you that same basketball player averaged 15.1 points per game on just 44% shooting, then you’d probably ask what high school this player played for? The thing is: this was the NBA, not high school, and the player was Bill Russell. Russell’s offensive shortcomings become even more apparent when considering that only 21% of NBA players were taller than 6’ 7 when Russell entered the league. Russell was, of course, 6’10, and quite likely the most athletic player in the league. I’m routinely struck by two questions when looking at Russell’s stat line: 1). How can an NBA player pull down 22.5 rebounds per game, yet only shoot 44% from the field, and 2). How watered down does a league have to be for one player to average 22.5 rebounds per game? The quality of play early on in the NBA was closer to a high school basketball game than it is to today’s NBA. By all means, celebrate the early superstars, but the last four decades of basketball have been so much more competitive that Russell’s accomplishments in the 1960s are no more impressive than what a perennial all-star accomplishes today, and that’s being generous.
One of the easiest logic traps to succumb to as a sports fan is to romanticize athletes who competed in small and competitively weak leagues during their infancies. Take the early days of the NBA, for example. There were anywhere from 8-10 teams in the NBA from 1951-1967. That means that a player only needed to be better than 40-50 other starters to win an NBA MVP award, and NBA teams only needed to be better than 7-9 teams to win an NBA Championship. For the last three decades, the NBA has had ~ 30 teams. That means a current MVP winner must be better than ~149 other starters to win an MVP, and an NBA team must be better than 29 other teams to win an NBA Championship. Additionally, current NBA teams have to win 16 playoff games to win a championship, while only eight games were needed to win a championship for much of the 60s. So, when you’re looking at Bill Russell’s 5 MVPs, and 11 championships, make sure to acknowledge that it was three times easier for him to win an MVP and a championship than any player who has played in the last 30 years, and twice as easy as a player from the 70s and 80s. Also, be sure to note that there were virtually zero international players in the NBA, no athletic players taller than 6 ’9, and unofficial race quotes limited the black population in the league to roughly a quarter (it has been at 70%+ since the late 70s). There is nothing wrong with claiming that Bill Russell was one of the greatest players in the early days of the NBA. However, we start to lose touch with reality when we conflate the statistics, awards, and accolades that were achieved in the weakest era the NBA has ever seen, with those achieved in a robust, highly competitive, fully globalized league.
Now that we’ve established that Russell played on easy mode, let’s get into his statistics to see if he cooked on easy mode. Let’s assume that Russell didn’t play in the smallest, weakest era in NBA history. In fact, let’s take his competition level at face value. If he truly should be included in the GOAT discussion, then Russell on easy mode should’ve cooked like an Iron Chef, right? Well, that’s not exactly how it went down. Russell never finished in the top 10 in scoring, nor did he lead the league in Player Efficiency Rating (PER) or Win Shares. He only finished in the top 10 in free throw attempts just once and the top 10 in field goal % just four times, despite being an athletic marvel. In fact, Bill Russell’s entire legacy seems to be tied to the fact that he was a strong rebounder, yet he led the league in rebounding just five times. Other players who led the NBA in rebounding five times, and did so in a significantly more competitive era with three times as many players to battle for the league lead against? Dennis Rodman, Moses Malone, and Dwight Howard. Heck, Andre Drummond led the league in rebounding four times. Perhaps the most telling element on Russell’s resume is that he was selected as a 1st Team All-NBA center just three times. Other centers to be named 1st Team All-NBA center more than three times? George Mikan, Neil Johnston, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Dwight Howard, and Nikola Jokic.
Bill Russell should be celebrated as one of the first great players in the NBA, and his Boston Celtics superteams should be lauded as arguably the greatest dynasty in NBA history. It’s not unreasonable to crown him the second greatest player from the first three decades of the NBA. In my opinion, that list looks like this (debuted by 1960):
1). Wilt Chamberlain
2). Bill Russell
3). Jerry West
4). Oscar Robertson
5). Elgin Baylor
6). George Mikan
7). Bob Pettit
8). Bob Cousy
9). Paul Arizin
10). Dolph Schayes
However, any attempt to compare these players with modern day players needs to begin squarely with the elephant of all caveats, which is how weak the competition level was and how much easier it was to win championships and awards due to the small size and demographic makeup of the league. Most of the players on the list above have been vastly overvalued by many publications and list-makers because the curators of those lists don’t take into account the most fundamental consideration for all GOAT lists: competition level. Russell was great… in his era. The whole matrix starts to fall apart when we try to apply that same statement across all eras.
There seems to be some disconnect regarding whether Robert Lewandowski has been one of the top players of his generation, which is staggering considering the evidence is everywhere. Being mesmerized by Messi and Ronaldo can do that to people. Let’s get the notion of Lewandowski’s relevance out of the way now: He is one of only four players in history to win both the FIFA World Player of the Year and World Soccer magazine’s World Player of the Year twice each. The others are Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Ronaldo (R9). Where anyone chooses to rate Lewandowski comes down to personal choice, of course, but there is no doubt that he is one of the most accomplished soccer players in the history of the sport.
There should be little question that Messi and Ronaldo are the two greatest footballers of all-time. Their accomplishments are in a different stratosphere than anyone who has ever played the game considering their competition level. Pele, of course, was a word-class player who was the long serving GOAT following his legendary exploits on the pitch in–and for–Brazil, but it’s difficult to compare Pele and the other great players of his era like Eusebio, Garrincha, and Alfredo Di Stefano to the juggernauts that are Messi and Ronaldo. Domestic league competition in the mid-20th century was considerably more diluted than what we see today. Pele did his cooking in a Brazilian state league, which is similar to LeBron James playing all of his games in the Mid-American Conference (MAC). While Pele’s star has been surpassed by the two mega-stars of this era, the player who joins Pele as Messi and Ronaldo’s closest galactic neighbor is Robert Lewandowski. There’s no question that Lewy is a known commodity in the soccer world, but his resume is much, much more historically significant than most realize. In fact, when it comes to doing things that had previously never been done before in a Big 5 domestic league, he’s the closest to Messi and Ronaldo that we have ever seen.
The argument for Lewandowski is as easy as they come. He’s one of only four players in history to win the FIFA Player of the Year award in consecutive years. The others? Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Ronaldo. He has led a Big 5 domestic league in goals a record eight times. Not even the great Cristiano Ronaldo can say the same. He scored at least 10 goals in four different UEFA Champions League seasons (UCL). Only Messi and Ronaldo have duplicated that feat. He scored 41 goals for Bayern in 2020-2021. Only Messi and Ronaldo scored more in a single Big 5 domestic league season. He scored 15 goals in the 2019-2020 UCL season. Only Ronaldo scored more in a UCL season. He scored at least 13 goals on two different occasions in the UCL. Only Ronaldo did it more often. Lewandowski has 105 career UCL goals. Only Messi and Ronaldo scored more. Lewandowski’s UCL goals per game ratio stands at .79. Among players with at least 50 UCL goals, only Messi has a better ratio. Lewandowski has 381 (and counting) Big 5 domestic league goals. Only Ronaldo and Messi have more. Lewandowski has 13 Big 5 domestic league seasons with at least 27 goal contributions (goals + assists) and 11 Big 5 domestic league seasons with at least 29 goal contributions. Only Messi and Ronaldo have more. He has five Big 5 domestic league seasons with at least 30 goals. Only Messi and Ronaldo have more. Lewandowski scored a hat trick in the UCL for three different clubs. Nobody has ever equaled that feat and it’s possible nobody ever will. Lewy has six UCL hat tricks. Only Messi and Ronaldo have more.
Keep in mind that while Lewy’s Bayern Munich club never hurt for talent, he didn’t have the luxury of playing with Xavi, Iniesta, Luis Suarez, Neymar, and Mbappe like Messi did, or Benzema, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, and a prime Gareth Bale like Ronaldo did. It’s not hard to imagine Lewandowski’s goal contributions inflating in a lineup featuring some of the greatest players the sport has ever seen. It’s also not hard to imagine his raw statistics inching even closer to the land of the absurd had he the benefit of a 38-game schedule like Messi and Ronaldo had in La Liga. The Bundesliga–where Lewandowski played for 12 seasons–is the only Big 5 domestic league that plays a 34-game schedule. That amounts to a 48-game deficit over the course of his career compared to rivals from the other Big 5 domestic leagues.
It’s pretty clear that Lewandowski’s domestic league and Champions League production are more impressive than any non-Messi, non-Ronaldo footballer who has ever taken the pitch. Where he would appear to fall short are his contributions on the international stage, but looks can be deceiving. Lewandowski’s home country of Poland has not been an international force since the late 70s/early 80s. Poland’s typical roster looks nothing like the loaded rosters that Messi and Ronaldo have had the luxury of playing with for Argentina and Portugal, respectively. Messi has achieved massive acclaim for his country. He led Argentina to one of the great international runs as La Abiceleste emerged victorious at both the 2021 and 2024 Copa Americas as well as the 2022 World Cup. Add in a 2nd place finish at the 2014 World Cup and Messi is clearly one of the great international performers of all-time. Ronaldo doesn’t have the trophy case to match Messi’s, but his international run with Portugal has been impressive in its own right. Ronaldo won the 2016 UEFA Euros, finished 2nd in 2004, and reached the semi-finals at both the 2006 World Cup and 2012 Euros. Ronaldo (138) and Messi (112) are, far and away, the top international goal scorers of all-time.
However, given the talent advantages that Ronaldo and Messi have had with Portugal and Argentina, Lewandowski’s contributions with Poland should not be overlooked. Prior to Lewy joining the Polish National Team, Poland had qualified for the Euros just once in its history. Since 2012, Poland has qualified for four consecutive Euros including its best ever finish (5th) in 2016. Lewandowski also helped Poland qualify for back-to-back World Cups in ‘18 and ‘22 for only the second time since 1986. His 85 international goals are the 7th most in history.
It’s doubtful that Lewandowski will be universally recognized as a top-3 or top-5 player of all-time due to factors outside of his control. He doesn’t have the same marketability or name recognition as many of the great players of his era. Poland is not a soccer powerhouse which means his status as a national icon is somewhat muted in a way that players like Messi, Ronaldo, and Mbappe will never be. The Bundesliga does not get the same attention as the Premier League or La Liga, nor does it have a 38-game schedule. However, the numbers, accolades, and the degree of difficulty are there to justify his standing as the greatest non-Messi, non-Ronaldo footballer of the last 50 years.
