Greatest Athletes By Number - #1

Wow this is a tough one right off the bat. There are many greats who wore the #1 and they come from different sports which makes it harder to choose just one. Here is the ballot and you can make your choice.

- Warren Moon, was a CFL pioneer winning five Grey Cups which is equal to the NFL's Super Bowl. He threw for over 49,000 yards and 291 touchdowns in 17 NFL seasons. He was a pioneer for the African American quarterback in the NFL. I know he broke my heart several times with spectacular games against my Bengals.

- Oscar Robertson, The Big "O" maybe the greatest all-around player to play the game. In just his second season he averaged a triple-double which is probably the most difficult stat to accomplish in the NBA. He scored over 26,000 points during his 14-year career. He played for Cincinnati in college and the pros, which is a plus from me.

- I personally have to place my vote for this number with the "Wizard" of Baseball. Ozzie Smith transformed the shortstop position with his amazing defense and of course who can forget his signature backflip. Alot of my early baseball memories growing up in Cincinnati are of watching Ozzie Smith play shortstop. The range that he posessed was second to none and it almost literally seemed like he was performing magic with some of the spectacular plays he made. He won the Gold Glove award from 1979-1992, went to 15 All-Star games and stole over 500 bases. Probably not considered one of the greatest baseball players because of his lack of power, but he definitely made an impact on the game like no other. I never saw anything but a smile on his face and you could truly tell he loved the game of baseball.

A few others to consider were Pee Wee Reese, Billy Martin and Sadahuru Oh who set the world record for home runs hit with 868 home runs over his 22 year career with the Tokyo Giants, would have been interesting to see what he could have done in the MLB.

Greatest Athletes By Number - #00

I am going to attempt to start going through and getting opinions on who you believe is the greatest athlete at each jersey starting at #00-#99.

There are not many who wore the #00 in sports, but there were a few that could get the best at this number.

My choice for this number is Robert Parish of the Boston Celtics, Charlotte Hornets and Chicago Bulls. Robert Parish played the most games ever for an NBA player at 1611. I am not a huge NBA fan so you probably will not see many make it through on my list, but when Parish played are the days of the NBA that I remember the most. He was a very unselfish player who won 4 NBA championships with the Celtics and Bulls, was a 9-time All-Star and was selected as one of the NBA's best 50 players. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

The only other player I could find of any popularity with this number was Jim Otta, Oakland Raiders center in the 60's and 70's.