Sports captures something important about human culture and society. Literary critic Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) [294893] observed that “sports communicate a code, a language of the emotions, and a tourist who skips the stadiums will not recoup his losses at Lincoln Center or Grant's Tomb.”

Even if you don't give a hoot about sports, skim though this chapter. Think of it as crib notes for a test on cultural literacy. Who are the most significant male and female athletes of all time? The leading figures in boxing, football, hockey, tennis, and golf? What makes James Naismith (1861–1939) [847] a more important basketball figure than Michael Jordan (1963–) [1115]?

Sports is a domain that generally interests men much more than women. Yet we will identify one professional sport where basic gender equality holds: its ten most significant athletes are equally split between men and women.

Individual Sports

We start by looking at professional sports where athletes compete as individuals: boxing, tennis, golf, and horse racing. We defer analysis of historically amateur Olympic sports like track and field to Section 12.3.

BOXING

Boxers appear to have been the earliest class of professional athletes to achieve widespread renown. The earliest bare-knuckle champion of England was James Figg (1695–1734) [31351], who won the title in 1719. Boxing was a particularly rough business before the 1860s, when the sport became standardized by the Marquess of Queensberry rules (established by John Douglas (1844–1900) [9223]). The shift from bare-knuckle to gloved boxing followed shortly thereafter, with John L. Sullivan (1858–1918) [4542] being the major transitional figure.