True "Machines" in Sports

As the NFL lockout persists and Major League Baseball’s leisure entertainment week (also known as the All-Star break) draws near, there isn’t much manifesting in the sports world that would strike a fan as ‘compelling’ at the moment. Wimbledon came and went as fast as my twenty-first birthday, Tiger Woods announced he’ll skip the British Open (which came as no surprise), and both Derek Jeter and Albert Pujols were activated from their teams’ respective disabled lists.

Wait… Albert Pujols is back already?

That was the first thought when my Yahoo! Mail page read: “Pujols set to return to Cardinals line-up” on the sports ticker Monday. My second thought was: “I’m seriously beginning to think that Albert Pujols is really a machine.” It can’t just be a nickname. Who returns from a wrist injury a month ahead of schedule? In a sport where minute injuries morph into nagging ones? Without taking the “S” word into consideration, Pujols recovered from a 6-week injury in a mere 15 days plainly because he is one of the freak athletes in sports today. Which got me thinking…

What other “Machines” are roaming the planet today? This couldn’t have happened at a better time, considering the Transformers 3 explosion and its recent $116 million opening weekend. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m guessing it has something to do with Shia LaBeouf saving the world from evil robots with the help of heroic robots. Anyways, here’s a top-ten list of the incumbent “Machines” in sports, taking into account dominance, physical ability, durability, longevity, and pure machine-like performance.

10. LeBron James

Let’s start by getting this guy out of the way. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s best known for intellectual tweets and his cartoon show entitled “The LeBrons”, which I’m sure depicts his life in the utmost accurate fashion. Every young basketball fan can’t wait to watch this show every Saturday morning.

Okay, I’m done with the sarcasm. LeBron is known for a lot of things – most of those things far from commendable – but there’s no denying how dominant he can be on the basketball court. At times. This is why I’m placing him at 10, because he’s proven more than once that his dominance as a sheer athlete won’t translate to every possible circumstance as a basketball player. He displayed so once in game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals, but never again did so in a time of supreme pressure.

However, his machine-like qualities as a 6-foot-8, 265-pound freight train with both size and speed, mesmerizing durability and stamina, and the ability to finish at the basket unlike nearly any other player in the history of the sport is enough to throw him in the list. And that’s all you need.

9. Dirk Nowitzki

Just read this column, then re-watch the NBA Finals and watch him make nearly every shot when it counted. Watch him hit every free throw. Watch him hit nearly every three pointer. Watch him make every one-legged fade away jumper. Dirk Nowitzki is a shooting machine, and now he’s an NBA champion. He’s probably not as machine-like as LeBron James, but James doesn’t deserve to be ahead of Nowitzki in any type of list at this point.

8. Randy Couture

In a sport where a fighter’s average age is 29.5 years old and its youngest competitors enter the sport around age 20, it’s miraculous that Randy Couture is still fighting – and winning – at age 48. Despite his latest loss (a brutal knockout defeat to Lyoto Machida), “The Natural” still obtains a 19-11 professional record and has won three of his last four bouts. He’s one of the most popular and likeable figures in the UFC and the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, and will probably fight until he’s dragged out of the cage. Unlike Brett Favre, it’s a guarantee that Couture will leave the sport with graciousness and an undeniable ovation of respect. The three-time UFC Heavyweight champion and three-time Light Heavyweight champion is already a member of the UFC Hall of Fame, and will be an everlasting face of the UFC franchise. Randy Couture is the Optimus Prime of sports longevity.

7. Peyton Manning

Last year, I created a term called “Peyton Manning boredom” to describe Georges St. Pierre, who was running through UFC competition with such ease that his indescribable talents were being overlooked. As a matter of fact, he’s still doing that. But that’s what makes Peyton Manning so machine-like. He literally attains the ability to matriculate his team down the field with such ease that it makes a 2-minute, 80-yard drive seem commonplace in the NFL. His commercials are sometimes more entertaining than his play on the field. When the top 100 NFL players of 2011 were recently revealed, it wasn’t a shock that Manning wasn’t number one. But one thing’s for sure: He’s the only machine on that list, and he has 208 consecutive starts under center to back it up.

6. Blake Griffin

Blake Griffin isn’t just a machine, he’s a machine put on this earth by actual robots to dunk on every opponent in his way, which will render a 2-hour dunkathon highlight video by the time his career is over. I don’t know how many dunks Griffin had this past NBA season, but it had to be somewhere between 700 and 800. And they were all incredibly and utterly violent, yet beautiful. He might just win every dunk contest for the next ten years. My foremost description of Blake Griffin can’t be denied: He’s the best pure athlete in the NBA right now. And he’s only 22 years old.

5. Sasha Vujacic

Just kidding. He’s still waiting on the batteries he never received.

4. Cliff Lee

Cliff Lee is like the poker player you can never figure out. To expand on that analogy, he’s like the guy who generates a substantial chip lead in the first few days of the World Series of Poker because he’s so aggressive, except Lee is that aggressive yet picks his spots like Daniel Negreanu. His career playoff record is 7-2 with a 2.13 ERA, a WHIP less than 1 and a strikeout-to-walk ratio at a staggeringly immaculate number of 10 to 1. He’s averaged less than one walk per nine innings in his postseason career. And he’s done it all with a cool and collected, it’s-not-that-big-a-deal charisma. There’s no way he’s human.

3. Albert Pujols

Ten straight years of at least 140 games played, 175 hits, 100 RBI’s, 30 home runs, a .300 batting average, .550 slugging percentage, .400 on base percentage, and .950 OPS. If Albert Pujols attains those averages for another ten years, we're possibly looking at the greatest player in the history of baseball. Put that machine in perspective.

2. Mariano Rivera

I wonder what it feels like to know, without any ounce of doubt in your mind whatsoever, that you have the game won when leading heading into the ninth inning. Yankees fans have felt that experience for the last 16 years.

1. Georges St. Pierre

First, look at his physique. It is physically impossible to look like a superhero without being an actual superhero. Second, watch him fight. He hasn’t come close to losing a UFC fight since Matt Serra upset him in April 2007. He hasn’t even left the octagon with scratches on his face. He’s been annihilating contenders with technique, grace, dominance, and doing so in unprecedented fashion. There are literally no flaws or holes in his fighting approach, and he hasn’t portrayed an inch of vulnerability in eight straight title defenses. The undisputed UFC Welterweight champion is literally expected to win every fight until he faces someone of another weight class, which is highly unlikely. As of right now, Georges St. Pierre is the most dominant athlete in sports because he is the only athlete that will render a collective gasp of utter shock when he fails. If he ever fails.