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25| W aterloo C hronicle | T hursday,June 21,2018 w aterloochronicle.ca Buy and sell in your neighbourhood. Tradyo Turns Your Clutter Into Cash. Chat Call orText Lifejacket Posted by MikeToolGuy $15 Visit www.Tradyo.com DON'T LET YOUR VEHICLE L EASE CHAIN YO U DOWN. BUST OUT . LeaseBusters.com is the largest vehicle lease marketplace in Canada - we'll unlock you from your vehicle lease commitment... save time, early termination fees and penalties. Call now for a free consultation 1-888-357-2678 or visit us at www.LeaseBusters.com Last week I outlined athletes in basketball, hockey and golf who I think deserve to be sculptured into a Mount Rushmore (i.e. - the four greatest) of their sport. As I continued to pon- der other sports, I real- ized that baseball would present a unique chal- lenge. After all, I can easily justify a quartet of New York Yankees (far from my favourite team) being commissioned for carv- ing on their own. My choices would be Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mick- ey Mantle, and that's leaving Mariano Rivera (most MLB career saves), Yogi Berra (10 World Se- ries rings) and Derek Je- ter (all-time Yankees hits leader) off the list. Yankees aside, it would still be difficult to include pitchers and all other position players on the same mountainside as their skill sets are so very different. Therefore, I'd go with Hank Aaron (the true home run champ), Willie Mays (greatest all- around player), Jackie Robinson (most impor- tant player) and Ted Wil- liams (purest hitter). Nolan Ryan is the Gor- die Howe (see previous column) of baseball pitchers. He pitched in four different decades and leads the Majors with most career no-hit- ters (7) and strikeouts (by a large margin). In addition to Rivera and Ryan, I would add Cy Young (most career wins) and Bob Gibson. Gibson isn't near the top of any of those lists, but in the first year I re- ally followed baseball (1968), he recorded an ERA of 1.12 and fanned 17 batters in Game 1 of the World Series against De- troit. Those memories are etched in my mind. Bot- tom line - if I had to choose one pitcher to start Game 7 of a World Series, Gibson would be my guy. Soccer When it comes to soc- cer, I don't know my Pla- tini from my Maldini, so I consulted two friends, Mark Bryson of the Re- cord and longtime WCSSAA soccer coach Brian Millar, for their advice. Without knowing each other's picks, it turned out that they agreed on two players: Brazil's Pele and Argen- tina's Lionel Messi. No real surprise on either count. After that, Bryson went with Cristiano Ron- aldo (who had a hat trick for Portugal in their 3-3 draw versus Spain in last week's World Cup match) and Argentina's Diego Maradona while Millar favoured Holland's Jo- han Cruyff and Germa- ny's Franz Beckenbauer. I'll have the artists and architects start working on the first two and sometime after con- struction begins, I'll de- cide on the other two. Tennis Readers of this col- umn know how highly I regard Serena Williams so it will come as no sur- prise when I decree that she gets an entire moun- tain range named in her honour. Similar to golf's grand slam events, the major championships of tennis (Australian, French, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) provide a pretty solid ref- erence point from which to judge the greats of all- time. In the Open Era and for singles titles only, Williams leads the way with 23 followed closely by Steffi Graf with 22. Chris Evert and Mar- tina Navratilova have 18 each, so I'm happy with these four picks. (By the way, if you in- clude doubles and mixed doubles titles, Navratilo- va has just under a gazil- lion.) On the men's side, Roger Federer is the GOAT (can anybody re- ally dispute that?) and not just because he tops the grand slam singles list with 20. He also just returned to world No. 1 at age 36 - a position he once held for a record 237 consecutive weeks. And don't forget that he's accomplished all of this while playing in the same era as the King of Clay, Rafael Nadal, who has 17 titles - including 11 on that unique French surface. In addition to Federer and Nadal, I'll order busts of "Rocket" Rod La- ver (a calendar Grand Slam winner twice) and Pete Sampras (14 G.S. ti- tles). Sorry, Bjorn, Jim- my and Novak - only room for four up there. Next week, the third (and final) instalment: Football, Olympians and miscellaneous. - Brian Totzke is a free- lance writer who has been the goat in many sports but never consid- ered the GOAT in any of them. He is on Twitter: @kit watguy OPINION Corralling GOAT's from baseball, soccer and tennis Too many too pick from baseball while Serena and Federer dominate tennis, says Brian Totzke BRIAN TOTZKE Column