Sports
A list, at it's core, is just a fancy, quantified version of an argument. And better yet,
one that can be presented without rebuttal (initially, anyway). So, when we first started this
site, we asked ourselves, "what are the things that people like to argue about?" After
rattling off the usual suspects (cheeses, string theory, jackets vs. sweaters), we eventually
came to sports, to which we replied "that's stupid, nobody argues about sports", to which
we then replied "what? yes they do, shut up idiot" and then "you're the idiot, no they don't,
nobody cares" to which we punched us in the face and hostilities ensued. That was a
confusing and weird day at the office.
Eventually, reason carried the day (Phinnaes yelled at us and told us to get our shit together),
and it was agreed that sports were capital subject matter for list-making. And why not? To
the untrained eye, they're the most subjective of things... for instance, in our list of the
greatest players to wear each number, we compared Jim Brown and Magic Johnson (both #32)...
one a superstar of American football in the late 1950's and early 1960's, the other a
superstar in the NBA in the 1980's. Two totally different sports in two totally different
eras, and the subjectivity becomes almost the only sticking point. Almost. Throw in
bias towards the home team and you got yourself a good, old-fashioned, venomous basis for an
argument. And lots of lists.
Ah, but we're coming at it with a trained eye. Objectivity's the name of our game.
Actually, it's one of the names of our game. Also excellence, awesomeness, brilliance... you
get the idea. But objectivity's one of them. Impartiality too. And when it comes to quandaries
like the aforementioned Jim Brown vs. Magic Johnson debate, we have the uncanny ability to
digest their merits from a position of cool detachment and enviable precision, allowing our
resulting decision to be quite straightforward.
And really, what did you expect? We do this shit for a living.