Talk:Donald Bradman

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Contents 1 RCE 2 New Picture 3 John Bradman 4 Hero ,Icon or Legend 5 World of Biography 6 Final Innings 7 "Failures" against Ceylon 8 9994 in your capital city 9 I have a cite for the 'statistically greatest ever sportsman' reference 10 99.94 11 Cite request 12 Hussey 13 Church of England 14 Bradman in Australian law 15 Piano playing! 16 Don 17 "The Best of the Best"

[edit] RCE

Image talk:Bradman out for a duck.jpg (removed from article Don Bradman) - This photo's source is the State Library of South Australia [1]. The page states that the image is out of copyright. The photo was however apparently taken in London (the description says ..played at the Oval, London, on 14, 16, 17 and 18 August 1948.). The original source is not stated and not known. Would Australian copyright expiry pre-1955 be applicable here? If not would this still be under copyright anywhere else? -- Ian ≡ talk 18:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Picture

I uploaded a picture at the commons that I thought might be good for this article. It is at Bradman_1937.jgp, and it's in public domain as it was taking in Australia before 1955. I hope you can put it to good use. Raven4x4x 06:41, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

• I went ahead and added the image. Raven4x4x 10:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] John Bradman

John Bradman was the subject of a minor controversy when he changed his surname to Bradenham,which was the original family name,before legally changing it to Bradsen, in an attempt to avoid the publicity attached to the Bradman name.

Didn't he change it back to Bradman sometime in the 1970s ? Tintin 19:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The original family name was Bradnam according to Charles Williams' biography "Bradman". I have personally inspected the gravestones of his ancestors in Withersfield churchyard, Suffolk, and the name on them is Bradnam. - AG, Stockport.

Can you please find the exact lines & ISBN, page number etc of the book. Tintin (talk) 14:47, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes - the Abacus paperback edition of Williams from 1997 is before me as I type, ISBN 0349109400. Chapter 1 is about the shift of hemisphere of DB's paternal grandfather Charles in the mid-19th century and is called "From Suffolk to Sydney". The churchyard and Bradnam name is mentioned throughout this chapter but especially on p11, in the paragraph that comprises lines 20-36. A revised edition has come out since DB died and can be seen at both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk by putting "Bradman" and "Williams" as joint search parameters into their search engines. It is Williams' book that led me to Withersfield churchyard to see for myself. - AG, Stockport.

[edit] Hero ,Icon or Legend

current version has "and is one of Australia's most popular sporting heroes"
i think that its would be better with "and is one of Australia's sporting icons"
though using "and is one of Australia's sporting legends" could also be acceptable

I know it's a matter of wording but the use of the word "hero" under values the status of Sir Donald within Cricket and Australia Gnangarra 16:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Legend would suggest that he never existed or that his batting skills are in some way being viewed through rose tinted glasses - in The Don's case there is no need to exagerate. And icon is a horribly misused word. He is a sporting hero if ever there was one. No change needed. --LiamE 11:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World of Biography

I would like to add external link of Sir Donald Bradman's biography available at World of Biography --Kbi911 10:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• Seems reasonable to me. --PopUpPirate 23:56, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
• As User:Calton stated no isn't reasonable. The editer User:Kbi911 was working for this site to advertise it and attached its link to other biographical articles between 23 January and 22 February, The editor didn't make any other types of edits, and most case didn't even place this request on talk pages(all have since been removed by various legitamate editors). As the site hasn't been used as a referrence it cannot be called a referrence. Please dont encourage this type of vandalism/advertising. Gnangarra 03:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
• The link doesn't look too bad, especially the one about his life. 04:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  • An interesting read all of it unreferanced(though it appears accurate), it has images of Sir Don cut from images that are under copyright, it has taken actual copyright images and transposed them into drawings, The site claims all of this as original work to which it asserts copyright. Yet there is nowhere within in this article that the site acknowledges any sources. Gnangarra 12:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Final Innings

Surely it should be mentioned that The Don needed only 4 more runs to achieve a test batting average of 100.0, but he got out for a duck in his final innings.

It's already in the article. There's a whole paragraph about it. Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:31, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Failures" against Ceylon

I removed this from the article:

Rare failures came against the Sri Lankans. When Australia played against the All-Ceylon team in Colombo (on a 'whistle stop' tour on the way to England) on 2 April 1930, Bradman was out hit wicket for the first ball bowled by N.S. Joseph, on his debut. This is supposed to be the first occasion that Bradman got out hit wicket. After missing playing Ceylon on the next two tours; but, playing All-Ceylon again on 27 March 1948 was able to score only 20 runs.

It doesn't seem to me worth documenting this here. "Is supposed to" is not encyclopedic language. Bradman had scored 40 before getting out in 1930 so it was only a relative failure, and there are other achievements of Bradman's that seem much more deserving of a place in the article. It probably should be documented that N. S. Joseph's first first-class wicket off his first ball was Don Bradman, but that's a notable achievement of Joseph, not Bradman's, and should go in Joseph's article (in fact it's already there). --RobertG ♬ talk 12:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

It was not a first class match. None of the matches that DBG ever played in Ceylon seem to be first class. Bradman was in Australia till March 24 [2]. Is Ceylon so close that he could get there in a week ? Tintin (talk) 12:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

would depend on where he was and method of travel, during 1940's it was 30+hour flight from Perth by catalina's, ex perth or darwin by boat yes, Adelaide /Melbourne maybe, sydney/brisbane probably not Gnangarra 15:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The match that finished on the 24th was in Perth. It wasnt uncommon for matches to finish with the touring team heading straight to a boat in those days. Indeed at least one 'timeless' test ended when the boat was due to leave. --LiamE 00:20, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 9994 in your capital city

His average is allegedly immortalised as the post office box number of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation - "Box 9994 in your capital city". This claim has been in the article for yonks but I confess I've never heard of it anywhere outside Wikipedia. Does anyone have a source, or was it just coincidence? -- Ian ≡ talk 01:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The PO box story is quite well known in India. Some of the google results says that it is an urban legend. Tintin (talk) 02:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, urban legend was the term I was thinking of -- Ian ≡ talk 03:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Inside WP, it's addressed here and was even discussed on KackofOz's talk page some time back. But I haven't progressed any further. -- Ian ≡ talk 03:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I heard this claim on the ABC's program "Media Watch" years ago, so it's clear that some ABC staffers believe it to be true. The question is, do organisations applying for an "in your capital city" PO Box have a choice of numbers? If they don't then I'd say it's coicidence. If they do, then it probably isn't. From what I've heard, individuals applying for their own post office box numbers sometimes have a choice of the available numbers at branch level, and sometimes don't (ie the staff simply assign them a number) so it may be very difficult to determine, either way. - Russell Brown 23:40, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

But an organisation as big as the ABC would have some more leway in getting a PO Box number that they wanted rather than the average jor off the street. Feedyourfeet

Have a look here http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/abc_offices.htm#nsw

____________________________

Can anyone attribute the quote in which he said that his batting average against modern bowlers would only be 80 or so, to which the interviewer replied that he must think bowlers have improved since his day, to which he replied that he was 70 years old! It would be great to put that in. - AG, Stockport.

There are too many different versions. It will be very tough to find the real one :-) Tintin (talk) 14:47, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

____________________________

Regarding batting technique, did he practice what he preached? His coordination and speed were so amazing that he employed to good effect unorthodox shots that are disapproved of in most coaching manuals, notably the pull to leg from outside off stump. It would have been great to see him in 1-day cricket where improvisation counts - AG, Stockport.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Was it true that you could write to "Don Bradman, Australia" and it would get to him? If so, worth mentioning...

I'm sure the equivalent would work for most famous people. Stephen Turner (Talk) 16:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Postal services will recognise famous addressees and know where to send the envelope, but it is a matter of policy whether they are prepared to deliver such atrociously addressed mail to celebrities. We are now discussing postal services, not Don Bradman...

[edit] I have a cite for the 'statistically greatest ever sportsman' reference

I have a copy of "The Best of the Best" by Charlie Walsh, which is a fascinating tome, mainly concerned with statistical evaluation of cricketers in various ways, however there is a small section comparing different figures and their relative dominance within their respective sports. According to Walsh's analysis, "only about 1 in 200,000 test cricketers should be this good" (p 197). Using his statistical system, he has devised a series of bell-curves for various sports, with the deviation from the norm giving an individual sportsman's 'z score'. On page 215, he gives a comparison of those who recorded the highest z scores from major sports- Bradman 4.4 Pele 3.7 Ty Cobb (baseball batting) 3.6 Jack Nicklaus 3.5 Michael Jordan 3.4 Borg 3.2 Joe Montana (American Football) 3.1.

He notes: "The glaring anomaly here is cricket. We have already seen in the previous chapter how incredibly improbable Don Bradman's career was, in a statistical sense. This is underlined by the fact that the next best cricketer ever, Gary Sobers, has a z-score around 3.3, nicely within the range of the champions of other sports. It is Bradman who is anomalous, not the game of cricket itself.... The aim of this analysis has not been to prove conclusively that there are no sportsmen anywhere, of any era, to compare with Don Bradman. It has certainly shown, however, that if comparable figures do exist, they are very hard to find in the major sports. Put simply, the enormous performance gap between Bradman and all other cricketers has no equivalent in any of the sports studied so far. From the z-scores, one can estimate what a 'Bradmanesque equivalent' would achieve in other sports. For example:

-Baseball: a career batting average of 0.392 -Basketball: a career average of 43 points per game -Tennis: 15-20 Grand Slam titles in 10 years -Golf: over 25 major titles -Soccer: an average of just over 1 goal per game, and 100 goals in an international career." pp 215, 216

Compress this, or pluck out a few salient points, as you will. Unless you want me to do it. Eusebius12 19:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Heck - stick in the lot. Having (more than) dabbled in statistics I think the 1 in 200,000 might be an underestimate. In sports if someone is that good, like Bradman, tactics are built just to knock them down - exactly as England tried with bodyline where he averaged a crditable but hardly Bradmanesque 50 odd. This will tend to pull the superstars back towards the pack and so the statistics wont quite show just how far ahead of the pack they in fact were. Only in games like golf where the oponent can't directly effect the player would this not be true to one extent or another. --LiamE 00:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I've inserted a single sentence in the opening par citing the equivalent baseball and basketball averages. Thanks heaps, Eusebius. Leeborkman 00:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

No worries! Eusebius12 13:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Davis, not Walsh, I think. Tintin (talk) 02:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was thinking of an Australian radio comm Eusebius12 13:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've changed the reference now. Can someone fill in some more detail in the reference? Leeborkman 02:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the very specific statements about "equivalent" baseball and basketball performances down to the statistical analysis section, with an expanded summary of Davis' argument. Those equivalences are too detailed to belong in the opening paragraph. Can you please confirm the particular stats for the other sportsmen in the comparison list, and tell me what stat Joe Montana's record is for? -dmmaus 04:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

"For the record, a bell curve of American football official 'Quarterback Ratings' has been constructed (not shown), which gives the top quarterbacks Joe Montana and Steve Young z-scores of just over 3.0. Seperate bell curves could be constructed for other disciplines in this sport". So although quarterbacks were here the only ones considered, it appears that none are at all comparable with Bradman in terms of dominance. Soccer I assume was compared based upon goal scoring, Baseball in batting averages (I wonder where LN Ryan might figure amongst pitchers), Basketball p/game, tennis grand slam wins.

What other details might you folks be interested in the book? Eusebius12 13:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Does the book include any figures for Dhyan Chand in field hockey ? Tintin (talk) 07:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

No, unfortunately, but no doubt a curve and a rating could be constructed based on goal scoring and relative (within and across eras) dominance. Was Chand a more dominant goal scorer than say, Bovenlander? Eusebius12

Yeah. My guess is that he scored about twice as many per match as Bovelander. Tintin (talk) 13:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong: I am a huge fan of cricket and of Bradman. However, I do think the statistical comparisons are getting carried away. In the opening paragraph, Michael Hussey's average is included as the second-best, yet Hussey is still playing. I believe the accepted standard for comparing historical averages for all sports, is to compare career figures only for players who are no longer playing. I am not particularly concerned whether you leave Hussey's figure in or not. But it has an effect on the surrounding claims: if you leave Hussey's figure in, then these claims are in fact wrong. I am referring to the phrases "...by some measures the greatest statistical performance of all time in any major sport" and "This disparity between the best and the second best exceeds that in other sports...". If Hussey's figure is left in, then Bradman's average is better than Hussey's by about 30%. (Sorry, I am not capable of calculating or even understanding standard deviations, and so if this means I am wrong, then I will apologise.)

The first statement refers to "other major sports" but doesn't qualify what that means: which sports are major, and which minor? However, I believe it is fair to say that ice hockey is a major sport, and if you agree with this, then we must consider the career of Wayne Gretzky. In hockey, the most significant measure of a career is 'points scored', and by this token, Gretzky (with 2,856) is almost 54% better than the second best (Mark Messier, with 1,855). Gretzky also scored his points in fewer games than Messier (1,485 versus 1,756). By this measure, and if you leave Hussey's figure in the comparison to Bradman, then the "disparity between the best and the second best" does not exceed that of other sports. Leave Hussey's figure in, and Gretzky's career stats take the title of "best in any major sport".

Statistics in all sports have their "hidden quirks" -- things which are not immediately apparent to a casual observer and which, when explained, may not make sense to someone who doesn't understand the sport. Hockey and cricket are no exceptions. In cricket, the quirk is that a batsman's average is not his total runs divided by his total innings (as it is in baseball, for example). Because of the way cricket is played, a batsman's average is the total divided by how many times he was "out". To anyone who knows the game, this makes sense, but try explaining this to a baseball fan!

In hockey, the quirk is that 'points' are not equal to 'goals'. A point is earned by scoring a goal, or by 'assisting' (where an 'assist' is passing the puck to the scorer -- in fact, either of the two previous passers!). Worse, both the goal and the two assists each earn one 'point' -- a goal isn't worth more than either of the assists. This sounds strange: it is not, for example, how it works in soccer. But, just as for cricket, this method of measurement makes complete sense in the context of how hockey is played -- and just as for cricket, I couldn't even begin to explain that to someone who doesn't understand the sport. (When I started watching hockey a few years ago, I didn't get this at all, but now I do.)

If you remove Hussey's figure from the comparison, then all is restored: because then, Bradman is 64% better than the next best. Also, please excuse me if I have not signed my comments correctly or have broken some other protocol -- I am new to this and in a hurry, but will try to come back later and attend to it. User:AlistairLW

A couple of good points. Firtsly with reagrds to Hussey. His is not a "career average" as such - merely a single year average of someone that came into test cricket later than most (more 1st class runs than any previous Australian test debutant) and at the peak of powers so to speak. Single year averages in the Bradman range are not all that rare - Ponting has certainly averaged more over the past twelve months than Hussey and I'd guess Mohammad Yousuf is right up there with (if not ahead of) Ponting though I havnt actually checked - before that Dravid and Kallis, before tham Lara and Tendulkar and so on. The list of players that have had purple patches is long, what makes Bradman different is keeping that standard for nigh on 20 years. Of the others with a career average over 60 Pollock's was scored in the shortest timespan - in his case roughly 5 years. I'm all for leaving out players that are still playing and certainly any that have played for less than 4 or 5 years as the comparison is not of careers, but career vs less than a year in the case of new players. Hussey's figures are simply too ephemeral, changing every week. While he rightly deserves his current place at second on the list that doesn't mean his sample stands up to the statistical scrutinity that the others with above 60 averages can. The second important thing is that we cannot do any original research. The source quoted simply was not able to look at Hussey's figures and take them into account. The source remains and can be quoted and isnt really invalidated by his figues. The major/minor sport distinction was made by the author of the peice and is therefore arbitary but I guess made with reasonable assumptions. You really would have to refer to the original work to see if any more detail of that can be gleaned. Whether Husseys figues remain there or not the rest of the statatistical assessment should make it clear that its just using completed career averages, and at a specific date. Lastly the comparison to total points in ice hockey is a bit off (to be honest I'd be suprisd if ice hockey wasn't one of the sports considered in the analysis) - what we are talking about here would be points per game. Bradman is way down the list for total runs (points if you like) for no other reason than far more test cricket is played these days. 150 test in a career is far from impossible these day, off the top of my head I think Steve Waugh played 168 or so, Bradman just 52. 52 test would be possible in about 3 or 4 years these days! --LiamE 22:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Liam. I am a bit confused about some of your Hussey comments, especially the sentence: "The source quoted simply was not able to look at Hussey's figures and take them into account." Which source are you talking about? I was not talking about the book cited as a source. I was talking about the opening paragraph of the main article, which clearly references Hussey's stats (including a footnote that says so). Perhaps I should have made this clearer! But that was what got me on to the subject of Hussey. I personally believe that his figures should not be included yet. Secondly, I disagree with your comments about the ice hockey stat being mismatched to the cricket stat. It's true that the stats don't measure the same thing. But every sport is different. Surely it should be up to the experts in each sport to determine which stat is the best measure of a player's career in their unique sport? For batting, in both cricket and baseball, it's the career average. In tennis, it's grand slam victories. In hockey, it's the total points over the entire career. I can't find any mention of "career average points-per-game", not even as a minor stat ("av points per game in a season" is used as a minor, single-season stat, but not as a career record. Even for single-season stats, the 'most points in a season' seems more important, and by the way, Gretzky has the most 100-point seasons, and is the only player to have topped 200 in a season, having done that four times.). Finally, I had to calculate the career average PPG stat for Gretzky myself: it was 1.92. So far as I know, the next best I have found is Mark Messier again, with 1.02. That's a 90% disparity! As to why the career total is considered the best measure, it may have something to do with hockey being a full contact sport, because it indicates how well the player withstood the physical demands. This itself is an important factor in assessing a player's value. They play something like 80+ regular-season games a year, 2-3 times a week, and it's fast and tough, so this is obviously significant. 100 points per season is considered significant. To reach Gretzky's career total, you would need to average 142 points per season for 20 years). This aspect is true for other contact sports too. In rugby, for example, the accepted measures are career-based totals, not per-game averages: total career points, and total career tries. I have never seen any rugby person refer to "average tries per game" or "average points per game"! Cheers! AlistairLW —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.162.157.134 (talk) 03:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

Sorry its taken me a while to reply but here goes. Firstly the confusion... the article starts with something like... "His career Test batting average of 99.94 is by some measures the greatest statistical performance of all time in any major sport.[2] By way of comparison, the second and third best Test averages over completed careers of any length are 60.97 and 60.83.[3] This disparity between the best and the second best suggests that Bradman may be considered one of the greatest athletes of all time....." As you can see I was referring to the the previous line where ref 2 points to a source that doesn't (and of course couldn't)consider Hussey. Hope that makes a bit of sense! With respects to the stat not being standard - the use of stats like goals per game is not used with any regularity if at all in sport like football (or indeed ice hockey) but that was what the source used. There is certainly good statistical reason to do that even if the stat itself is pretty useless within the sport itself. If we take football as an example there is typically only one or two players in a team who's job it is to score goals, ergo a goals per game stat would be pretty useless. However when trying to compare football players and cricket batsmen a goals per game / runs per innings comparison does yeild some analysis - even if only between batsmen and strikers but not all footballers. The same applies to most other team sports where roles affect scoring opportunities. Of course in cricket, like baseball, everyone gets their chance to score so all can be easily compared to each other and to sportsmen of other sports.Indeed total goals/tries/points etc is a far more usefull stat WITHIN those sports but is not so useful when comparing between sports where outside factors may overwhelm the stat as it does in cricket. Total careers runs in cricket is hugely dependen ton era. Modern career agregates are simply not directly comparable to those of years past. As you can imagine as we are talking about country vs country matches with cricket it is an important factor - travel times were considerably reduced by jet travel. Prior to jet travel a cricket tour meant spending many weeks on a boat for a journey that would now only take hours. Back then playing more than 6 or 7 test in a year was unusual, now twice that is common. Hence modern agregates tend to be higher. I would guess that the number of matches played in a season by a hockey player has remained more or less constant over the same period. In addition it doesn't really make sense to hold WWII against Bradman - it was hardly his fault that he lost many of his best playing years to that. From the begining of 1937 till the war he was averaging a stunning 124.9, after the war he averaged a still stellar 105.7 so its fair to assume that those lost 6 years would have been no less fruitful than the years he played. Lastly there is one more very important factor that must be considered. Bradman's stats are acheived at international level, not club level and statistically speaking like should be compared with like. There will always be a huge gulf in ability between the two. It is not uncommon for someone that is a star at club level at any sport to fail on the bigger stage. If as I suspect ice hockey was not considered by the source it may have been discounted by a lack of international data (excuse my ignorance, I really have no idea how many international games are played in ice hockey) or if it was considered they may have been others within the "Gretzky range" in international games only. Perhaps someone with access to the source can clarify? --LiamE 00:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 99.94

I see no reason for this to remain a separate article, and I suggest anything not already in here be merged, and the article redirected. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. 99.94 is not notable in itself and so does not need an article; unfortunately I cannot find a relevant WP:CSD, so I have nominated it for deletion. I can see no content there that is not here. --RobertG ♬ talk 17:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The 99.94 article emerged from a conversation at the cricket Wikiproject. 99.94 is a number of huge significance to millions of cricket lovers the world over. It is probably the most famous statistic in the sport and the articles should not be merged. Rather, the 99.94 article needs some further expansion. --Dweller 17:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree with the further expansion part, but in the current form it contains very little stuff. If we could bring in other things like ABC Postbox (if it were true), or some product or something named after it etc, it may be useful. Tintin (talk) 17:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Now that RobertG has set up a CSD, further discussion here seems redundant. Perhaps people could post to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/99.94 with opinions to delete or merge or retain. --Dweller 17:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cite request

Finding the citation might be tricky. We can certainly find any number of sources that Bradman was the greatest. I doubt anyone writing since World War Two would claim any other batsman was the greatest. But how do you prove that? Unless, I suppose, we find a source that says something like "Bradman is universally recognised..." !!! How would you prove that everyone thinks water is wet? --Dweller 09:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Not everyone has to believe that water is wet, as long as all the reliable sources agree that it is we can say it is. Other than biased fan sites and blogs I've never seen a reasoned article anywhere that even suggests he isnt the best. People have reached a comparable level for breif periods, Viv Richards in the late 70's for instance, but no one comes close in either statistical terms or editorial acclaim over an extended period. As with any absolute statement it could be proved wrong at any time, but until we find a good source saying water isnt wet we will say it is. And if any joker links the article about the brown solid hydrogen/oxygen alloy from the Newscientist I'll cry. --LiamE 09:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I've found a (non Wikipedia) source citing him as universally recognised. I think that should do the trick. --Dweller 09:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Oddly enough I've found another but you beat me to it. --LiamE 11:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hussey

Thanks to Michael Hussey, part of the lead to this article now reads:

By way of comparison, the second, third and fourth best Test averages are 81.00, 60.97 and 60.83. This disparity between the best and the second best mimic's Gretzky's dominance of hockey

The problem is that because of the aforementioned Hussey, the "disparity between the best and the second best" is only half what it was. 19 runs is still a big gap, but nothing like 39! Of course Hussey's career probably has some way to run, but even so... Loganberry (Talk) 16:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to fix this. It's not too tricky. --Dweller 16:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It needs rephrasing anyway, since most cricket fans won't know much about ice hockey or Gretzky, and in any cae "hockey" in Australia is most likely to mean field hockey. Loganberry (Talk) 16:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Can't help with the Gretzky stuff (better dealt with elsewhere in the article anyway) but I've fixed both places where Hussey's inclusion caused problems. --Dweller 16:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've taken out the Gretzky comment entirely, since it seemed out of place (not everything on WP has to be compared to North American sport!), and I've also specified completed careers to take account of Hussey. Loganberry (Talk) 17:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Church of England

I might be mistaken but Bradman was a Methodist, not Church of England. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.195.19.46 (talk) 17:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Bradman in Australian law

Just a suggestion, shouldn't someone mention that Bradman is actually mentioned in the Australian law (I forget exactly which one) that states you can't have a business name that implies any connection to the royal family, the government or Sir Donald Bradman. I think it may be the Corporations Act 2001. Jabso 05:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that would be worth mentioning, if someone can dig out the exact law and a reference for it. It's a rather unique distinction and serves well to establish how notable Bradman is in Australian culture. -dmmaus 09:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I found this from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The "Guidelines for the use in body corporate names of the words ‘Sir Donald Bradman’" are at the bottom. Loganberry (Talk) 03:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Piano playing!

On British radio I _think_ I once heard an archive clip of Sir Don playing very attractive jazz-ish piano in the 1930s or 1940s. If I'm not completely out of my tree here, would anyone who knows about SDB's amateur music-making care to add a sentence or two about it? If I'm completely off track and bringing shame upon this page - apologies. Regards, Notreallydavid 04:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don

Not particularly important, but I would've thought Don Bradman would've been a more apt title. Donald is probably more common when used in conjunction with the honorific, but the article doesn't use that, so Don Bradman would surely be the more common appellation.

[edit] "The Best of the Best"

I believe that it would be interesting to place Stephen Hendry's (snooker) achievements regarding century breaks into the table of elite sportspeople. Stephen currently has 698 century breaks, I believe Ronnie O'Sullivan is in 2nd with around 450. I am not sure what calculations have been made in order to come up with this table, but I would be very grateful if somebody could find out if Stephen gets anywhere near Don.

Andy4226uk 14:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Its from a book called the best of the best so we are limited to what is available from the source itself. OR isn't permitted in the article - but its interesting to discuss it here. Firstly, you'd have to get a stat along the lines of vists or frames per century to compare like with like as total centuries alone can be skewed by longevity. In such a stat a doubt he'd be ahead of O'Sullivan as he has been playing for a much longer time than Ronnie. (I am just guessing there though!) Interestingly for tennis players the source used grand slam wins, with Borg coming out on top. As Borg didn't win many more of the big 4 tournaments than several other players but did win lots in a short career I'm leaning towards thinking that the source used something along the lines of titles per year or titles / tournaments. Again I'm guessing here though. Using such a stat Hendry wouldn't stand a chance of being the top snooker player as Joe Davis would walk away with it. Of course Joe played in a far less competitive era but his world championship record of winning every time it was played from 1927 to 1946 (when he stopped from entering), 15 times in all, is simply incomparable. Of people that have played sports in competitive eras I would imagine that Phil Taylor's record in darts would be hard to top and he has certainly dominated darts in a more comprehensive manner than Stephen dominated snooker. Finally, and I guess this is the crux of it, snooker (like darts) is purely a sport of skill, no one would consider it to be an athletic sport. On the other hand, despite Mike Gattings appearance to the contrary, cricket is an athletic sport. I think calling a snooker player an athlete would be stretching it. As the subject of the book was to determine a best of the best among athletic sports - golf being perhaps the least "athletic" sport amongst them - you can perhaps see why snooker and darts etc were not considered. --LiamE 22:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Darts has had the PDC / BDO split, though: how much has that weakened Taylor's opposition? Is it significant in the way Australia were weakened by World Series Cricket, or merely a minor distraction? (And can this question even be answered by darts fans without politics intervening?!) Loganberry (Talk) 23:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the assertion that cricket is an athletic sport. I don't consider Inzy, Sehwag, Warne, Lehmann, Powar, Ranatunga to be athletes at all. Even Mark Waugh looked relatively normal for a cricketer and he admitted he never walked into a gym until the 21st century. Michael Clarke happens to one of the higly regarded "athletes" in world cricket and the last time he was photographed shirtless in the dressing room on a newspaper, he had a convex belly.....heck and some cricketers-turned-commentators like Kerry O'Keeffe and Geoff Lawson, when Clarke and Hodge were running between wickets, said that they were very fast and would do well at the 100m athletics. I must say I find it farcical that people would suggest that two relatively short Anglo-Saxon people with round abdomens would "do well" against Asafa Powell. Then again, Australia aside, most of the cricket countries have terrible sports organisation and infrastructure, and it's not as though Australia are competing against ruthless countries with proper sport regimes like USA, RUS, CHN, GER, FRA, NED, ITA, JPN, KOR at the Olympics so the cricketers got deluded about how good and "committed" they are with their beer drinking during season and even being allowed out at night during competition....Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Try bowling at 90mph and then tell me its not athletic! But seriously, what we have here is a spectrum - at one end you have pure skill sports - darts, snooker etc and at the other pure (or very near pure) athletic events such as sprinting and strength events. I use athletic in the broad sense, ie not meaning it is part of an athletics in the track and field sense but athletic as in physically demanding. Rugby is an athletic sport, football is an athletic sport, boxing is an athletic sport etc etc. Even motor racing is surprisingly athletic. I've never seen a cricketer that was as fat as Butterbean, but that doesn't make boxing any the less demanding in an athletic sense. Are shot putters not athletes because many of them cary some extra weight? Of course not, they are fit for their sport as cricketrs are - including the Gattings and Inzys. Its interesting to note how many times Inzy has been run out though - makes one wonder what his average would have been if he had kept at a lower weight. Remember the fat Flintoff? He didnt exactly set the world alight. When he got fit though his performance was transformed. Cricket is clearly towards the skill end of the spectrum but if it doesn't have a very significant athletic component why does everyone retire by 40 or so - many much earlier? I doubt its because they suddenly lost skill or technique. The book looks for an athlete in the broad sense, otherwise they would have just written a biography of Jessie Owens and called it quits! In any case, I think Lawson would do better against Asafa Powell than vice versa, if you know what I mean. Lawson would get beaten by 3 or 4 seconds, Asafa would likely need an ambulance! --LiamE 02:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well yeah, pace bowlers aside, cricketers tend to fail the athleticism bar - Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That depends where you put the bar of course. The author included golf in his analysis which is clearly less athletic than cricket but has some athletic quality so he's obviously going with a fairly low bar. Just for the record its not just pace bowling that's athletic in cricket - wicket keeping is very athletic, as is fielding if done properly. Batting can of course be as athletic as the batsman chooses. Going back to my idea above of fitness for their own sports, despite say a Shane Warne being shall we say not as obviously fit as an Asafa Powell, Warne was always fit enough to bowl all day long in Australian, Carribean, African and Indian conditions without loss of accuracy due to tiredness, something the more athletic guy wouldn't be able to do without additional training. I'm not saying Warne is fitter than Powell by any stretch but he regularly did stuff that the average guy or even other trained athletes couldn't do without preparation. Surely that gets over the bar. --LiamE 10:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)