The Mt. Rushmore of Sports per City

Spurred by the boredom of being trapped inside thanks to the Coronavirus, I posted this on Facebook. I thought that it was worth putting on the old blog. Is it? You be the judge. And I know that this is a well-worn trail, but it was a fun way to kill ten minutes and not think about people dying. 

BTW, I think that there should be a Mt. Rushmore of characters from the movie Rushmore. How's that for comedy?

Announcement, there should be two new blogs coming in the next few days. One is a BCB-related piece and the other is a book review. But without any further adieu, here is what I wrote on Facebook:

My brother and I sometimes talk on the telephone. And sometimes we actually say something interesting, though it might not be particularly important or original. The other day we were talking about each four-team city's Mt. Rushmore and so I quickly wrote up a four-player monument for each four-team city. 

Before you see what I came up with, here are the rules: each of the four major sports have to be represented (easy for Boston or New York, tough for Phoenix), each athlete needed to play in that city in order to get chosen (Jason Kidd is probably the greatest Net of all time, but he never played in Brooklyn), only the franchise in its current state is allowed representation (Walter Johnson is the greatest Washington baseball player, but he never played for the current Nationals nor did he play for the current Twins) and I broke out LA and NY into two separate lists. 

BTW: if I had to list them in terms of top five:

1. Boston
2. Old New York
3. Chicago
4. San Fran
5. Old Los Angeles 

Boston
  • Tom Brady
  • Bill Russell
  • Ted Williams
  • Bobby Orr

Old New York
  • Lawrence Taylor
  • Walt Frazier
  • Babe Ruth
  • Mark Messier

New New York
  • Darrelle Revis
  • Deron Williams
  • Tom Seaver
  • Denis Potvin

Philadelphia
  • Reggie White
  • Julius Erving
  • Mike Schmidt
  • Bobby Clarke

Washington DC
  • Sammy Baugh
  • Wes Unseld
  • Bryce Harper
  • Alex Ovechkin

Detroit
  • Barry Sanders
  • Isiah Thomas
  • Ty Cobb
  • Gordie Howe

Chicago
  • Walter Payton
  • Michael Jordan
  • Ernie Banks
  • Bobby Hull

Miami
  • Dan Marino
  • Dwyane Wade
  • Giancarlo Stanton
  • Roberto Luongo

Cleveland/Columbus
  • Jim Brown
  • LeBron James
  • Bob Feller
  • Rick Nash

Minnesota
  • Randy Moss
  • Kevin Garnett
  • Kirby Puckett
  • Zack Parisse

Dallas
  • Roger Staubach
  • Dirk Nowitzski
  • Ivan Rodriguez
  • Mike Modano

Denver
 • John Elway
 • Alex English
 • Larry Walker
 • Joe Sakic

Phoenix
  • Larry Fitzgerald
  • Charles Barkley
  • Randy Johnson
  • Shane Doan

Old Los Angeles
  • Deacon Jones
  • Magic Johnson
  • Sandy Koufax
  • Wayne Gretzky

New Los Angeles
  • Phillip Rivers
  • Chris Paul
  • Mike Trout
  • Paul Kariya

San Francisco/San Jose
  • Joe Montana
  • Steph Curry
  • Willie Mays
  • Joe Thornton