The SportsProf Sports Quiz

I've been thinking about the classic comparisons in the world of sports, and unfortunately I'm enough of a blogging Luddite not to be able to put this in a quiz format and then give you an automatic pop-up as to the ramifications of your test results. Moreover, I haven't a clue as to whether any of these distinctions are significant in the least or what they say about you if you prefer certain players and teams to others. This is a totally unscientific sampling, but for what it's worth go through the exercise and pick out who you like better. Obviously, that's a criterion that's open to wide interpretation, such as the player or team appealed to you more, such as you think the player or program was/is better on the field/track/court, was more fun to watch, was a nicer person/team, was more worthy for reasons you have trouble putting into words, etc., but, in any event, pick out who you prefer.

Who do you like better:

1. Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain.
2. Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams.
3. Coach K or Dean Smith.
4. Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova.
5. Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.
6. Joe Frazier or Muhammad Ali.
7. Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
8. Joe Paterno or Steve Spurrier.
9. Johnny Unitas or Joe Namath.
10. Roger Clemens or Curt Schilling.
11. Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth.
12. Joe Torre or Casey Stengel.
13. Bill Walsh or Mike Ditka.
14. Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton.
15. Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods.
16. Pat Summitt or Geno Auriemma.
17. Duke or UNLV (men's college b-ball)
18. Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa.
19. Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds.
20. Peyton Manning or Michael Vick.
21. Sugar Ray Leonard or Thomas Hearns.
22. Bjorn Borg or John McEnroe.
23. Mia Hamm or Freddy Adu.
24. Michigan or Ohio State (college football).
25. New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.

Now, give yourself four points for each time you answered the first player, coach or team in the comparison and zero for the second, and then calculate your score. I got either a 52 or 56, so I split my answers right down the middle. I suppose that if you got a 100, that could mean you like the more traditional, more established, more accepted type of players, coaches and teams, whereas if you scored a zero (or closer to it) perhaps it means that you chose the more iconoclastic, the bolder of the two, the underdog, the less understood, the less accepted, the more controversial type of team or player or coach. Then again, for the most part, you're splitting hairs to a degree, because you're in rarified air to begin with (even with choice #20, because when those guys were hot, they were hot) with the people in these surveys. All these folks fared/fare pretty well in their chosen endeavors.

This isn't my version of Meyers-Briggs or Wonderlic or Sports IQ (comparing emotion to intelligence) or anything like that. But who do you prefer? Russell or Chamberlain? DiMaggio or Williams? The Yankees or the Red Sox?

The debates will go on and on.