Settling The Dumbest Argument in Sports

Jun 16

The internet is a remarkable invention.

Humanity looked at thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, scientific advancement, artistic achievement, and technological innovation and collectively decided the highest purpose of this miracle technology would be arguing with strangers named things like "PatriotsFan420" and "MessiGOAT69."

And so it was that I found myself doomscrolling through Twitter the other day when I stumbled across what may be the dumbest sports argument ever conceived.

Now that's saying something.

This is a website that once spent three days debating whether a gorilla could beat one hundred men in a fight.

A gentleman—using the term loosely—had tweeted that soccer was the most difficult sport on Earth and that athletes from America's major sports leagues wouldn't stand a chance trying to play it professionally.

Immediately another keyboard gladiator emerged from the digital fog.

"Cool story bro," he replied. "Now give Mbappe a bat and have him face Paul Skenes."

Checkmate.

Or so he thought.

The implication, of course, was that no matter how great Kylian Mbappe may be at soccer, he'd look like a malfunctioning Roomba trying to hit 100-mile-per-hour fastballs.

Which is absolutely true. It's also completely irrelevant. Because here's the thing. Both of these people are correct.

And both of them are complete morons.

If you handed Mbappe a baseball bat and put him in the batter's box against Paul Skenes, he'd likely produce enough embarrassing swings to become a training video for Little League coaches.

Likewise, if you took Aaron Judge, dropped him into a Champions League match, and told him to track world-class attackers for ninety minutes, he'd look like a man trying to solve calculus while being chased by wolves.

Neither proves anything. Other than the shocking revelation that elite athletes tend to be exceptionally good at the sport they've dedicated their lives to and substantially worse at sports they haven't.

Groundbreaking stuff.

Somewhere Isaac Newton just rolled over in his grave and muttered, "No shit." And yet this argument never dies.

Every sport has its disciples. Every sport has its evangelists.

Every sport has that guy who desperately needs everyone else to acknowledge that his preferred athletic activity is the hardest, toughest, most demanding, most complex endeavor in human history.

Not content with simply enjoying the thing, he must convince you that all other things are inferior. Which is how we arrive at absurd hypothetical scenarios involving athletes being dropped into entirely different universes and judged based on predictable failure. It's the sporting equivalent of throwing a shark into a tree and then declaring squirrels superior predators.

So let's settle this once and for all.

Victor Wembanyama, Cale Makar, and Way Too Much Ice

Let's start with Victor Wembanyama.

Seven feet four inches of alien DNA and basketball excellence. A man so freakishly proportioned that if you encountered him in medieval Europe you'd assume he'd been sent by God to deliver a warning.

Now let's put him on ice skates. Already this is going poorly.

People who don't skate have this strange idea that skating is basically walking except colder. This belief generally survives right up until the moment they attempt it and discover that their ankles have become independent contractors.

So let's imagine Wemby somehow survives warmups without suffering a season-ending embarrassment.

Now let's put the puck on his stick. Across from him stands Cale Makar.

For those unfamiliar, Makar skates the way hummingbirds fly. The laws of physics seem less like restrictions to him and more like casual suggestions. His edge work is so absurd that watching him change direction feels like witnessing CGI rendered in real time. He’s won a Norris Trophy, annually presented to the NHL’s most excellent defenseman, and has a solid argument that he got shafted out of winning at least two more.

Between the pipes is Scott Wedgewood, a professional goaltender whose job description consists primarily of turning impossible athletic feats into mild disappointments. He was a 2026 Vezina Trophy finalist, the NHL’s way of saying, “damn, you’re like the best at this goalie stuff, aren’t you!?”

The internet's logic tells us that if Wembanyama fails to score in this scenario, hockey is therefore harder than basketball.

Which is incredible, albeit it true if your only experience with ice is in a rocks glass.

That's like throwing Gordon Ramsay into an operating room and concluding that surgery is superior to cooking because he accidentally removed the wrong kidney.

Of course Wembanyama would fail. He doesn't play hockey. Put Makar on a basketball court and ask him to guard Wemby in the post and suddenly we're watching a completely different horror movie.

One involves falling on ice. The other involves being repeatedly dunked through the Earth's crust. Neither proves anything except that specialists are usually pretty good at their specialties.

A shocking revelation, I know.

Jacob Misiorowski Meets Derrick Henry and Immediately Regrets His Life Choices

Now let's take this stupidity to football. Specifically, let's take Milwaukee Brewers flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski.

Misiorowski throws baseballs approximately the speed most people drive on freeways. He's six-foot-seven. He's wiry but strong. He's athletic. He's a professional athlete. His fastball has been clocked at nearly 105 miles per hour this season. Jesus Pole Vaulting Christ, that’s fast.

According to the internet, this should mean he can do basically anything. Wonderful.

Let's deck him out in shoulder pads and tell him to tackle Derrick Henry. Not in a drill. Not with help. Not after training camp. Today. Right now. In open space.

For those unfamiliar, Derrick Henry is less a running back and more a natural disaster that occasionally wears cleats. At six-foot-three and roughly 250 pounds, Henry runs like someone accidentally taught a rhinoceros how to sprint.

Cornerbacks don't tackle him. They make business decisions. Linebackers don't tackle him. They submit insurance claims.

Entire defensive coordinators have spent Sunday afternoons staring blankly into the middle distance after watching him turn their game plans into abstract art.

Now imagine poor Misiorowski.

A pitcher. A guy whose professional responsibilities involve standing on a mound and occasionally pointing at the sky after strikeouts. He's got one chance. One opportunity.

Derrick Henry lowers his shoulder. Three seconds later Jacob wakes up in a hospital asking why the moon has limited oxygen.

Does this prove football is harder than baseball? Of course not.

Put Henry sixty feet six inches away from home plate and ask him to throw a slider that starts at the hitter's hip and finishes on the black. Or hand him a bat and ask him to do something besides pray when Misiorowski throws his patented fastball.

He'll look like a guy trying to thread a needle while riding a mechanical bull. Again, the only thing we've learned is that professional athletes are remarkably specialized creatures.

They're Formula One cars. We're all arguing about whether a Ferrari would beat a submarine in a swimming competition.

Simone Biles vs Serena Williams: What Even are Words?

My personal favorite might be this one.

Let's hand Simone Biles a tennis racket. Now before anyone gets all mad, Simone Biles is one of the greatest athletes who has ever lived. Not female athletes. Athletes. Period.

If aliens arrived tomorrow and demanded humanity produce one representative capable of demonstrating physical excellence, Simone would be near the front of the line.

She can rotate through space in ways that would kill Victorian children instantly. She possesses balance, coordination, strength, explosiveness, and body control beyond human comprehension. She has won so many Olympic medals that theoretical mathematicians have had to develop new conceptual sequences.

Now let's put her across the net from Serena Williams.

Not peak Serena. Retired Serena. Forty-three-year-old Serena who hasn't played professionally in years. The one currently pitching GLP-1 shots despite having a physique 99% of women and no small amount of men would give anything for.

The first serve arrives. One hundred and twenty miles per hour.

The ball whistles past before Simone has fully processed that the point has started. The second serve kicks shoulder-high. Maybe even head high, given Biles’ diminutive stature.

The third lands on a line. The fourth somehow travels through another dimension. Within ten minutes the scoreboard resembles a binary code. Not because Simone isn't athletic, brilliant, and in the top 0.0000001% of physiological accomplishment in human history.

Because tennis is absurdly difficult, even if you’re good at it. The margins are microscopic. The timing is impossible. The skill is learned through decades of repetition.

Which is exactly why Serena wouldn't fare much better if asked to perform a Yurchenko double pike.

She'd probably survive. Maybe. The medical bills would be borderline bankrupting, in any event.

But survival isn't the standard. Excellence is. Anything short of it guarantees abject failure. And excellence is sport-specific.

That's the entire point. It's also apparently the hardest concept in sports fandom.

Shohei Ohtani. Is There ANYTHING He Can’t Do?

For one, MMA.

Even for perhaps the most universally gifted athlete currently walking the planet, combat sports against a trained professional is many bridges too far.

Shohei is baseball's answer to a video game created by developers who forgot to include realism settings. The man throws ninety-eight mile-per-hour fastballs, launches baseballs into neighboring counties, steals bases, and somehow does all of it while looking like he just finished helping an elderly neighbor carry groceries. He’s also a back to back World Series Champion and several time MVP.

If God really did create man in his own image, he may have used Shohei as the blueprint. He's strong, fast, coordinated, intelligent, disciplined, and possesses the kind of work ethic that makes the rest of us feel guilty for hitting snooze twice. You’d also want him to marry your (presumably adult, for the sake of this argument) daughter.

So naturally, according to the internet, he should be good at everything.

Wonderful.

Let's put him in an MMA cage.

Across from him stands Sam Alvey. Not a champion. Not a future Hall of Famer. Just a guy who at one point may have been ranked somewhere around fifteenth in his division. A professional. A man whose daily routine involves learning increasingly creative ways to fold human beings into uncomfortable shapes, and decorate their faces with a Rembrandt of bruising.

The bell rings.

For approximately four seconds, Ohtani's athleticism is obvious. He moves well. Looks composed. Possibly even lands a decent jab.

Then Alvey shoots for a takedown. Suddenly Ohtani discovers an entirely new category of physics. The ground arrives unexpectedly. His legs are no longer where he left them. He swears they were there a moment ago, but then the Earth’s axis seemed to tilt. Did Atlas shrug?

An elbow appears near his ear. Someone is attempting to strangle him using techniques refined through ten thousand hours of training. The whole thing resembles a nature documentary where a majestic gazelle suddenly learns why lions exist.

Does this mean MMA fighters are superior athletes to baseball players?

Of course not. It just means they can beat the shit out of them with the most minimal of effort. Put that same fighter sixty feet six inches from home plate and ask him to hit a ninety-eight mile-per-hour splitter after spending his life learning rear naked chokes instead of pitch recognition.

The result won't be much prettier. Again, all we've proven is that expertise matters.

Which somehow remains a controversial position in sports discourse.

The World's Shortest Pool Match: Joey Chestnut vs Shane Van Boening

And now we arrive at my favorite example. Not because it's the most athletic. Not because it's the most extreme. But because it perfectly demonstrates how absurd this entire conversation is.

Let's start with Joey Chestnut. For those unfamiliar, Joey Chestnut is the greatest competitive eater in human history. Not one of the greatest. The greatest. The Michael Jordan of consuming alarming quantities of processed meat products. The Wayne Gretzky of gastrointestinal recklessness.

The man once ate so many hot dogs in ten minutes that medical science briefly had to reassess what was physically possible.

Now let's put Joey in a pool hall. Across the table stands Shane Van Boening.

One of the greatest pool players on Earth. A man who sees angles, spin, and geometry the way Neo sees the Matrix. A player so good that recreational shooters watching him feel like cavemen discovering fire. Oh, and he’s won an unmatched 6 US Open titles.

The match begins. You know, standing next to each other, you might not be able to tell one from the other. They look… ordinary. Pedestrian. Like your neighbor. Or Ted Bundy. Then the match starts.

Joey breaks. Probably poorly, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to having minimal pool cue dexterity.

Before he even sees the table again, it’s three racks later and Shane is up 3-0. Five racks later Joey is wondering if Harry Potter is up to some nonsense from a cleverly concealed hiding spot. Cue balls aren’t supposed to defy physics like this.

Nine racks later Shane is considering whether he has enough time to order lunch before the match concludes. But that would require being away from the table for more than a second.

Eventually Joey loses without winning a single frame. Has he even made a ball? Probably not. In fact, Ko Pin Yi once defeated Aloysius Yapp, a brilliant player in his own right, without Yapp having sunk a single ball. In hindsight, zero chance Chestnut makes one against Shane.

An absolute massacre. A humiliation. A bloodbath disguised as a cue sport.

Now let's reverse it.

Let's place Shane Van Boening in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Ten minutes later Shane has consumed approximately three hot dogs and is questioning every life choice that led him here.

Meanwhile Joey is operating at a pace normally associated with industrial machinery.

Neither outcome proves anything except that people become unbelievably good at the thing they've dedicated their lives to.

Which is apparently a revelation that social media users encounter every day as though seeing it for the first time.

This Argument Will Never Die, But it Needs to

And that's really the heart of the whole thing. The dumbest argument in sports isn't whether soccer is harder than baseball. Or whether football players are tougher than hockey players. Or whether basketball players could survive tennis.

It's the underlying assumption that greatness in one discipline could automatically translate into greatness in another.

Professional athletes aren't superheroes. They're specialists.

The reason Serena Williams would destroy Simone Biles at tennis isn't because tennis is harder than gymnastics. The reason Derrick Henry would run through Jacob Misiorowski isn't because football is harder than baseball. The reason Victor Wembanyama would look like a newborn giraffe on skates isn't because hockey players are superior athletes.

It's because all of these people have spent thousands upon thousands of hours mastering their respective crafts.

The difference between elite and merely good isn't athleticism. It's obsession. It's repetition. It's specialization.

And that's what makes the original argument so wonderfully stupid.

Every single person involved is accidentally making the opposite point from the one they intend.

"Mbappe couldn't hit Paul Skenes!" Correct.

Neither could you. Neither could I. Neither could ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine percent of humanity.

"An NFL player couldn't survive a Champions League match!" Also correct. Neither could almost everyone else on Earth.

Professional athletes are extraordinary precisely because what they do is extraordinarily difficult.

All of it. Every sport. Every discipline. Every craft. That's why they're professionals. The best of the best. Unicorns.

So the next time somebody tries to tell you that one sport is clearly harder because an athlete from another sport would fail miserably trying it, just nod politely.

Then ask them whether they fancy success facing Paul Skenes in the batter's box, returning a Serena Williams serve, defending Victor Wembanyama in the post, absorbing a Derrick Henry stiff-arm, surviving a professional MMA takedown, taking a frame off Shane Van Boening at pool, or get within 50 hot dogs of Joey Chestnut.

Because the answer is the same for every one of them. The odds of success are too.

Absolutely zero.

And that's kind of the point.

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