Can You Hit Bottom With a Top-10 List?

I am still recovering from the shock after reading Bob Oates’ list of the top athletes of the 20th Century. Including Deion Sanders and excluding Michael Jordan could possibly be the biggest oversight of the millennium.

MICHAEL LEE SAVANT

Santa Monica

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Bob Oates’ list is absolutely absurd. How could he not name Jim Thorpe as the top athlete of the century, much less not name him in the top 10? Thorpe and Babe Ruth were contemporaries, yet every sportswriter in America considered Thorpe the greatest athlete during their lifetimes. No athlete, including any in Oates’ top 10, has done what Thorpe did.

JACK ALLEN

Pacific Palisades

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Bob Oates’ article on America’s greatest athletes is a sham. What he really is writing about is those who made it into the pro ranks and who excelled at one or two skills.

How many on his list could swim the butterfly, ski the Cornice Bowl at Mammoth Mountain or do a 2 1/2 somersault from the 10-meter tower?

I read an even dumber similar article last year in the Salt Lake Tribune and that author included Secretariat.

STAN GORDON

Encino

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If Bob Oates doesn’t consider Arnold Palmer, a golfer, to be an athlete, then I don’t consider Bob Oates a writer.

LEILA McDERMOTT

Sylmar

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O.J. at No. 3 in Bob Oates’ 20th Century top 10 is comical. O.J. is not even close behind the likes of Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown (four sports at Syracuse), Magic, Arnold Palmer, etc. Bob must be confused by O.J.’s commercials and movies.

DON PROMAN

Santa Monica