Favorite Athletes from My Childhood

Sports has been my life for as long as I can remember, whether it was watching the 49ers on Monday Night Football with my Dad, going to Giants games in Candlestick Park with my Friends and Family, staring in awe as Michael Jordan would seem to do the impossible or playing Soccer and Little League, sports has dominated my life and I love every minute of it. So I am gonna talk about my favorite players from the sports I watched as a kid. Lets do this.

Baseball

WILL CLARK 1B of the SF GIANTS

Will Clark 1B - San Francisco Giants - Will "The Thrill" Clark will probably always be my favorite Giant of all time. Bonds has come very close, and no doubt Tim Lincecum and Buster Posey will come close too, but #22 is my guy. There was just something about him, he had that sweet sweet swing, was the first player I got to see live who was a superstar in not only my eyes but in the Baseball world. He was the guy who I would pin my hopes on to come up with the big hit, or make a diving play at first. I remember trying to imitate Will's swing playing Little League but never getting it right, and of course I wore #22. The great thing about Will Clark and Baseball, was that they looked like every day guys (stress the past tense), players back then didn't have bulging muscles, heck some of them even wore glasses! Seeing these kind of players made me think I could be one of them. Will Clark will always be the guy I thought I could be, and that's a pretty awesome feeling.



Football

THE FAMOUS FUNKY CHICKEN DANCE

Merton Hanks FS - San Francisco 49ers - Yeah there were a ton of Hall of Fame players I could have gone with here, Rice, Montana, Young, Lott, Craig, some LEGENDARY names, and I course I loved every last one of them, but Hanks was always a personal favorite, with Tom Rathman coming in a close 2nd. While Rice and the other Hall of Famer's were the most talented of the bunch, they were not flashy, business like even, but they got the job done, Hanks also got the job done, but he did it while maintaining character. Not a big guy but he could lay the wood if needed, and of course Hanks is known for the famous funky chicken dance for whenever he would score a TD on an interception or fumble return. Hanks is one of the more underrated and forgotten men of the great 49er teams. While his career was short lived (9 seasons), he made quite an impact, Superbowl winner and 4 time Pro-Bowler. Hanks had the personality fans loved and had a great game to back it up.

Basketball
Scottie Pippen SF - Chicago Bulls - As much as I would love the best players on my favorite teams, I guess I always was a bigger fan of the Robin to the teams Batman (sidenote: Batman is way more awesome than Robin). Sure I loved Jordan as much as any other kid growing up in the 90's, but Pippen was always my favorite. Always got overlooked despite being a great player, he even led the Bulls when Jordan went on sabbatical and did a more than admirable job at that. I definitely don't agree with Pippen's recent comments regarding Lebron being a better player than Jordan, he will always have my respect. He despite being a Hall of Fame caliber player understood, that Jordan was the guy for the Bulls. I am a big fan of ESPN's Bill Simmons, and in his book of Basketball he references "The Secret". This involved putting the team first, and knowing your role on the team. Pippen "got this" and knew that he was the secondary player and that in crunch time, just give the ball to Michael.

Soccer
Enrico Chiesa - Parma - Manchester United and Parma were my 2 favorite teams growing up. I have about 10+ players from Man United who I loved, but for Parma it was always all about Chiesa. Often overshadowed (seeing a theme here?) by other great strikers in the Italian Soccer League (Serie A) but was so extremely talented in his day. Chiesa is a personal favorite, not many casual soccer fans will know of him or too much about him. I guess I can be a Soccer snob when it comes to this.

Formula 1
Michael Schumacher - Benetton/Ferrari - Yes back in the day I was a HUGE fan of Formula 1, and instantly Schumacher was my favorite. I loved the rivalries with Mika Hakkinen, Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Jacques Villineuve etc etc. Having spent a great deal of my growing up in Ireland, Formula 1 occupied many of my Saturdays and Sundays. The qualifying on Saturday and race on Sunday. Even I have to admit that it did get boring for a few years where Schumie just seemed to win every race with ease, but there is nothing better than two cars going 175+mph trying to do everything they can to get by one another on crazy turns on the creative racetracks. In recent years I have definitely lost track of F1, which is a shame, even Schumacher returning wasn't enough to get me interested again. My advice to people not familiar with the sport is to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. Intense action, any tiny mistake and you are done, Monaco is certainly a non-forgiving race track but it is essentially the highlight of the race year and always worth the watch.

              Michael Schumacher - Greatest Formula 1 driver of all time.

Wrestling
Bret "The Hitman" Hart - What kid growing up in the late 80's or 90's didn't love wrestling? I loved the Sharpshooter, I loved the "Best there is, best there was, best there ever will be", and what I loved was that he was never the biggest wrestler, but always put up a good fight and held his own.

These are some of my favorite athletes from my childhood, post comments on who your guys' favorites were when you were younger. Would be interested to get some answers and feedback from the readers.