Which Sportsman of the Year was more deserving, Phelps ('08) or Ripken ('95)?

Phelps beat the world

By David Steele

This one's pretty easy to deduce, even though it's a shame to have to diminish one person's accomplishments to elevate another's. Nevertheless …

If Cal Ripken Jr. had done what he did in the same year Michael Phelps won his eight Olympic gold medals, who would earn the SI Sportsman of the Year honors?

The answer is as simple as the answer to this: Which is bigger, majorleague baseball or the Olympics?

There is no grander stage than the Olympics, and doing what Phelps did on that stage, against the best in his sport, with the eyes of the world on him, eclipses even Ripken's record. Actually, the debate should probably be limited to other Olympians - Carl Lewis, Eric Heiden, the Dream Team, the U.S. hockey team, for example. But that's a Faceoff for another time.

Baseball wishes it could command a stage a quarter of the size the Olympics do (of course, if it could, the Olympics would not have given the sport the boot). In fact, had baseball not given up its place in the sports universe years ago as carelessly and pointlessly as it had, the Streak might never have had to carry the weight that it did.

Overall, there are other past Sportsmen or -women to whom Phelps might have to take a back seat. With all due respect to the Iron Man, Ripken is not one of them.

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Ripken saved his sport

By Peter Schmuck

When Sports Illustrated named Cal Ripken Jr. its Sportsman of the Year for 1995, the choice was met with about the same level of surprise as Michael Phelps this year.

I mean, who else? Cal broke Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games that year, and you could make the case that it was an even rarer achievement than Phelps' winning eight gold medals in Beijing, but that's really not the issue here. Both reached the absolute pinnacle of their particular endeavors. Each displaced one of the legends of his sport. Both are beyond deserving of all the recognition and praise they have received in the aftermath.

There is one big difference, however. Michael didn't save the sport of swimming from itself. He certainly raised it to a new level, but it was in no danger of being eliminated from the Olympics or falling into disfavor with the general public when he began his historic medal quest.

That's why Cal is actually more deserving than Michael, and I say that with all due respect to both. Cal picked Major League Baseball up after the disastrous 1994 work stoppage that forced the cancellation of the playoffs and World Series. He ushered back a nation full of disaffected fans with his pursuit of Gehrig's record, even if the act of simply playing every day did not engender the kind of suspense that accompanied Michael's phenomenal eight-day run in China. Ripken spent the months leading up to the record-breaking game standing for countless hours at Camden Yards and around the country signing thousands and thousands of autographs. He did everything but go door-to-door to bring the fans back to the ballpark.

Both deserve every bit of SI's Sportsman of the Year award, but Cal deserves it a little bit more.