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The 20 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century (Sports Illustrated for Kids Books)

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While there will always be some dispute about the top 20 athletes of the 20th century, there can be no dispute about the accomplishments of these people. The 20 listed in the book are:

*) Muhammad Ali
*) Jim Brown
*) Wilt Chamberlain
*) Nadia Comaneci
*) Babe Didrikson Zaharias
*) Wayne Gretzky
*) Michael Jordan
*) Jackie Joyner-Kersee
*) Carl Lewis
*) Willie Mays
*) Joe Montana
*) Martina Navratilova
*) Jack Nicklaus
*) Jesse Owens
*) Pele
*) Jackie Robinson
*) Bill Russell
*) Babe Ruth
*) Pete Sampras
*) Jim Thorpe

Some of the people, such as Jackie Robinson, are in this list for greatness that went beyond his statistics in his sport. Unlike the records of others, his will stand forever with no hope of anyone else ever breaking it. However, for some of the others, the word dominance simply is not enough to describe their actions. Babe Ruth hitting more home runs than many other teams in the majors, Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a single game and averaging over 50 points a game for a season and Babe Didrikson Zaharias being the sole member of a track team and winning a championship are some examples.
This is an excellent book for children as it presents some of the amazing feats of people we call athletes. In many cases it also demonstrates that the best athletes play all aspects of their game very well and many struggled and worked hard to achieve their greatness.