As part of Sportsnet magazine’s upcoming sports movie package we’re seeking to determine the greatest fictional athlete in film history. And we need your help to do it.
“Greatness” is open to interpretation. Some of the names appearing in the bracket overcame extreme adversity, others single-handedly took their team from laughing-stock to champion, while a select few were flat-out dominant in their respective sports.
Each day this week on Sportsnet.ca we’ve been asking you to cast your vote, and the final results will appear in the next issue of Sportsnet. With a seemingly endless list of worthy candidates and a rule that only one athlete from a movie can be represented, on Monday we asked you to help whittle the list down to 16 names that will make up the bracket. Tuesday and Wednesday we cut through the eight first-round showdowns while on Thursday the quarter-finals featured some nail-biters that came down to the wire.
Now it’s on to the semi-finals.
Vote on the other semi-final matchup: Rocky Balboa vs. Dottie Hinson
And so here we go. In this matchup we’ve got a battle of natural talents:
Happy Gilmore, golfer
Despite extremely poor swing mechanics, essentially no golf IQ and an obvious alcohol problem, Gilmore, a multi-sport athlete, overcame the odds to win back his grandmother’s house and make Chubbs proud.
Roy Hobbs, RF, New York Knights
He was going to be the greatest baseball player there ever was. Instead, he had to settle for the greatest season—long delayed. He got shot in the stomach as a teenager, and didn’t make his big-league debut until 35. But even after 15+ years out of the game he was still so good he knocked the cover off the ball on command. Former ESPN scribe and current Ringer ringleader Bill Simmons once estimated Hobbs’s stats in his one season of pro ball at 44 homers, 106 RBI and a 1.196 OPS in 115 games. Not bad for a 35-year-old rookie.