The Detroit Free Press has been holding a fan vote for the last month, with fans pitting Detroit sports legends against each other in order to determine the greatest Detroit sports star of all time. Today, the Free Press’s Carlos Monarrez reports that fans picked the right “GOAT” for the job:
My faith has been restored.
You, the Detroit sports fans and Free Press readers, have restored my faith by voting Red Wings forward Gordie Howe over Tigers outfielder Ty Cobb as the best pro athlete in Detroit team history in Freep.com’s Tournament of G.O.A.T.
I’ll be honest. My faith was a little shaken for a while when I saw some upsets, and particularly 15th seed Matthew Stafford’s Cinderella run to the Lions bracket final against top seed Barry Sanders. Stafford over Joe Schmidt? Really, people?
I was worried there was going to be too much of a recency bias. I feared a Final Four of Stafford vs. Miguel Cabrera and Chauncey Billups vs. Pavel Datsyuk, with Stafford winning it all.
But our readers and voters got it right. They gave us a Final Four of Sanders vs. Cobb and Howe vs. Isiah Thomas. Cobb beat Sanders, 52.3 percent to 47.7 percent. Howe beat Thomas, 85.5 percent to 14.5 percent.
In the final, they got it right again. Mr. Hockey over the Georgia Peach in a route. The final vote total: 2,843 to 1,007, or 73.84 percent to 26.16 percent.
Monarrez continues, and I’d suggest that fans picked the right player.
