Brooks Robinson.

Did a book report on him when I was a kid, and he immediately became my favorite professional athlete of any sport. My dad took me to a game to see him play, and got great seats not too far from third base.

Brooks made an error that game -- he was near the end of his career -- but that wasn't the most memorable part of the experience for me. Before the game the Orioles were warming up outside the dugout on the third base side, in pairs, each pair tossing a ball back and forth. I was among a crowd yelling out names of Orioles, pleading for an autograph. "Brooks!" "Boog [Powell]" etc. All the players except one totally ignored the crowd. The one exception was Brooks. He didn't come over. But he looked over a couple of times, with an apologetic look on his face, and said "Sorry, I can't" as he continued to warm up. Maybe I made more of that than was warranted, maybe not, but to me that showed that he was a class act, a step above, a decent guy who, despite all his fame and accomplishment, maintained a humble and appreciative attitude.

And yeah, that's why I'm "Brooks"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Robinson

Currently, the only player in any sport that I can unequivocally call a favorite is Hines Ward . In hockey, I like Rick Nash , but mostly because he's the best player on my favorite team.

I've had odd preferences in recent years, among these are:

Football: Fred Beasley, Mack Strong
Hockey: Tyler Wright

When I used to watch baseball and basketball my favorite players were Steve Avery and Michael Jordan, respectively.

On a personal note, I played on the same high school football team as and am distantly related to the semi-infamous Charlie Frye , former Quarterback for the Cleveland Browns (now playing for the Seattle Seahawks). He was the first player in NFL history to start a game at QB in week one and be traded by week 2.

reading about Dizzy Dean.

I was a big Dan Gladden fan. Those 1987 & 1991 Twins teams were great.

Right now, Kobe when he's pissed off is the best athlete to watch. Tiger is unbelievable compared to his contemporaries, I watched most of the Masters and even though he was down 5 shots entering the final round you felt like he had a chance the whole way. Even a second place finish is a huge disappointment for him -- talk about high standards.

I have to say John Elway....and he wasn't even on my team.

:(

If I can pick athletes just based on how much fun they were to watch, I'll take Barry Sanders and (of course) Michael Jordan. If I were born a few decades earlier, I'm sure I would have loved to watch Willie Mays. Ditto Jim Brown.

Never seen any other running back like Barry Sanders. Man, what that guy could do!

150 lbs soaking wet, and the thing about Burson was that he was not a great long range shooter-- his game was mid-range and in. He was absolutely uncanny at getting off layups and shots in the paint in heavy traffic. His bread and butter was the little 15 foot floater around the free-throw line.

Great choice!

Right before Burson was another one of my all-time favorites, Ronnie Stokes, another mini guard, about 5-10, 160lbs, with a lot of energy and personality on the court and great fun to watch.

My favorite Big Ten player to watch in that era was Glen Rice. His game was so smooth and effortless. I always liked the tall guys who could shoot back then, because I was pretty tall and styled myself as a silky shooter :-) (I don't know how it happened, but somehow over the past twenty years or so, my game has devolved into a semi-dirty mix of pushing and elbowing my way to rebounds and loose balls down in the paint. So much for silky shooting skymutt!)

Other favorite athletes:

Another undersized guy I liked was Gerald McNeil, the "Ice Cube", Browns punt returner from late '80s... guy was way too small to be playing football but he'd throw his body into the pile fearlessly every single time.

Some of my favorite baseball players were the pitchers who threw sidearmed, probably because my dad relentlessly tried to get me to pitch overhand. Joe Sambito and Kent Tekulve were two I can recall trying to imitate. Othere than that, I like big relief pitchers who can bring heat and can throw fear in batters: in their primes, Lee Smith, Rob Dibble, Billy Wagner, to name a few.

Jack Nicklaus may be my favorite athlete of all. I never gave up on him until he retired, because with Jack, you just never knew when he might just be able to recapture the old magic and put a little fear in the young guys! You could tell that Jack still tried to win every time he played, even years after he won his last tournament.

I'm a big Tiger Woods fan too. For some reason, I don't go for the underdogs in golf.

In boxing I tend to favor the workman-like performers who are just nails tough: Marvin Hagler was a favorite. I still consider it a travesty that the judges gave Sugar Ray Leonard the decision over Hagler, when all Sugar Ray did was run for twelve rounds and never stood with Marvin and slugged it out. I also really liked Matthew Saad Muhammad, who never had a bad fight ever and had as much heart as anybody I've ever seen.

Finally, there's the athletes that playe their game with a smile on their face and I always rooted for because they seem like good guys: Eddie George, Jose Rijo, LeBron James, Ronnie Stokes fall in that category.

I know you hate sports and all, but you have to respect the work of Pre, right?

Some of us didn't have the chance to attend UofO. What do you think?

Fond memories or Nike U?