Does this mean Shaq is Pee Wee Reese?
Though Dwyane Wade's selection as Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year is understandable, the choice is unusual.
The magazine notes that Wade "pulled the (Miami) Heat out of a deep playoff hole, helped put the shine back on a tarnished league and lifted his mom out of her own personal hell."
All of that helped the 24-year-old join only a handful of athletes in a particular subcategory of Sportsmen of the Year.
He's one of five to win the prize without ever having won his sport's Player of the Year or Most Valuable Player award -- or, in the case of pitchers, the Cy Young Award. Of the four others, one was Sportsman of the Year after his playing career (Arthur Ashe, 1992), and two were honored in partnerships (Mark McGwire, with Sammy Sosa, 1998, and Curt Schilling, with Randy Johnson, 2001). Another, like Wade, is young enough that he still could win that MVP (Tom Brady, 2005).
Which brings us to the past SOTY winner who, in a strange way, is the most like Wade.
In 1955, the second year of the award, SI honored Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres. Like Wade, he was a third-year player who led his team to its first championship. And as Wade rose from one of the Chicago South Side's rough neighborhoods to stardom, Podres was hailed by SI as a "country boy from the small mining village" who went on to heroism.
This is from Robert Creamer's story on Podres in the SI edition of Jan. 2, 1956. (I've picked it up from si.com's Sportsman of the Year archives.)
And so, when the country boy from the small mining village stands alone on the mound in Yankee Stadium in the most demanding moment of one of the world's few truly epic sports events, and courageously, skillfully pitches his way to a success as complete, melodramatic and extravagant as that ever dreamed by any boy, the American chapter of the International Order of Frustrated Dreamers rises as one man and roars its recognition.
Edit what was said about Johnny Podres -- the kid who led those great old Brooklyn stars to the title -- and 50 years later you're talking about Dwyane Wade -- the kid who helped Shaquille O'Neal back to the top. When it comes to sports' transcendent themes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.