"Across all sports, the most-frequently remembered players comprise a nonet of MLB legends: The leading vote-getters outside of baseball were LeBron James (606), Tom Brady (577), and Lionel Messi (492). A world in which Ichiro is twice as salient as Tom Brady sounds pretty good to me. Sidney Crosby, Alex Morgan, and Caitlin Clark respectively received the most votes among hockey, women's soccer, and WNBA players. You can peruse the full results here."
"This exercise bore much fruit: I got to know Bill Pulsipher's facial hair, became reacquainted with Ryan Garko and JB Shuck, and contemplated avant-garde Grid strategies. I received confirmation that at least 10 other people also still had Josh James in active memory. Crunching the numbers also taught me something about the types of Guy we remember. Brace for some math words after the section break."
"It's obvious from the leaderboard above that player quality is the main determinant of Getting Remembered. Focusing on MLB, the correlation coefficient between the number of times a Guy was remembered and their 7-year Peak WAR is a couple of points higher than the correlation between the number of times a Guy was rememberedand their career WAR, 2000s WAR, JAWS, or playing time. This makes sense: Guys who burn bright impart their afterimage in our retinas."
A collaboration with Immaculate Grid by Sports Reference produced a fan-driven memory project. Participants submitted more than 36,000 grids remembering 24,455 distinct athletes. The most frequently remembered players across sports were nine MLB legends, with LeBron James (606), Tom Brady (577), and Lionel Messi (492) leading outside baseball. Sidney Crosby, Alex Morgan, and Caitlin Clark led hockey, women's soccer, and the WNBA respectively. Analysis shows 7-year Peak WAR correlates most strongly with how often MLB players were remembered, indicating players who peak brightly remain more salient.
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