What defines greatness?

A difficult question for some, an easy one for others. Was Alexander truly Great? How about Gretzky?

On Sunday, Roberto Alomar was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. As John Allemang of the Globe and Mail put it so well on Saturday, “This is the Hall of Fame by which all others are measured, and it has proved the best at discerning greatness since the first players were selected in 1936. Here you'll find the judgment of history on a man's ultimate meaning as rendered by people who watch a game where every moment is an opportunity for achievement and assessment, where a limitless array of cold-hearted numbers is instantly available to back up the eyewitness reports.” It was his second year of eligibility for the Hall, and he had just missed out in his first year.

For those of you simply scratching your heads, Robbie Alomar was the Toronto Blue Jays second baseman at the height of their success. He hit off impossible pitchers, stole improbable bases, and made unbelieveable plays in every game, but more than all that he played the game with such beauty and precision, such grace and ease-of-manner on a daily basis that he made the game just look easy. I probably watched a very good percentage of the games he ever played with the Jays, and every day, on every play he just seemed to know exactly where to be. He was a very real pleasure to watch. He got to ground balls few if any of his day could have even tried to knock down let alone catch, get up and throw out the base runner.  Very few indeed, ever.

You knew that when you watched him. He was something special, something great. He played the game beautifully. In sports, the game itself, the field of action is a stage on which one type of greatness is played out.

So now it’s official. He is Great. Roberto the Great.

That makes me smile.