I Dislike Your Favorite Team

Hello, friends. Some know us as "Ted," the author of this shlock website. Others know us as "that annoying guy who blogs too much." Some call us "friend" (not many).

Regardless, because in a few hours Spider Man 3 is going to be the highest first weekend grossing movie of all-time, we thought we'd have a little fun with the premise. Spidey climbs, right? That's what he does. He webs people, kisses them upside down, and climbs.

Well, athletes climb too - mostly basketball players, in the dunking sense, but to another extent outfielders, in the literal, climbing-up-the-wall sense. We thought we'd take a look at some of the best overall.

A few caveats: this is by no means a complete list. There's some guys that could dunk six basketballs in one windmill motion in a game with two defenders hanging off them that we likely forgot, much like you could make an argument that Willie Mays is one of the top climbers in world history, from an outfield perspective. This is just a smattering.

Additionally, we gave extra points for those guys who were MORE relevant as "climbers" than as anything else - the guys that, when you think of them, you say "dunker" or "defender" but can barely remember a single team they played for, or whether they're still alive.

That said, we need to get an obvious one out of the way first:

Michael Jordan
If all you gave us to exist for the rest of our life was a clip reel of Michael Jordan dunks from games called by Marv Albert and a never-ending supply of Harpoon IPA, we think that might be as close to heaven as one can find on this Earth.

Kenny Walker
It's not just the flat top - although he gets extra points for that. It's the air. This guy legitimately probably got higher than Michael Vick in a pre-security-checkpoint airport bathroom, and with half the effort. He had a couple of throwdowns with style and panache, and his overall climber score has to be helped by the fact that he really isn't relevant for any other reason - unlike Jordan, who, ya know, has that whole "best ever" thing going on.

Dominique Wilkins
True story: one of my roommates in college is from Augusta, GA. Big Hawks fan, insofar as a person can be called that. For his 21st birthday, his younger brother gave him a throwback Dominique jersey. I swear, tears appeared in his eyes. He said to us, "This is the greatest gift I could have ever gotten." 95.5 percent of the reason is the dunks Dominique took Georgia hostage with over his career in college and the pros.

Vince Carter
We don't like VC, personally - we kind of think he's one of the most irrelevant, overrated players in the last decade of the NBA, and if LeBron doesn't get some help soon, he's about to become the second coming of him - but this dude can fly. When you can pretty much climb up and over Frederic Weis and slam the shite right back down on his head, you need to make this list.

Kobe Bryant
Kobe's game has diversified over time - i.e. since he had to stop being a thug dunker because of the whole rap trial thing - and he'll be the first to tell you he's a leader now. But he's done some nasty junk in his day. Remember that throwdown on Duncan's head in the playoffs about two years ago? That's the closest you can get to saying a dude's salad got tossed without offending at least five subsets of the populace. Also, I'm pretty sure he took one all the way live against the Sonics in a random TNT Thursday game 2-3 years back, and Kevin Harlan screamed "PENETRATION WITHOUT CONSENT!" Uh.

Darryl Dawkins
What else did this guy ever do, really?

Spud Webb
Besides being small, how else was this guy ever relevant?

Tyrus Thomas
You give this kid 3-5 years, he's going to be the best dunker in the current NBA. In the meantime, here's what he needs to work on - 1) not being an arrogant SOB; 2) not going up for completely un-necessary dunks when his team is beating some tomato can; 3) not killing anyone, Ray Lewis style. That's how you jump the shark.

Josh Smith
Speaking of big Atlanta Hawks fans, how many random guys in the slums of Boston have Josh Smith jerseys on right now? Honestly, far too many. Far too many.

Ken Griffey Jr.
Changing sports for a second here, Griffey almost has to get the title of "Best Climber" in the baseball sense - although we'll throw you a curve for No. 2. Edmonds might be the more relevant defender of the past decade, but Griffey literally has run up walls, across walls, and we're pretty sure that if gravity allowed it, he run down a wall too. Some of his catches in the mid 1990s were so stunning that they literally seemed to lift Seattle from its post-1979-Sonics malaise into athletic relevance yet again. It's a shame where his career stands at this particular juncture - Ryan Freel may have surpassed him as the best OF on his own team - but in terms of all-time climbers, this man is legit.

Raul Ibanez
Yep, here's that curveball - and another Seattle reference. Ibanez had arguably the best catch of all of last season (sorry, Mr. Matthews) when he climbed basically the entire way up the wall to haul in a home run catch. He does stuff like that way more than you'd imagine, for a guy who's generally slow as crap and has played in some of the least relevant markets in baseball across the past half-decade. We might be a little swayed by his burgeoning offensive numbers, but his defense is spectacular and understated - most people don't achieve that balance.