Columns

Ring of honor?

Are championships the true measure of a pro athlete? Check out how many role players have more titles than the legends.

By JOHN ROMANO
Published June 26, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Getty Images] Robert Horry holds up seven fingers, one for each championship team he has been on, after San Antonio clinched the NBA Finals. He owns the most titles by a non-Celtic.

The ring, we are told, is all that matters. Statistics, like excuses, are for losers.

We want championships and pennants. We want Cups and Bowls. We want our heroes to bathe in champagne and wash away shortcomings.

Which means, I suppose, we can now assume the following to be true:

Robert Horry kicks Michael Jordan's butt.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, too. Not to mention Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson.

Yup, with San Antonio's recent sweep of Cleveland in the NBA Finals, Horry picked up his seventh NBA championship. That's more rings than any NBA player who was not part of the Celtics dynasties of the 1950s and '60s.

Kind of makes you want to rethink that whole ring-is-the-thing grading curve, huh?

Makes you appreciate Fran Tarkenton zero Super Bowl victories when you start considering Terry Hanratty (two Super Bowls). Or Ted Williams (zero World Series rings) when you think about Hank Bauer (seven World Series titles).

No matter what the sport, a championship is, and always will be, the ultimate barometer. But watching Horry win another ring as a part-time player helps you realize that not all titles come with the same definition.

Not to piddle on the poor man's career, but not many players have contributed less and won more than Horry. He's the guy you can never remember from the Magnificent Seven. He's the guy playing rhythm guitar in Aerosmith.

Horry did not start a single game in 1999-00 and won a title with the Lakers. He averaged 3.9 points per game this season and won a title with the Spurs. He has won two titles in Houston, three in Los Angeles and two in San Antonio but has never made an All-Star team.

Karl Malone, on the other hand, made 13 All-Star teams, won two MVP awards and is the second-leading scorer in NBA history yet has no championship ring.

Kind of makes you wonder who else has found more success than their rightful share. Who has gone from riding on coattails to riding in parades?

The best place to look is on dynasties. The Yankees. The Canadiens. The Celtics. Each franchise dominated a sport for parts of two, three, even four decades.

Yogi Berra owns more World Series rings than any player in history with 10, but he was a Hall of Fame catcher who was a vital cog for a lot of championship teams.

Frankie Crosetti, on the other hand, was the accidental champion. He was a career .245 hitter with 98 home runs while playing shortstop for the Yankees in the 1930s and '40s. Baseball-reference.com compares him favorably to Mike Bordick and Mark McLemore. In other words, he was a darn fine utility infielder.

Crosetti's greatest claim to fame was leading the league in hit-by-pitches eight times. Well, that and his eight World Series rings.

Because he had the good sense to sign with the Yankees - and to be born at the perfect moment in history - Crosetti has more rings than Babe Ruth (7) and Mickey Mantle (7) and just as many as Lou Gehrig (8).

Crosetti was, presumably, a big fan of Tom Sanders.

It's okay if you can't immediately place Sanders. Maybe it would help if you knew some of his teammates. Bill Russell (an NBA record 11 championships), Bob Cousy, Sam Jones, John Havlicek, K.C. Jones and Tom Heinsohn. Hall of Famers, every one of them.

Sanders played beside them with the Celtics throughout the 1960s and picked up eight NBA championships along the way. Sanders was actually a pretty good player, but his resume will always look better than his game.

Claude Provost understands.

A hard-checking grinder, Provost played for the Canadiens through the '50s and '60s. He never achieved the fame of Hall of Fame teammates such as Henri Richard (who has the NHL record with 11 Stanley Cup titles), Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau, Yvan Cournoyer or Jacques Lemaire, but Provost hung around long enough to have his name carved on the Stanley Cup nine times.

Five more times than Wayne Gretzky.

The numbers are not as lopsided in the NFL, where careers are shorter and dynasties are harder to come by.

Still, if you look hard enough, you can find some players with more jewelry than fame. Remember the Steel Curtain defensive line that helped Pittsburgh win four Super Bowl titles in the 1970s? There was Joe Greene, and L.C. Greenwood and Dwight White and ... Steve Furness. Not as celebrated as his teammates, Furness still walked away with four rings. So did linebacker Loren Toews, who just happened to play beside Jam Ham and Jack Lambert.

Naturally, this list is incomplete. In every sport there are the faceless contributors and the nameless substitutes. The ones who toil without much recognition or praise.

Yet, while not famous, they are not completely forgotten. After all, there is a familiar ring about them.

John Romano can be reached at romano@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8811.

[Last modified June 26, 2007, 01:03:39]