Orr or Gretzky?

Before I enjoyed any other sport, I was a hockey fan; and before a life's worth of sports heroes (Arthur Ashe, John Jefferson, Thurman Munson, Ron Guidry, Dave Cowens, John Havlicek, Larry Bird--and this brings me only to 1979), there was one who, for me, was first and above all.

Number Four, Bobby Orr. Defensemen for the Boston Bruins, who defeated the hated New York Rangers in 1972. As a six year-old living in the Boston suburbs, I was allowed to watch the first period of each of the final games (my mother explained to me what "best-of-seven" meant) and then had to go to sleep. And so I found out the Bruins had defeated the Rangers the way a six year-old usually does in these matters: I came down to breakfast, and to my mother with the paper--in this case, The Boston Globe.

I was too young even to know what "The Stanley Cup" was. But on page one of The Globe I saw what Bobby and the guys were holding up. And I was damn sure it wasn't the second-place trophy.

(Of course, to this day I wonder why someone didn't wake me up for the last few minutes of the previous night's game, as countless New England parents would wake six year-old sons a generation later, to celebrate the Boston Red Sox. But this is a small matter.)

In those days, there was no question: Bobby Orr was simply the greatest hockey player ever. Bobby Hull was a scoring machine, and some older fans would stick up for Gordie Howe or Rocket Richard.

However, as a complete hockey player--for speed, stickhandling, and a complete scorer's repetoire--no one touched Orr.

Not until Wayne Gretzky.

And now, with the issue of the book Searching for Bobby Orr, as they say on ESPN, let the debate begin.