I think basketball. And of the players who are now playing this is LeBron James
Right now, Lebron is the best player, but let me back up about 40 years for a second.
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, if it wasn't for them, who knows where the NBA would be. When they first came into the league, the NBA FINALS were played on TAPE DELAY!!!!! Imagine how absurd that sounds????? But that's the reality. They were both great, but they really set the stage for Michael Jordan to emerge, and while Lebron's been to 9 finals, Jordan is the best Basketball player ever. 6 Championships, and there's NO guy I'd rather have taking the final shot to win a game that him. That doesn't even begin to talk about what an elite defender he was too. He did it all.
Gretzky in the nhl there wouldn’t be many teams in the states without him
Gretzky put up numbers that nobody will ever touch, specifically the total points record. Alex Ovechkin has a chance to become the most prolific goal scorer ever, but Gretzky just did things NO other NHL player could ever think of doing with the puck. He saw the game 2 moves ahead of everybody else, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
I like the Babe Ruth answer, most people in my generation (I'm 31) and more recent generations don't realize how good Ruth actually was just that he hit a bunch of home runs and thats not the case. Dude has like 7 stat categories where he is in the top 10 all time in baseball. Most people just look at his physical appearance and go "No way he was that great of an athlete or baseball player he just hit bombs," and that is simply not the case. He also had nearly 100 wins on the bump and less than half as many losses.
Babe Ruth is a good one for Baseball. He basically brought Baseball out of the Deadball Era. Now, before I go any further, what MUST be acknowledged is that he played in a segregated game, with no Black Players, which is unfortunate because there were a LOT of great Negro League Players that we know not enough about, but were extremely accomplished.
But, as for Ruth, he was the first player to hit 30, 40, 50, and 60 Home Runs, and in some seasons, he hit more Home Runs than entire teams combined.
There were guys that hit 20 Home Runs in the old National League in the 19th Century, but many of those were likely inside the park Home Runs.
He was also a great pitcher too for the Boston Red Sox, before he was sold to the New York Yankees. He was truly the greatest Baseball player of all-time. He was a larger than life character in the game, and the kids absolutely loved him. He was one of a kind.