This is the most bogus sports question that has been continually asked by American sports enthusiasts over the years. If only those five sports skills are included, what should be asked is " What is the hardest thing to do in sports that only dumbass Americans know about?"

Even if the question provided qualifying criteria about the level of excellence expected or competition to be faced, it is still bogus. Ie.. hit a golf ball 300 yards with no slice or hook; hit a baseball thrown 95 mph or shoot a basketball from 25 feet with defensive pressure. In all truth, I'm surprised that Newsvine allowed such a shallow question to be posted.

Having played, coached or conducted competitions in numerous sports over my lifetime, I know that there are many sports skills far more difficult than the above mentioned.

There are sports that require a high level of conditioning to even compete. Anybody that ever wrestled at a high school or higher level can identify. The wide range of combat sports skills that could lead to competing in mixed martial arts require an incredible level of conditioning and skill. Think triathlon or the extreme sports that you see on the X Games.

It would take too long for me to list other skills that I consider far more difficult that those in your question. Here are two examples: If you have never stood up on a surfboard to catch and ride a wave, you cannot begin to identify how hard that skill is. Likewise, if you haven't run at 3/4 speed up and down a soccer field for nearly a full game (six miles average), then trap a ball kicked to you from thirty yards away off your chest and then kick it it into the net twenty yards away, same thing. This last example will probably produce reactions from the intelligence challenged that will say that soccer is boring so it doesn't count. That is because the bozos would never understand how hard it is to create such an incredible play.

BTW: Driving a car is not a sport.

If it ain't the hardest, it's pretty close.

Baseball - round ball - round bat. end of story

When you take all the skills required of all players in baseball.....hitting, running, catching, throwing, sliding, bunting, etc. there is no sport that even comes close. Then you take a 162 or more games a season, it is also the most physically demanding.

George!

How can you even compare soccer to hitting a big league pitch? All you have to do in soccer is run up and down the field and take a wild kick at a very large ball occasionally. A big league pitch comes at least 90 MPH from 60 feet (.45 of a second), and the darn thing doesn't even go straight! You then have to hit it with a round bat.

Grow up and realize that soccer was introduced in this country to give a sport to kids who had no other athletic talent, except for being able to run in randem directions for a long time.

Number two is either hitting a golf ball where you want it to go or the goalie's job.

i think all of those things are difficult to do, but the most difficult thing to do that i see in society today is good sportsmanship.

i voted for play quarterback tho....

cheers!

hitting a baseball is easier then hitting a puck out of mid air. Hockey is the hardest sport to play on earth.

It has everything all the other sports have and then you play it on a 1/2 inch blade on ice.

George is an idiot. After 40 years of rec experience you still think that kicking a soccer ball is worthy of inclusion in a discussion about challenging sports. Soccer is meant to give kids a way to pass time when there is nothing else to do.

Let us know when you've stood up and tried to hit a fastball. I just kicked a soccer ball with the kids on Saturday. Didn't seem too hard for me.

Gymnastics...hands down. There is no sport more challenging. These other are just kiddie games hitting balls.

I think you gymnastics people have this right. Of the items listed, sure hitting a baseball is probably the hardest. Personally I think that doing an arial somersault on a 4 inch wide board 4 feet off the ground. At least you can see the baseball coming the whole time.

The first thing that must be done to answer this question is to qualify what we mean when we say "hardest thing to do" in "sports". This means we need two definitions. By hardest we may be talking about the most physically demanding, or that which requires the highest degree of coordination of a complex skill set or any other number of definitions. I like using a simpler approach which is simply numerical. The fewer number of people who can achieve a certain act the harder that act is to do. In politics the hardest thing to do is become president. In business it is being the richest business man (or woman).

The second definition requires that we qualify what we mean by sports. Some of you would argue only highly athletic persuits are sports. Others would say that any persuit that has as its goal winning is a sport. For me, both elements are wrong standing alone, as big game hunting and fishing are definitely sports. I like the idea that any activity done for simply for the joy of competing is a sport. Many will argue with this definition, which I think proves that there is no commonly accepted definition of what constitutes a sport. However if we combine the three elements, athletics, winning, and joy of competition I think we have a fairly large consensus of people who would concur with that defintion.

Having said all of this, the hardest thing to do in all of sports is to climb to the top of Mount Everest from Base Camp in 21 hours. The athleticism, mental toughness, focus, concentration, and endurance required for this feat is beyond anything most modern athletes could even consider. Only one person in the history of the world has done this, although thousands of well trained and conditioned athletes have tried. There is possibly no one on the earth who could do that today. It is a sport feat of monumental proportion that will probably never be repeated.

Luke Knows

Chiri once spent 21 hours at the top of Everest - but the fastest of his ten climbs was just under 17 hours. The apparent current record is just over 8 hours.

I think the thing that makes hitting a baseball so hard is that, as was said in the article, it requires analyzing a 90mph spinning incoming projectile less than 3 inches in diameter in less than half a second, deciding what to do about it and then hitting it (or leaving it alone) in such a way that it advances the game, all of this in less than half a second. To make it a little harder, if you hit it less than half an inch off the center of the bat, it will not co-operate in the least. Also, the best do not succeed anything like 4 out of 10 times. I don't know the numbers but I expect that the average at-bat sees the batter face at least 4 or 5 balls which reduces a .400 hitter to only 1 hit out of 10 pitches or less. After baseball, I'd put professional cricket, jai alai and tennis pretty high up the list - all involve a single hitter returning 90+mph balls into a defended area. Hockey has the complication that the hitter is moving quickly and is surrounded by other players but also has the advantage that the hitter is not alone (as with any other team v. team sport).

Hitting a golf ball which is sitting still on the ground seems a little easier - especially when you consider how many professional and amateur golfers make par regularly. Indeed, any golfer who averaged 730 on an 18-hole course (1 in 10 shots working out), would not last long.

One last comment - how many ex-college baseball and even AAA players admit that the reason they couldn't go any further was because they couldn't hit a curve ball.

I was a pretty fair hitter in high school but once, when in Chicago for a Cubs game a bunch of us went to Sluggers, a local sports bar, after the game to try out the batting cages upstairs. In the 70 mph cage I got some decent wood on the ball, in the 80 mph cage a couple of fouls and in the 90+ mph cage no contact at all, and I knew what was coming! Yes, without a doubt, hitting a pitched ball with a round bat is the hardest thing to do in sports. Just ask Michael Jordon!

Wow George, you're such a hypocrite. First you "prophecise" that everyone will claim soccer is a boring sport and then you turn around and call baseball BORING! Baseball is a thinking mans game, and you've proven that you are simple minded.

Let's compare apples and oranges: I have played both sports at many levels, but if I spent 1 year training in only soccer skills, I'm confident I would be a skillful soccer player. If I also spent 1 year training in only hitting a baseball "skillfully", I wouldn't even make single A ball.

Oh nonsense.

Batting averages don't measure how often someone hits the ball - they measure how often someone hits the ball AND reaches base safely. So telling me that the best players can only hit the ball 4 out of 10 times is pure horse waste. An AVERAGE professional baseball player can hit two out of every three pitches he swings at, even if most of those are foul balls or outs. Hitting the ball isn't the problem. Reaching base is.

But try to put a puck past an NHL goalie. Those guys stop 90% of what they see. If your scoring success is 15%, you're a hero.

I think it's much harder to hit a good golf shot than a baseball. In golf you swing a club approximately 35 feet to hit a less than 1 square inch target with a less than 1 square inch hitting surface. That said, is hitting a baseball tougher than pole vaulting? How about gymnastics? Diving? Figure skating? It's a difficult thing to quantify.

How about returning a serve in tennis? They come as fast as 145 miles per hour, can come at wider angles, and can be either to a forehand or a backhand.

Also, having a round bat is an advantage. In tennis, if your angle is off, your return is off.

The responses here are, by definition, truly Subjective.

... Have an imagination and openness.

Hitting a 200 yard GOLF Shot to a pin within 2 feet would qualify as EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. A "better than average" golfer may attain this excellence about as frequently as a hole-in-one.

HAVE A GREAT DAY, SPORTSMEN (WOMEN) !

Wonder how many athletes cross train or for that matter find what they do naturally challenging or downright impossible to master

ex.. baseball player golfing.. or on skates stopping a puck
or golfer smashing a baseball?

it is natural to some and toughest to those untrained..

i cannot hula-hoop to me that is the toughest!

but i can hit a golfball and baseball (enough to look ok)