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Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig, Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen Among Greatest Sports Partnerships Ever (Photos)

It was 55 years ago Friday that two lads from Liverpool named Paul McCartney and John Lennon met at a gig Lennon's band was playing.

The rest, in what may be the largest understatement in music, is history.

McCartney and Lennon went on to join up with George Harrison and Ringo Starr to form The Beatles, and launched a juggernaut that forever changed the music industry. 20 No.1 Hot 100 singles, 24 multiplatinum albums, seven Grammy awards and one Beatlemania movement later, the group is pretty much universally acclaimed as the greatest band to ever exist.

Much of the success was traced back to the sublime songwriting duo of Lennon-McCartney. While Harrison and Starr contributed a few songs from time to time — notably "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" — without Lennon-McCartney, there is no "Hey Jude," no "Let It Be," no "A Day in the Life," and so on.

The sports world is no stranger to transcendent partnerships of its own, some of which have teamed up some of the greatest to ever play or coach.

Red Auerbach and Bill Russell led the Celtics to the greatest championship run in league history, made especially significant by the fact that Russell himself was the player-coach for two of their 11 titles.

As formidable as the rest of Murderers' Row was for the Yankees in 1927, it would have been but a shadow of itself were Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig not around to post numbers that defied reality.

And of course, there's Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen — who more or less led the Bulls to six straight titles while playing together.

What is the sporting world's equivalent of Lennon-McCartney? Read on to find out.

Click here to see the Top 10 Greatest Sports Partnerships >>