PITTSBURGH — It’s perhaps the most famous birthday in all of sports. The man who was born on Aug. 8, 1987 — 8/7/87 — and wears No. 87 and earns a well-calculated $8.7 million annually turned 39 on Friday.And really, at this point, what is there to write about Sidney Crosby that hasn’t already been written?We know he’s an extraordinary hockey player, generally considered among the five greatest in the sport’s history. As if this weren’t enough of a blessing for Pittsburgh to have enjoyed over the past two-plus decades, what truly makes the city appreciate Crosby is that he is the rare great athlete whose character exceeds his on-ice impact and attributes. His kind gestures, generosity and down-to-earth behavior are more legendary, in Pittsburgh at least, than his actual hockey career.Rick Tocchet, now the coach of the Philadelphia Flyers but formerly a successful Penguins assistant coach, once fittingly summed up Crosby:“He is the perfect hockey player,” Tocchet said. “I think he might be the perfect person, too.”At this point, really, the only remaining items left are determining Crosby’s place in hockey history and in Pittsburgh history.Let’s keep in mind that he isn’t done. He told me in May in Switzerland that he’d like to play for a while longer. Crosby is about to enter his 22nd NHL season and, while he’s not one to concern himself with milestones, I suspect he’d like to play 25 seasons if his health allows. If he can manage that, he’ll certainly reach the 2,000-point plateau and probably around 750 goals.In NHL history, there is the holy trinity of (in the order they arrived) Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Argue about their places in history all you’d like. Old-timers will swear Orr was the greatest, that he changed the game and that no one could dictate a game’s conclusion like him. Most will say Gretzky and point at his incomparable numbers. Others will watch five minutes of Lemieux’s YouTube highlights and laugh at the notion that anyone was ever better.Regardless of where you rank them, they’re the top three, and it’s hard to imagine anyone topping them. Maybe if Crosby wins the Stanley Cup again before he’s done, he’ll reach that historical class. Maybe if Connor McDavid ever wins it, he’ll reach it, too, because his pure skill is like nothing we’ve seen since Lemieux.As things stand, it’s appropriate to rank Crosby No. 4 all-time. In 2023, The Athletic did just that — accurately, in my view. Comparing athletes from different eras is impossible, and some will make legitimate arguments for Rocket Richard, Gordie Howe, Alex Ovechkin, Jaromír Jágr, Nicklas Lidström or McDavid. It’s all perfectly fair. But if you combine hockey ability, impact, longevity, winning and international accomplishments, no player outside of the Holy Trinity surpasses Crosby. He is the most-hyped player in the history of the sport, and he lived up to all of it, and then some. He was brilliant at 18. He remains a force one year shy of 40. Even his biggest detractors — typically fans based in eastern Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. — will acknowledge him to be a top-10 player. His biggest supporters will vault him into the Orr-Gretzky-Lemieux category already.