Sports' most unbreakable records...

A few Down Under records

Don Bradman's cricket test match average of 99.94 (to quote wiki - Compared to his average of almost 100, no other player who has played more than 20 Test match innings has finished his career with a Test average of more than 61....)

Peter Brock's 9 Bathurst wins (again from wiki - Jim Richards has won the race seven times...Larry Perkins is the third most successful driver at Bathurst, with six victories. Both Richards and Perkins have shared some of their victories as co-drivers with Brock.)

St George Dragons 11 successive premierships 56-66. wiki

 

No record is unbreakable. No one could beat Babe Ruths 714 home runs, but Hank Arron beat it and ended his career with 755, Barry Bonds is only one away from that record.

Roger Maris's 61 HR in 1961 was unbeatable, but Maris is not 7th on the single season HR list.

(Lets not have a steroids debate)

Now as to the records that will stand for a LONG time.

1. Eric Heiden
2. Wayne Gretzky
3. Cy Young
4. Cal Ripkin
5. Joe Dimaggio
6. Ty Cobb


Bill

 

Ripken. There's no upside to breaking it, and no one is going to come close.

Pete's 4,256 hits will stand an awfully long time. Biggio just hit 3,000 but will retire at year's end. Bonds is at 2910. No one else is above 2,500 that has any serious longevity left. Jeter or A-Rod might snif 3,500, but I wonder. To challenge Pete, they would have to almost double what they already have.

 

Nobody will beat Will Chamberlin's 50 PPG average in a season...the current rules won't allow it.

It will be almost impossible to catch Cal Ripken, too. He shouldn't have even had that many games to begin with. There were MANY pinch hit appearances just to keep it going...so it's almost an artificial record.

 

I agree Webdog. I almost believe it to be an overrated record. I also believe perfect attendance in school is overrated. I know a lot of C and D students who had perfect attendance

 

Richard Petty's 200 career wins.

140 of wins came in the pre-modern era, before 1972, when the number of races per season was 51. Since 1972, the average been about 30. Far few races and a much higher level of competition that exists today that didn't exist then means nobody is catching him.

 

Stupid double post!

 

Johnny VanderMeer who pitched two consecutive no-hit complete games.

Ty Cobb - 54 career steals (stealing home)

Eddie Feigner 9500+ softball pitching victories.

The Harlem Globetrotters - 12,000+ basketball wins.

The father and son duo of Tom Morris Sr. and Jr. who won 8 of 11 possible championships in the British Open in a twelve year span, to keep it "in the family". and from 1860-75, not to be totally outdone, Willie, (Sr.) and Munro Park added five of their own, with only two outside the Morrises and Parks winning 13 of 15 tournaments in that 16 year stretch. Not to be left out completely, Willie Park Jr. would add two of his own some 15 years later. Two families, 15 British Opens.

Not bad, for any of them!

Ed

 

CY Young's 511 wins.

Richard Petty would be next or Walter Johnson.

 

I wasn't so much comparing him as I was comparing the fact that someone could be a role player on a mediocore team and get to his record.

Quick: name a SS that the Orioles had in their farm system that Ripken had to ward off to keep his job. Gehrig saw several 1Bs with the Yankees go on to be starting 1Bs with other teams. I'm not demeaning Cal as a player. I'm just saying the nature of the record is different (Heard that on one of the ESPN shows this morning).

As for VanDermeer's two no-nos, whenever someone pitches one, they're half-way there to the record! I know it isn't likely, but that could be attained in a week's time. Some of these other records would take a career to match. But Johnny's may indeed stand longer. It's an amazing record.

 

I think I'll rank them (from least likely to most likely to be broken):

1. Walter Johnson's 110 shutouts...wow...Roger Clemens, over a 20+year career, has 118 complete games, not to mention shutouts... (Obviously will never be broken, but it was so long ago - the game has changed so much, in terms of how pitching is handled.)
2. Wilt Chamberlain...50 ppg one season (1961?). No one gets within 15 points of it. (I'm most impressed with this record.)
   
3. UCLA's 7 straight NCAA championships, and 88 straight wins. There is no other John Wooden, and the game has forever changed. (Let's hear it for the Wizard! And he is a believer.)
4. CY Young's 511 wins. Clemens is over 150 away, and he's nearly eighty years old :laugh:. (I tink it's only 73. :laugh: Yeah, that'll never be broken, what with the pull pen and having 5 pitchers in a rotation now.)
5. Ty Cobb's .367 lifetime average. Ichiro, the best for-average hitter of our era, is 35 points lower.
6. Pete Maravich...44.1 ppg in college. No one's come close. (And he's a believer.)
7. Dimaggio's 56-game hitting streak. Only one credible challenge (Pete Rose's 44) in 50 years.
8. The Boston Celtics: 8 consecutive titles, and 11 in 13 years. No one's come close. (Would place this higher, but hey... it's the Celtics. I'm a Laker fan... or will be again as soon as they get rid of Kobe... Need I say more?)
9. Cal Ripken's 2,632 consecutive games...he beat a previously "unbeatable record" by 500 games. (And he did it in a manner more impressive than Gehric's - who pitch-hit in some games to keep it going. But heyy, not as impressive as some of the others here.)
10. Eric Heiden's 1980 winter olympic accomplishment: Winning every distance in speed skating--from 500m to 10,000m. This is the equivalent of winning the 100-meter dash, the marathon, and everything in between. (Right, but like hockey... who cares?)
11. Wayne Gretzky's 2,800+ points. He has more assists than other people have points. (Hey... it's hockey, who cares?)
12. Jerry Rice...like Gretzky, pick a record. He is probably 8-10 thousand yards ahead of the next guy in receiving yards. (Yeah, but as FB becomes more and more a passing game, it'll be broken. I once thought Jim Brown's rushing record would hold up.)

FA

 

How about MarK Spitz 1972 Summer Olympics:
7 Events entered 7 Gold Medals won and 7 World Records Broken.

 

How about Fernando Tatis' two Grand Slams in one inning in the 3rd on 4/23/99 against the Dodgers?
His 8 RBIs in one inning is also a record.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/baseball/daily/april99/24/tatis24.htm

 

Ugh... please don't remind me of that moment!

FA

 

No one will ever pitch 13 scoreless innings in a world series game, like Babe Ruth did.

baseball-almanac.com

During Game 2, future outfielder Babe Ruth gave up an inside the park home run to Hy Myers during the first inning of play. During the third inning he helped his own cause when he drove in a game-tieing run then pitched a complete game (14 inning) victory—striking out four (4), walking three (3), and scattering six (6) hits yet allowing only one (1) earned run.

 

Now, this could conceivably happen... but will anyone again win 20 games in a season, and then latter hit 60 HR? I really doubt that. If the babe had not pitched his first few seasons, who knows how many HR he might have hit?

Also, the year that someone hits 50 or more HR, will he also pitch a complete-game victory? As a publicity stunt, they used to have the Babe pitch some years. I don't think he ever lost, though sometimes he gave up a number of runs.

FA