The 25 Sports Records That Are Impossible To Break
Derek Jeter got his 3,000 hits. Jim Thome will soon get his 600th career home run.
While both numbers are impressive, neither statistic is anywhere near being an All-time record.
From Wilt Chamberlain to Joe DiMaggio, here are some of the current records will never be beaten.
Ron Hunt gets hit by a pitch 50 times in 1971
Former Major League second baseman Ron Hunt once gave a famous quote concerning his style of play: "Some people give their body to science; I give mine to baseball." He was right about that.
In 1971, while playing for the Montreal Expos, Hunt was hit with fifty pitches. This record was set during a string of seven seasons where Hunt led the Majors in times hit by pitch.
This record will never be broken because no one wants to attempt breaking it.
Wilt Chamberlain grabbed 55 rebounds in a single game in 1960
Wilt Chamberlain holds several all-time NBA records because no one could ever stop him from getting to the rack due to his talent and strength. The NBA eventually widened the lane and changed in-bounding rules due to Wilt's sheer dominance.
On November 24th, 1960, Chamberlain snatched down an incredible 55 rebounds in a game against the Boston Celtics. Despite this amazing tally, Chamberlain's Philadelphia Warriors lost the game.
Since 1973, no NBA player has topped 37 boards in a single contest. Wilt's the NBA's all-time leader in total rebounds with 23,924. The active player closest to that career mark is Boston's Kevin Garnett who has 12,819.
Johnny Vander Meer throws back-to-back no-hitters in 1938
Throwing a no-hitter still remains one of the toughest achievements a pitcher can get at the Major League level. However, whenever a pitcher finds himself toeing the rubber after throwing a no-no in his previous start, baseball announcers will always bring up the name Johnny Vander Meer.
This is because Vander Meer is the only pitcher in the history of the MLB to have thrown back-to-back no-hitters. On June 11, 1938, the Reds lefty spun a gem against the Boston Bees at Crosley Field. Four days later, Vander Meer threw the second no-hitter against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.
Steffi Graf's 377 weeks as the world's #1 tennis player
Steffi Graf is often regarded to as the best women's tennis player of all-time because she has spent more weeks at #1 in the world than any tennis player in history. No tennis player has threatened this record since the WTA started ranking players.
When Steffi Graf was at her best in the late 80s, she was required to face off against players like Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Pam Shriver, and Monica Seles. That list reads like a tennis hall-of-fame dinner, but from August of 1987 to March 1991, Graf was #1. She held that distinction for 186 straight weeks.
Isner and Mahut's marathon match
In 11 hours and 5 minutes, one could drive from New York City to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, cook a turkey with all the fixings, or read one-fourth of the book War And Peace.
Or, if you're John Isner or Nicolas Mahut, you can complete one tennis match.
The opening round match up at the 2010 Wimbledon tournament lasted so long that the match had to be spread over three days, and both players ended up with over 100 aces to their names.
Isner ended up winning the match 6–4, 3–6, 6–7(7–9), 7–6(7–3), 70–68.
Eric Gagne's 84 consecutive saves
Starting in August of 2002, Dodgers' closer Eric Gagne saved 84 games in a row. During this streak, the five closers that recorded the most saves in the majors besides Gagne blew 34 save opportunities combined.
Gagne won the 2003 NL Cy Young Award due to his sheer dominance out of the bullpen. After his streak ended, injuries derailed Gagne's career and he was never able to regain his form. Luckily for him, it doesn't seem likely that anyone else will find Gagne's form either.
Pelé's 1,281 career goals
If you include all the goals Pelé scored on international tours with the New York Cosmos, Santos, and the Brazilian armed forces, his career total in goals is an insane 1,281.
There is some dispute in the international community as to how many goals Pele scored exactly, but we do know that it's more than anyone else and it will stay that way forever.
Pete Rose's 4,256 career hits
Pete Rose may never end up in the Hall-of-Fame, but his career hit total of 4,256 seems unlikely to be touched in this era of baseball.
Rose's career spanned 24 seasons, and he led the big leagues in hits seven times, and topped 200 hits ten times. That sort of longevity and consistency just isn't found in baseball anymore, and unless someone with the hitting talent of Ichiro plays for 20 or more seasons, Rose will always have one of the most storied records in all of sports.
Glenn Hall's 502 consecutive games starting as a goaltender
Glenn Hall is one of the best NHL goaltenders ever, and his 502 consecutive games in net is a mark that will surely never be touched.
From the beginning of the 1955-56 season until November 8th, 1962, Hall started in net for every single game. Even more impressive was that he started his streak while playing for the Detroit Red Wings and he finished his streak while donning a Chicago Blackhawks jersey. To top all of that off, Hall didn't wear a goalie mask or helmet for the entirety of the streak.
Since all NHL teams carry at least two goalies to spell net minders for when they've played too many games in a row, Hall's streak will never be topped.
Roger Federer's 237 consecutive weeks as the world's number one tennis player
Roger Federer's resume is basically a tennis record book, however his 237 consecutive weeks as the WTA's top player is Federer's most impressive factoid.
Federer dominated the sport of tennis for most of the 2000s. From February 2nd, 2004 until June 1st, 2010, the Federer Express was sitting pretty atop the world.
The record holder before Federer was the legendary Jimmy Connors. His streak lasted 160 weeks.
Sam Crawford's 309 career triples
Sam Crawford isn't typically mentioned amongst the game's best hitter, but he is up there. Crawford was the first Major Leaguer to lead the AL in home runs for a season and the NL in home runs during a season. His 51 inside-the-park homers are second all-time, and his 309 career triples is an unbreakable record.
The closest active competitor to Sam Crawford is Boston's Carl Crawford who has 109 three-baggers in his career.
Rocky Marciano's undefeated record
Marciano went 49-0 during his nine-year boxing career. While his career was short from a calendar based standpoint, "The Rock from Brockton" packed a lot of matches into a year and he defended his world heavyweight title six times.
While Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is 41-0 in his career, it doesn't seem likely that he'll get to 49 bouts since he is now 34 years old, fights about once a year, and would probably lose to Manny Pacquiao.
Bobby Orr's plus-minus of 124 in 1970-71
The last time an NHL player had a plus/minus greater than fifty was the 2002-03 season when both Milan Hejduk and Peter Forsberg both had fifty-two. With those two and a few other outliers excluded, the typical NHL leader in +/- hangs around forty for the season. Bobby Orr's record setting 1970-71 season output is three times higher than what we would typically expect a modern league leader to be.
By the way, Orr battled a bad knee that entire season.
Rickey Henderson's 1,406 career stolen bases
Managers don't send them like they used to. Also, there can't be too many players in the future that have the skill set Rickey Henderson did.
Henderson has 468 more stolen bases than Lou Brock who is second all-time in swipes. The current active leader in steals is the White Sox's Juan Pierre who has 542 career steals. Henderson's record is safe.
Archie Moore's 131 career knockouts
Archie Moore is believed by some to be the greatest pound-for-pound boxer in the history of the sport. It's hard to argue with that claim considering that Moore knocked out more boxers than anybody who ever lived.
Moore took part in 218 professional matches to get to this record, it's safe to assume no one is touching this one. In fact, it's incredibly rare for a boxer to even have 131 career matches nowadays. No active boxer has broke the century mark in bouts.
Barry Bonds' 73 home runs in a single season
It takes supreme power, hand-eye coordination, and a lot of luck to reach fifty home runs over a single-year campaign. Seventy-three is unreachable.
Bonds holds several records that will likely never fall. His 7 MVP awards, 762 major league homers, 2,558 walks, and 688 career intentional walks may stay in the books forever.
Byron Nelson's winning 11 tournaments in a row on the PGA tour
During his magical 1945 season, Lord Byron won 18 of the 35 tournaments that he was entered in, and at one-point, he rattled off 11 tournament victories in a row. Despite those impressive numbers, World War II interfered with his schedule and he was only able to win one major, the 1945 PGA Championship.
Sadaharu Oh's 868 career home runs
There's some controversy around this record since Japanese baseball stadiums have shorter distances between home plate and the outfield walls, but 868 is the world record for home runs in a career.
This record won't be broken on the Major League level simply because it's over 100 more than the recognized MLB record for career longballs.
The current active leader, Alex Rodriguez, is 242 homers behind and he's already 35-years-old.
Brett Favre's 321 consecutive games started at quarterback
Since the NFL seems like they are heading towards having defensive players two-hand-touch quarterbacks instead of actually sacking them, perhaps this record is approaching breakable, but until we regress to playground rules, Favre has this record in the bag.
Say what you want about Favre and his primadonna status, but he was as tough as they come on the gridiron. Those 321 consecutive games (our count includes his playoff starts) were littered with serious injuries to the abdomen, shoulder, and ankle. Also, Favre once started a Monday Night Football game on the same day his father died.
The Colts' Peyton Manning is the current active leader in consecutive games started at quarterback with 227 in a row, playoffs included. He does have an outside shot of tying Favre, but a lot could happen between now and then.
UCLA's 88 consecutive wins and seven consecutive NCAA Championships
Starting on January 30th, 1971, John Wooden's UCLA Bruins began an 88-game win streak that both college and professional teams can only dream about.
This streak ended up lasting until January 17th, 1974. During this three-year span, the Bruins won three NCAA basketball championships. Those three titles were the Bruins fifth, sixth, and seventh in a row, which is another record that will never shatter.
Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak
When most people talk about unbreakable records, Joltin' Joe's 56-game hit streak in 1941 is one of the first few off the board. No player in history has come within ten of the Yankee Clipper's streak.
However, the streak is theoretically possible assuming that we haven't seen all the talent the world has to offer in the way of hardball players. One factor to consider, however, is the media firestorm that would follow a batter that was actively pursuing DiMaggio's streak. The coverage that player would receive would probably make that player's hair fall out.
Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a single game
To have the skill to score 100 points in a game is a rarity in itself. Also, Chamberlain had a distinct advantage with what defenses were allowed to do back then. Also, his height and power helped too.
Another talented scorer, Kobe Bryant, sits closest to Chamberlain in the record books with his 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors in 2006. Kobe's too old now, LeBron is too pass happy, and Dwight Howard doesn't have the ability to take over a game like Wilt did.
That leaves Kevin Durant as maybe the only person who has a semblance of a chance to get to 100 in a game, but that could be years and years away if at all.
Cy Young's 511 career wins
In the modern era of pitching, the most wins that a hurler can realistically hope for is 25, and that is quite the rarity. Ron Guidry in 1978 was the last time any pitcher reached that win plateau.
So, for the sake of argument, lets say a pitcher rattles of twenty straight 25-win seasons. That would give this hypothetical pitcher 500 career wins. He would, even after that unprecedented streak, still be eleven wins short of the record.
Cy Young's place in baseball history is surely eternal.
Wayne Gretzky's 2,857 career points
They called him "The Great One" for a reason.
Gretzky's insane 2,857 career points are almost 1,000 more than Mark Messier who is second all-time. What's even more insane? Messier played five more season than Gretzky did.
This very well could be the most unbreakable record in sports. However, Gretzky prowess is rivaled only by one baseball player's unwillingness to sit out a game.
Cal Ripken's 2,632 consecutive games streak
Not only is this streak impressive from a pure numbers stand point, this record may also hold a record as being the only record that saved a sport.
The 1995 season followed the strike-shortened 1994 season where baseball saw a mass exodus of fans who were dismayed when they saw their beloved sport get done away with over arguments about money. Attendance figures were down across the board and there weren't any stories for the public to become captivated with it's past time again. That is until people realized that Cal hadn't taken off a day from work since May 30th, 1982.
The original record held by Lou Gehrig was broken by Ripken on September 6th, 1995. The streak, at that point, was 2,131. The home run he hit during that game is considered by many to be the greatest moment in baseball history.
Cal Ripken, Jr. was a baseball player that well represented a melding of the throwback, get your uniform dirty type with the modern polished professional. Nearly every baseball fan had reason to identify with him. Ripken might as well have been anointed as baseball's savior from the onset of his historic career.
Ripken's streak ended at 2,632 consecutive games when he voluntarily pulled himself out of the Orioles line-up on September 20th, 1998.
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