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March 11, 2012

Top 10 Unbreakable Sports Records

Last week, several sports talk shows were talking about the anniversary of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game and saying it was a record that could never be broken. The subject then turned to other sports records that would forever remain. Several were brought up and some added to the mix while others were discarded as unlikely to be broken, but possibly could be.
This list hit my reader earlier this a.m. and I think it's probably the definitive list.


Number 10 - Rocky Marciano's 49-0

Number 9 - Michael Schumacher's 7 championships

Number 8 - Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average

Number 7 - Nolan Ryan's 7 no-hitters

Number 6 - Wayne Gretzky's 215-point season

Number 5 - Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point night

Number 4 - John Wooden's 88 straight wins

Number 3 - Cy Young's 511 wins

Number 2 - Jerry Rice's 22,895 receiving yards

Number 1 - Cal Ripken's 2,632 consecutive games


I'm not a racing fan, so I couldn't pontificate on Schumacher's record, but it does sound like it's the "weakest" of the ten. If I had to pick another that could possibly be broken, then perhaps Nolan Ryan's no hitter total might be. Jerry Rice's receiving total would be next in line, but I wouldn't bet on any of those three ever being broken. The rest will probably stand for all-time.

I did a little research and found other, similar lists and some lists that took the total even higher:



4 comments:

Barb said...

How about the race horse Secretariat? Everybody knows him as the Triple Crown Winner but he set some records that still stand today. When he won the final leg of the crown most folks focused on his unbelievable lead of 31 lengths. But is time of 2:24 for 1 1/2 miles set a world record many horse folks argue may never be broken.
He also broke the track record at the Kentucky Derby, running the 1 1/4 in under 2 minutes. That record still stands as well. When he ran that race his 1/4 times got faster i.e., with each 1/4 mile he ran he ran them faster than the last. He hold the record for 1/4 times in that race too.

I think Big Red deserves to be on that list ;-)

Mike said...

Well, on the Mike & Mike show where I first heard the discussion, someone emailed in w/ that very suggestion. They disqualified horses, although at the time I thought Secretariat definitely was an athlete, albeit not a human one. I forget their reasoning for leaving the horse off the list, but they were adamant and sarcastic about the subject.

Did you pull all that off the top of your head? If so, then you're a big-time horse racing fan. My dad liked it, and several of my Facebook friends always post about them, but I've never cared one way or the other about it, same w/ auto racing.

I was thinking just last night about how this is the worst time of the year for sports - for me. I don't care a thing about basketball and baseball isn't interesting until at least a third of the way through the season, when teams either fall by the wayside or the races start sorting themselves out.

Other than blockbuster trades or news about the Cowboys, I don't even care about football until the start of free agency and then the college draft.

Barb said...

Not a huge horse racing fan just but a huge Secretariat fan! I was a horse crazy teenage girl when he won the Triple Crown in 1973 and kept a scrap book of all the newspaper articles and photos of him. I would have been supremely annoyed if I had hear them talking about Secretariat in a sarcastic manner.

I loved that his owner was a woman too, I used to day dream about owning a thoroughbred.

I did know that stuff off the top of my head but I double checked the time for the Belmont.< bg >

I still watch the Triple Crown races every year to see if Big Red's records will stand and to see if we are going to ever see another horse like him. I cried when they had to put him down at age 19, way too young for a pampered TB out to stud.

Mike said...

I wasn't cracking wise about you knowing that info...many baseball fans remember stats from their team and favorite players. Me, I have to stop and think who won the championship last year.

Not taking up f/ the sports show hosts, but I think they were just trying to frame the discussion and limit the possibilities to humans only. I don't recall them disparaging the horse, just that they didn't think it had a place in the discussion.

Many of 'em can be annoying though, even about other subjects. The ex-jocks can be the worst with their belief that what they say is the end-all just because they played. It's like saying I can't have an opinion on the military just because I've never been in the service.

I've always thought the arguments amusing about what constituted a sport. Is competitive fishing a sport? Billiards? I don't know, don't really care. It's like what kinds of work are "professions" and the people who work in it "professional".