Screwing around at cnnsi.com while eating, here’s their list of top 10 most unbreakable baseball records:
1. Cy Young’s 511 career victories
2. Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak
3. Ty Cobb’s career .366 batting average
4. Rickey Henderson’s season SB record of 130
5. Babe Ruth’s career .690 slugging pct
6. Barry Bonds’ season record for walks: 232.
7. Nolan Ryan’s career Ks of 5,714.
8. Jack Chesbro’s season record for complete games: 48.
9. Ted William’s lifetime OBP of .482
10. Hank Aaron’s 25 career all-star games (somewhat aided by multiple games for several years, but he still played in an all star game in 21 of his 23 seasons).
Most of these I tend to agree with … but there are certainly other records out there that are in a similar vein to Cy Young’s career victory record. Single season wins, single
season innings pitched, starts, complete games, etc all are basically obsolete benchmarks. Hell, I’d be willing to wager against someone ever winning 30 games in a season ever again.
Not sure i’d say that a 56-game hitting streak is unassailable. Yes it’s been a while since it happened, but it routinely gets approached. You see 30, 35, 40 game streaks
with some frequency.
Plus, i think the stolen base is coming back into vogue. Maybe not close to 118 or 130 in a season, but i think its just a matter of time before we start seeing higher totals.
There seems to be a dearth of quality defensive catchers these days.
anyway, random thoughts.