Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Pursuing immortality

Compiled by Ron Kantowski, Brian Hilderbrand, Rob Miech and Jeff Haney, Las Vegas Sun

Some records are made to be broken. Others stand the test of time.

Most of these fall into the latter category.

With Barry Bonds closing in on Hank Aaron's all-time home run record, arguably the most revered record in sports, it seemed the appropriate time to scan the globe - or at least a couple of shoeboxes of old baseball cards in the guest-room closet - to put together a list of sports records that may one day be broken, but probably won't.

See if you agree. The home run race

Hank Aaron 755

Barry Bonds 750

Babe Ruth 714

Willie Mays 660

Sammy Sosa 602

Frank Robinson 586

Ken Griffey Jr. 585

Mark McGwire 583

Harmon Killebrew 573

Rafael Palmeiro 569

Other active players ON THE CAREER LIST

21 . Frank Thomas 501

24. Alex Rodriguez 492

25. Jim Thome 482

25. Manny Ramirez 481

29. Gary Sheffield 473

36. Juan Gonzalez 434

39. Carlos Delgado 420

39. Mike Piazza 420

Single-season Top 10

Barry Bonds 73 2001 San Francisco Giants

Mark McGwire 70 1998 St. Louis Cardinals

Sammy Sosa 66 1998 Chicago Cubs

Mark McGwire 65 1999 St. Louis Cardinals

Sammy Sosa 64 2001 Chicago Cubs

Sammy Sosa 63 1999 Chicago Cubs

Roger Maris 61 1961 New York Yankees

Babe Ruth 60 1927 New York Yankees

Babe Ruth 59 1921 New York Yankees

Jimmie Foxx 58 1932 Philadelphia Athletics

Hank Greenberg 58 1938 Detroit Tigers

Ryan Howard 58 2006 Philadelphia Phillies

Mark McGwire 58 1997 Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals

International sultan of sayonara

Sadaharu Oh's (right) 868 home runs in Japanese Pro Baseball.

Cy Young's 511 wins, (His pitching arm must have looked like a Slinky ... ) or Young's 316 losses (... or Silly Putty). There's a reason they named the top pitching award for Young: He also holds the record for complete games, 749; and innings pitched, 7,354 2/3. Many of the truly unbreakable baseball records are that way because of changes in the game. For example, Young's career records were helped by the fact he played a good chunk of his career before 1900.)

Walter Johnson's 110 shutouts. (Unlike today's starting pitchers, the Big Train was known for finishing what he started. The Big Caboose, Roger Clemens, leads active players with 46; no one else is close with so much emphasis on relief pitching in the modern era.)

Owen "Chief" Wilson's 36 triples, 1912. (Safe unless a new ballpark opens with severely quirky outfield dimensions - such as 635-foot power alleys covered with linoleum.)

Jack Chesbro, 41 wins in a season, 1904. (Forty-one wins? They must have been using a whiffle ball.)

Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average. (When they changed it from .367, it was almost blasphemy, like when they said Pluto is no longer a planet. Among active players, the leaders are Ichiro Suzuki at .333 and Todd Helton at .332 . )

Nolan Ryan's seven no-hitters. (He tossed the last two at age 43 and 44. Let's see Roger Clemens - zero no-hitters - do that.)

Nolan Ryan's 5,714 strikeouts. (Can you hear me now, Roger Clemens, way back there at 4,626?)

Cal Ripken's 2,632 consecutive games. (Miguel Tejada played 1,152 straight until a broken wrist landed him on the DL last month. He wasn't even halfway to getting a numbered boulder rolled onto his front lawn.)

Pete Rose's 4,256 career hits. (Craig Biggio is tops among current players and he's only 26th with 3,004. Derek Jeter has more than 2,257 at age 33 and even assuming some drop-off in production could well reach 4,000 if he plays into his 40s. But Rose's record is safe for now. You can bet on it.)

Rickey Henderson's 1,395 career stolen bases. (Lou Brock is second with 938; Herb Washington - remember him? - has 31 and was caught 17 times.)

Hack Wilson's 191 RBIs in 1930. (The record has stood for 76 years, which is a lot longer than Hack stood - he died of alcoholism at age 48.)

Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. (Ever try to preserve a hitting streak by taking an 0-2 slider the other way? The Yankee Clipper never had to hit a slider.)

Ron Hunt's 50 hit-by-pitches. (If Barry Bonds can walk 232 times in a season, somebody can break this. Although it pains us just to think about it.)

Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters in 1938. ("That's incredible," John Davidson and Cathy Lee Crosby said.)

Wayne Gretzky's 2,857 career points (Gordie Howe is second with 1,850) and Gretzky's 215-point season in 1985-86. (Sidney Crosby won this year's title with 120 points. You can bet the Great One's records will stand for a long, long, time but we don't want to give his wife any ideas.)

Rocky Mar ciano's 49-0 record. (Maybe he couldn't carry Larry Holmes jock, as the Easton Assassin infamously said, but Holmes didn't retire undefeated.)

Michael Schumacher's seven Formula One championships and 85 career victories. (Juan-Manuel Fangio won five titles, but that was back in the days when the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny. Alain Prost has the second-most race wins with 51.)

Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point night. (You could argue that Kobe Bryant, no matter where he brings his one-man team, will challenge that. But Kobe's best is 81 and he'd need a fifth quarter to top the Dipper. Two other Chamberlain records seem untouchable: 50.4 NBA single-season scoring average and 55 rebounds in a game.

John Wooden's 88 consecutive wins at UCLA. (No team has gone undefeated in even a single season since 1976. Somebody's gonna have to roll up his program really tight to beat the Wizard of Westwood.)

Jerry Rice's 22,895 receiving yards. (Tim Brown is second with 14,934 and he has never danced with the stars.)

Bill Russell's 11 championship rings in 13 seasons. (If you don't think that's impressive, ask Ernie Banks. That's more rings than Liz Taylor.)

Pete Maravich's 44.2 NCAA career scoring average. (Pistol Pete did it without the aid of a 3-point line and against defenses designed to stop him while wearing droopy socks.)

Lance Armstrong's (above) seven consecutive Tour de France titles. (To paraphrase Bo Jackson, so when is that Tour de France doping test thing?).

Byron Nelson's 11 consecutive PGA Tour victories in 1945. (But if Tiger Woods could ever make a birdie when he's running second, watch out Lord Byron.)

Just Fontaine's 13 goals for France in the 1958 World Cup. (Who said soccer was a low-scoring game?)

Richard Petty's 200 career NASCAR victories and his 27 NASCAR wins in 1967. (Eat your heart out Ricky Bobby).

Margaret Smith Court's 62 grand slam wins in tennis . (Now you know how she got her name. Martina Navratilova is second at 59; no man is close. Roger Federer has won 10 slam titles, but he plays only singles.)

Steffi Graf's "Golden Slam" in 1988. (She's the only player to win four Grand Slam events , plus the Olympic gold medal in the same year. Her husband, Andre Agassi, did it over his career. If you ever seen them shopping at Whole Foods on West Sahara Avenue, you can ask them about it. )

Cael Sanderson's 159-0 record in NCAA wrestling. (The Iowa State wrestler has the longest winning streak and best undefeated record from 1999 to 2002. And they gave Hulk Hogan a TV show. Go figure.)

Edwin Moses' 122 consecutive victories in 400-meter hurdles races. (That record is wholly Moses'.)

Brett Favre's 257 consecutive starts by an NFL quarterback. (Football's iron man is still going, even though he keeps throwing the ball to the other team.)

Jack Nicklaus' 18 professional golf majors. (At one time, the Golden Bear's record appeared unbeatable. But Tiger Woods has won 12 majors since 1997 and if fatherhood doesn't slow him down, this one could fall.)

Mark Spitz's seven gold medals in one Olympic Games. (It must have been the mustache.)

Just plain odd

Most errors, shortstop, single season post-1900: John Gochnaur, Cleveland Blues (AL), 1903: 98 errors (anyone close would be benched, moved to another position or demoted to Triple-A Tacoma.)

Longest world title fight under Marquess of Queensberry rules: Joe Gans defeated Battling Nelson in the 42nd round of their 1906 lightweight fight in Goldfield, Nev. (Too bad it wasn't available on pay-per-view.)

Lightest heavyweight boxing champion: Bob Fitzsimmons, 167 pounds, KO'd Gentleman Jim Corbett in 1897 in Carson City. (He'd almost be a light cruiserweight today.)

Grand slams: Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams in one inning (1999); Chan Ho Park (1999) and Bill Phillips (1890) each allowed two grand slams in one inning; but our favorite is Tony Cloninger, the Braves' pitcher who hit two grand slams and drove in nine runs in a 17-3 victory over the Giants on July 3, 1966.

Holes in one: Norman Manley of Long Beach, Calif., holds the record for aces, 59 from 1964 to 1979, according to The United States Golf Register, which documents all holes in one recorded in the U.S. and works in conjunction with the USGA. By contrast, Jack Nicklaus has 20 aces and Tiger Woods 18.

Career competitive eating department: Eating 18 complete bicycles (lifetime) as well as a Cessna 150 (over two years), Michel Lotito of France. ( Because of safety concerns, Guinness World Records does not recognize any new records in these categories, so they're safe. But Pepto-Bismol continues to recognize them.)

Most NFL contracts declined by a future U.S. president: Gerald Ford, two. (Although there are a lot of Americans who would love to watch George Bush try to break up a wedge on special teams.)

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