In Baseball, Some Records Are Not Meant to Be Broken

There’s been a lot of talk this season, with good reason, about Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941. It’s one of those records few think will be broken.

But come to think about it, there are some records that definitely won’t be topped.

Cy Young won a record 511 games in his 22-year career. If a pitcher averaged 20 victories for 25 seasons, he would still be 12 wins short of breaking the mark.

“It can’t and won’t be done,” said Don Sutton, who won 324 games from 1966-88. “You’re just not going to see a pitcher abuse his arm that way.”

In addition to his victories record, Young also holds the mark for complete games (751) and innings pitched (7,377).

The modern record for complete games in a season is 48 by New York’s Jack Chesbro in 1904 when he also won a record 41 games. Don’t look for any pitcher to break either mark anytime soon.

Jack Taylor of the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs pitched the incredible total of 188 consecutive comeplete games from June 20, 1901, through Aug. 9, 1906. When the streak ended, he had pitched 1,727 innings without being relieved.

Unfortunately for Taylor and Chesbro, this was all before the time of incentive clauses and bonuses.

When Kansas City’s Bret Saberhagen won the Cy Young Award in 1989 with a 23-6 record, he had 12 complete games to lead the American League.

Nolan Ryan’s record seven no-hitters and all-time strikeout total seem safe for a while. But Ron Necciai did something in the minor leagues that Ryan and others could only dream of.

On June 13, 1952, Necciai threw a no-hitter and struck out 27 batters while pitching for Bristol of the Class D Appalachian League.

DiMaggio’s streak is one of the special ones, but it’s a lot more reachable than Young’s or Ryan’s records.

Pete Rose made a run at DiMaggio in 1978 when he hit in 44 consecutive games. More recently, Milwaukee’s Paul Molitor made some rumbles in 1987, when he hit in 39 consecutive games.

“I think the toughest thing now would be the pressure of the media coverage,” Molitor said. “I really wasn’t even close and the national media started following after 30 games.”

In the history of the major leagues only 11 players have hit four home runs in game. Can anyone ever hit five?

It almost happened on July 31, 1954, when Milwaukee’s Joe Adcock had four home runs and a double in Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. The double hit the fence on the fly in left-center field, about three feet from being a home run.

“I was surprised I got a good pitch to hit,” said Adcock, who set a record with 18 total bases. “I could see someone hitting five homers in an extra-inning game, but not in nine innings.”

The last player to hit four homers in a game was Bob Horner at Atlanta on July 6, 1986.

“I think hitting four home runs in a game is probably the single hardest thing to do,” Horner said. “Hitting one home run is hard enough. So often you get the pitch you want and miss hitting it right by a fraction of an inch.”

Thirty years ago, Roger Maris set the single-season home run record when he hit 61 in a 162-game season to break Babe Ruth’s record by one.

“It will be hard, but I could see someone like Jose Canseco or Kevin Mitchell making a run,” Mickey Mantle said. “I think it would take a great start because there would be so much media attention.”

Jim Tobin is the only major league pitcher to ever hit three home rins in a game. He did it for the Boston Braves on May 13, 1942.

The second-best thing to a home run is a triple, and the record for a season is 36 by Pittsburgh’s Owen Wilson in 1912. That total was 22 more than Wilson’s second-best total.

By contrast, Jim Morrison of the 1980 Chicago White Sox had 604 at-bats without a triple.

The closest anyone has come to Wilson’s mark recently was Willie Wilson’s 21 in 1977 for Kansas City, and that wasn’t even in the ballpark.

If you hit a triple, one way of scoring is to steal home. The record for most steals of home lifetime is 50 by Ty Cobb.

The record for steals of home in a season is seven by Brooklyn’s Pete Reiser in 1946 and Minnesota’s Rod Carew in 1969. Carew only had 19 stolen bases for the entire season.

“Billy Martin was the manager that season and he was very aggressive on the bases,” Carew said. “You see some double steals that end up with a player stealing home, but very few straight steals.”

One record that seems impossible to break is the mark of two steals of home in the same game. It’s been accomplished by 12 players, the last time by Cleveland’s Vic Power on Aug. 14, 1958.

At one time, no one thought Lou Gehrig’s record of 2,130 consecutive games would be threatened. But Baltimore shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. could surpass Gehrig sometime in 1995 if he keeps going. Ripken last missed a game on May 29, 1982, when he sat out the second game of a doubleheader against Toronto.

Some other individual records that appear mighty hard to shatter are Hack Wilson’s 190 RBIs in a season, Ruth 170 walks and George Sisler’s 257 hits.

The Texas Rangers won a club-record 14 straight games, but that’s nothing compared to the 1916 New York Giants. On Sept. 7, 1916, the Giants started a 26-game winning streak -- all at home. Earlier in the season, the Giants also had a 17-game winning streak. The rest of the season, New York went 43-66 to finish fourth at 86-66.

Considering three managers were fired in three consecutive days recently, the hardest record of all to beat is easy to figure out. Connie Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 through 1950. Of course, Mack also had the advantage of owning the team.