No, they don’t. Baseball players play just as long and just as much as they ever have.
If baseball lasts another hundred years, Ripken’s record will very probably fall. It’s a record that just requires a good playerwho’s durable and lucky. Like Cal Ripken. There’s nothing unique about the sport in Ripken’s time that makes his record an outlier.
Same with Hank Aaron’s record. Why can’t it be broken? No reason why someone like Ken Griffey Jr. can’t break it. Start in the majors young and stay healthy, and it’s within reach. Mark McGwire absolutely WOULD have broken the record if he hadn’t gotten hurt. Griffey may break it with room to spare.
If you want to find records that will never be broken, look for either obscure fluke records, like Johnny Vander Meer’s two straight no-hitters, or records set under conditions that don’t exist anymore, like the modern record for wins in a season (41, by Jack Chesbro) or innings pitched, or complete games.
Or take the record for triples; 36, by Owen Wilson (not the actor.) You can’t hit 36 triples today; it’s a different game now, with smaller parks and better outfielders. Hell, it was a bit of a fluke in 1912 when it happened, but today to hit 36 triples in TWO years would be a truly remarkable achievement.
Are you sure about this? How many players played in all of their team’s games last season? I don’t have the stats available to me (actually, I’m about to go back to bed…), but if it’s more than three or four, I’d be surprised. And if it’s three or four a year, then that’s gotta be fewer than in the “old” days of Gehrig, certainly. Also, I’m not so sure they play longer… Some certainly do, because expansion has provided more job opportunities. But I’m just not so sure the average player’s career is as long as it always was. And in the context of this topic, you need to consider not the ‘average’ payer but the ‘very good’ and ‘great’ players, since they’re the ones who would play every single game.
I remember Vin Scully talking about Ripken and saying the longest active streak in the majors(at that time) was Craig Biggio, who had some 3 or 4 hundred straight. He has since went down due to injury.
In 1996 and 97 Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggo played all 324 games, and I belive both played into the next season. IIRC Bagwell had 430 games and Biggio had 390 or so.
You can’t ask that without also asking how many players in the old days did, too. And the answer is “not as many as you’d think.” Otherwise, Gehrig’s record wouldn’t have been such a big deal back then.
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Oh, they are. You’ve got utility players and designated hitters playing well into their 40s. Orel Hershiser retired at 42. If I’m not mistaken, Nolan Ryan was 44. Some fade away in their early to mid-30s, but most of the GOOD players stick around for quite a while. (Harold Baines, Rickey Henderson - my God, these two are as old as Methusalah). And think about the “old time” players whose careers were cut short by military service - Bob Feller and Ted Williams just to name two - what might they have done if they hadn’t missed four years of playing time in their primes? Most players are in better shape now than they were in the 40s, 50s and 60s, and, if they don’t get hurt, they play just as long as someone will put a bat in their hands.
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Depends on the makeup of the team. Some very good players don’t play every day simply because there are other very good players in front of them, or very good players coming up behind them. On a crappy team, even an average player might have the opportunity to start every day.
And then, here’s my thought about records: a lot of them came as a direct result of a guy who was more concerned with his own stats than with whether his team won or lost. Ted Williams, for example, never swung at a pitch out of the strike zone. Well, sometimes, it’s a good idea to swing to protect a runner trying to steal a base, or to attempt to move a runner forward. Ted Williams was more concerned with his stats than what his bat could do for his team. So much for the “hit and run” play with him! Kenny Lofton used to run with abandon. Seventy, eighty stolen bases a season. Now he’s stealing thirty or forty. Not because he’s lost his skills, but because he’s running when he’s needed, and not risking injury running when he doesn’t have to. He’s looking out for what the team needs him to do.
I’m not old enough to remember, but my impression was that it was a big deal, albeit not as big as Ripken’s (not by a long shot). But you’re probably right. And my guess is that back then they weren’t as stats-crazed as we are now (heck, they didn’t even have Rotisserie!)…
Yep, true. Of course, seasons were a little shorter, then…
And so many kids are like that when they’re initially called up. They know, for instance, that their game is speed, so they run all over the place, trying to impress the manager. Then later they realize they need more to their game, like actual hitting. (And, of course, the pitchers get a better look at them the second, third, fourth times around.) Look at Vince Coleman. Great runner, couldn’t hit so well, and eventually his OBP problems caught up to him.
I agree with most of the Dopers in this case. The Diamgio record won’t be touche for a long, long time. But, even tougher to break (IMO) is gonna be Cal’s Iron Man. He stopped at over 4 thousand games, didn’t he? I doubt we’ll ever see a performance like that again. With sluggers getting bigger, and pitching getting worse in MLB, I think Dimagio’s streak, as great as it is, will be broken someday.
Not even close. It was about 2600 (sorry, I don’t have the exact number handy). To play 4000 straight games would require over 24.5 years of consecutive play.
Do I think Ripken’s record will never be broken? No. It may just take a lot of time. After all, we never thought anyone would break Gehrig’s record.
Speaking of Gehrig, how about his record of 23 grand slams. That one’s stood for an awful long time, too.
Hack Wilson’s record of 191 RBI’s in 1930, will be hard pressed to be broken. Manny Ramieriz(sp?) had 165 in 99’ and that was still a good month short.
Also Hank Aaron’s career 2297 is still 600+ more than Ripken, 850+ more than Bonds, 900+ than** McGwire** and 1000+ than Griffey.
But one record that will NEVER be broken is Charles Radbourn’s 59 wins in a single season, 1884.
The last one to win as many as: 40 was** Ed Walsh** in 1908, 31, Denny McLain in 68’. Steve Carlton in 72’ and Bob Welch in 90’, both with 27 wins, were the last one’s to even approach 30 wins.
Granted, that some of these records are old, but nontheless they are still the records on the books.
