Let’s not look at current records but rather records that have been broken yet still are considered great in their own right. The rule is that you have to pick ONE (estimated posts until someone breaks the rule: 6) although you can mention other broken records to say why they are NOT the greatest.
Not Greatest
So for me as great as Bob Beamon’s jump was, it was a perfect jump under perfect conditions. It was one moment instead of a prolonged effort.
Not Greatest
Lou Gehrig’s streak. Yes I give him credit for being uninjured and good enough to play every day but I don’t know that longevity should be considered the greatest achievement.
The greatest is Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs. Forget about the 4 people that surpassed him. At the time, 60 home runs were more than any other TEAM. To put that into perspective, that standard today would be over 200 home runs. Maybe Barry Bonds would have gotten that if pitchers didn’t (puss out like little bitches and) walk him most of the time but we will never know.
I’m gonna go with a different Ruthian record - his .847 slugging in 1920. At the time the next highest slugging percentage was, I believe Ruth himself in 1919 at .657. He got close again in 1921 (.846) but then it stood (and nobody was particularly close) until, of course, Bonds in 2001 (.863).
The next-highest slugging percentage in 1920? George Sisler at .632.
Obviously there is some subjectivity here. For me there are simply too many records to keep track of to know with any real degree of certainty but doing some research on Pro Football Reference (NFL Receiving Yards Career Leaders | Pro-Football-Reference.com) I found something out that was, to me, absolutely astounding - Jerry Rice’s all-time receiving yards number. His touchdown total is amazing, too, but the part that gets me about his receiving yardage total is how much more he has than the #2 NFL player on the list. To wit - 39 yards shy of 7,000. That’s as much of a difference in career receiving yardage as between the #2 receiver on that list (Terrell Owens) and the #41 receiver on that list (Eric Moulds). That, to me, has the hallmark of a record that will take a LONG time to be broken (if it ever is). Jerry Rice isn’t called the Greatest Receiver of All Time for nothing!!
My math was wrong on that last one. If you subtract the (current) all-time #2 receiver’s total career receiving yards from Jerry Rice’s and then subtract that number from the all-time #2 receiver’s career receiving total you have to go all the way down, not to #41, as I indicated earlier, but to #57. In-effing-credible. Jerry Rice was an absolute receiving GOD!
Hoyt Wilhelm’s 1070 pitching appearances. It’s especially great since Wilhelm didn’t play his first major league game until he was 29, and his ERA was still about league average when he was 48. It also was before players’ conditioning was crude (though Wilhelm’s knuckleball caused less wear and tear on the body).
All-around despicable human being OJ Simpson set an NFL record running for 2003 yards in 1973. That total has been topped 6 times in the last 40 years, but every other 2000+ rusher played a 16 game schedule - Simpson did it in 14 games.
Walter Payton’s career rushing record has been broken by Emmitt Smith, but it’s still the bee’s nuts to me because . . . well, because he was Walter Payton. And he played for the Bears. And he died young. So in other words, just because.
Ruth was amazing and a superior athlete, but doesn’t this have a lot to do with segregation and the fact that the game was played a different way - hitting strategies were different and homers weren’t so prized?
Based on his home run rate, he would have needed about 1300 at-bats to hit 200 homers, and 1600 to match the home run total of the Rangers. Unless baseball changes a lot, nobody is ever going to do hit that many homers (or bat that often). Also: why bash the pitchers? They did the smart thing and many of them were instructed to pitch around him.
My choice would be Michael Johnson’s 200m world record that he set at the 1996 Olympics; his 19.32 seconds was 0.34 seconds below the previous world record. (The only real case you can make against it was, it was on a track specifically built for sprinting, especially as it was only used for four meets (a 1995 test meet, the 1996 USA Olympic Trials, the 1996 Olympics, and the 1996 Paralympics); I am under the impression that a number of distance runners complained about it.)
12 years later, Usain Bolt ran 200m in 19.30 seconds.
Prior to Ruth, the ball was different: softer in composition. In addition, it was kept in the game until it fell apart.
Ruth’s 29 home runs in 1919 was a big revelation, and was seen as a way for baseball to make people forget the Black Sox Scandal. The ball was made to go further when hit. It was also replaced when it got dirty and the spitball was banned.
His 54 HRs in 1920 was a sensation – twice what any player had hit previously. Teams were seeing how Ruth had drawn crowds the previous year and certain were more home run oriented, but it took time for batters to adjust from small ball skills.*
Home runs were always prized (hence Home Run Baker), but they were rare, so they weren’t a part of strategy. The Green Monster in Fenway Park was not expected to have much effect on the game when it was built, because no one expected batters would be able to hit it.
As for the racial issue, it’s hard to say that a fully integrated baseball wouldn’t have had the same issues adjusting to hitting home runs.
*Some did disdain it, notably Ty Cobb. He thought HRs detracted from the game. When challenged that this was just sour grapes because he couldn’t hit them, Cobb promised to swing for the fences. In the next two games he hit 5 hrs – a league record for many years. Then, since his point was proven, he went back to hitting singles.
Okay, NOW I think I understand what the OP was looking for on this. I’m gonna go with another professional football record that I think has been broken: Johnny Unitas’ record for consecutive games throwing at least one touchdown pass. Personally I never figured that throwing for a touchdown, for a professional quarterback, could be all THAT difficult. But then again, I’ve never played professional football.
That record lasted about 40 years, but it’s been surpassed a bunch of times. Unitas threw a touchdown in 27 games in a row. Tom Brady got all the way to 52 before his streak ended in September, and Peyton Manning has an active streak of 32 games. Unitas had at least one record that lasted even longer: his streak of games with at least two TD passes. He did it 12 games in a row in 1959. A couple of guys tied that mark, but nobody got to 13 until Peyton Manning did it in 2004. Brady and Rogers tied Manning in 2011.
I’m responding without Googling first that I’m pretty sure that Johnny Unitas’ at-least-one-touchdown-pass-in-a-game record streak was actually 47 games, not 27. As I’ve stated before I’m not a baseball fan but I DO know that many people likened Johnny U’s record to Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak (of over 50 games, I think) in MLB.
Don Hutson caught 99 TDs in his career. The previous record was 37. It wouldn’t be broken until Steve Largent did it 1989. Of course now it has been surpassed, but by only 8 players.
I don’t follow cricket much at all, but Don Bradman’s near-century lifetime batting average is simply unbelievable. Even if you don’t know anything about the sport, just look at that table. Those are lifetime career averages for the top 20 batsmen. Bradman holds a 99.94 average. Positions 2-20 hold a range of averages from 52.88 to 60.97. I mean, Bradman is just such a huge statistical outlier, it’s not even funny.
:smack: Missed the point of this thread. It’s records that have been broken. Stupid short-term memory. In that case, I find it hard not to go with the disqualified Beamon record in the OP. Or maybe Jesse Owens for the same.
So you’re saying that Don Bradman is to cricket batting averages what Jerry Rice is to NFL receiving yards, eh? Cool! Oh, and welcome to the “I didn’t read the OP closely enough” club!
