# Longest/most impressive streaks in sports. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2005, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060 "2005-05-16T13:46:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/81 "2005-05-19T16:55:40Z")
> [@Yeticus Rex](#): > > Having a hard time finding the record…I did find that Craig Ramsey from the Blackhawks played 776 straight games from 1973-1983…the fourth longest streak. :smack: Ramsey played for the Buffalo Sabres, not the Blackhawks…Glenn Hall did though. Thanks for digging that up **colour wolf**. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/82 "2005-05-19T17:11:59Z")
[Bjorn Borg](http://www.tennisfame.org/enshrinees/bjorn_borg.html) deserves at least a mention in this thread for his five straight Wimbledon titles. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/83 "2005-05-19T19:02:09Z")
> [@ronincyberpunk](#): > > Well, rather tongue in cheek I would point out the college football score difference record - held by Georgia Tech under the leadership of the ruthless John Heisman. GT beat Cumberland 222-0 in 1916. The story goes that Cumberland begged GT to give them a game, when in fact Cumberland didn’t even have a real football team. It was basically a scrimmage game. During half time GT was up something like 144-0 and Heisman told his team “Don’t let up, you never know what these boys have up their sleave.” If you want to pull a real trivia question out of the hat, ask someone what was the **second** most lopsided college football game ever. The answer: [King College (Bristol, TN) 206, Lenoir-Rhyne 0](http://www.king.edu/StudentOrganizations/Flagfootball/Administration/Football/History/1920-1929.htm), in 1922. According to college lore, the final score would have topped that of GT-Cumberland, except that Lenoir-Rhyne allegedly called it quits after the third quarter. ---
**Author:** ![longat24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f17d59/32.png) [@longat24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/longat24)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/84 "2005-05-19T19:09:45Z")
Okay so the Portland Trail Blazers made the NBA playoffs 22 years in a row (and yes now they kinda suck but …) I also feel that an honorable mention needs to go to Happy Scrappy Pup for the number of consecutive threads I have seen him in. I don’t really know him, but it is impresive … I don’t know that it is a sport but … ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/85 "2005-05-19T19:48:27Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > Here is a link that states that Joe had a 1 in 8,300 shot of a 56 game hitting streak over the course of his carreer. > > [The link.](http://thecommish.homestead.com/hotcorner_06_23_03.html) There’s a spreadsheet at the link, so you can see how they crunch the numbers. And there’s a little mistake in their arithmetic. The columnist correctly calculates the odds of getting a hit in a game (as opposed to in an AB). But he jumps straight from there to the odds of getting a 56-game hit streak in a season, and he does it badly. He first takes the chance of getting a hit in a game, and raises it to the 56th power. So far, so good: that’s the odds of hitting safely in 56 specific games. Then to get the odds of a 56-game hit streak in a season, he multiplies that by 99/154 (for a 154-game season) or by 107/162 (for a 162-game season). That’s obviously wrong, because having more opportunities for an event to occur can’t reduce the chance of the event. What he should be doing is simply multiplying by 99 (or 107) for a 154 (or 162) game season, since that’s the number of possible sets of games to have a 56-game hitting streak during. Turns out the odds of Joe D. having a 56-game hitting streak in 1941 were ‘only’ 700 to 1 against. Certainly a longshot, but hardly astronomical. _Somebody_’s gonna do it again eventually. After all, Sidney Stonestreet, who played for the Rhode Island Reds of the Chicken Coop League, had a 48-game hit streak…😉 ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/86 "2005-05-19T20:06:24Z")
Makes sense. So, in your mind we can rule out Joe’s hitting streak as the greatest ever. Just looking for input is all. 😉 Do you have any others in mind that you would consider worthy? ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/87 "2005-05-19T22:32:55Z")
> [@Leviosaurus](#): > > This competition is held every four years. There were several competitions skipped because of major wars. The US held the cup for 132 consecutive years, during which time the competitors spent millions of dollars redesigning boats and training crews trying to win the cup away. The Brits felt it was a major hit to their naval superiority that the upstart Yanks were able to win competiton after competition, and they were obsessed with winning the cup away. > > The fact that this took place over 132 years makes it even more impressive - it’s not hard to believe the Americans would be able to assemble a topnotch crew for one or two competitions, but to be able to dominate over several generations is unprecedented and unmatched in any sport. Read the link. One significant problem with the Americas Cup record is that over the course of the streak, the NYYC repeatedly stacked the rules against the challengers. The most significant rule over most of the life of the streak was that the challenger had to be built in its home country of home country materials and equipment. It then had to be sailed over on its own bottom to challenge in the US. It’s hard to build a sleek racer to compete in relatively protected waters that is also fully seaworthy for a trans-Atlantic passage. ---
**Author:** ![Treviathan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/838e76/32.png) [@Treviathan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treviathan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/88 "2005-05-20T00:44:11Z")
On the topic of Johnny Vander Meer, it should be noted that he actually pitched 21-1/3 no-hit innings - taking into account the final out of the game prior to the first no-hitter, and the three innings of the game after the second one. Another impressive baseball streakholder, one who doesn’t get as much attention as Joe Dimaggio or Cal Ripken, is Carl Hubbell. “King Carl” won 24 straight games for the New York Giants over the course of 1936 and 1937. Johan Santana made it to, what, 18 straight wins this year? As I recall, that was a pretty noteworthy accomplishment, yet still only 75% of Hubbell’s total. ---
**Author:** ![freakstasy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@freakstasy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freakstasy)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/89 "2005-05-20T06:30:22Z")
Two impressive streaks regardless of the level of play are the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team’s 14 consecutive appearances in the finals of the NCAA championship (1981-1994), winning in all but one. And Mount Union (Ohio) College’s 104 consecutive wins in Division III regular season play. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_loblaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@bob\_loblaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_loblaw)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/90 "2005-05-20T09:13:48Z")
how about wayne gretzky for: -13 consecutive 100+ point seasons (second in that category six players tied with 6 in a row. thats a 217% gretzky lead over 2nd place.) -or 3 consecutive 200+ points seasons (no other nhl player has ever scored 200 points in a season - mario lemieux got 199 once. that is an infinite% lead over 2nd place.) -or eight consecutive hart trophies (for league mvp) nobody else has won that more than 3 times in a row - thats a 267% lead over 2nd place. -or seven consecutive art ross trophies (league scoring leader) nobody else has more than 4 in a row - a 175% lead over 2nd place. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_loblaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@bob\_loblaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_loblaw)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/91 "2005-05-20T09:24:40Z")
whoops, ignore the bad math above. correct percentage leads over second place are: 54% for 100+p seasons 63% for hart trophies 43% for art ross trophies my bad. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_loblaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@bob\_loblaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_loblaw)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2005, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060/92 "2005-05-20T09:26:17Z")
now i think my second try at math is also a failure. time to go to bed, methinks. and sorry for the triple post. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-most-impressive-streaks-in-sports/304060.md?page=4)