MLB records that never will be broken.

The Game Room
1

This has probably been done before, but anyway here’s a few records that won’t IMHO be broken (maybe tied, but not broken).

Back-to-back no hitters. Accomplished by Johnny Vander Meer, Cincinnati Reds, June 11-15, 1938. Someone could conceivably tie Meer’s record and also throw two straight, but no one is going to throw 3 in a row.

Caught stealing four times in one game. Accomplished by Robby Thompson, San Francisco Giants, June 27, 1986. Yes, it was a 12 inning game, but thrown out 4 times! Absolutely inconceivable that a manager would send a runner a fifth time after said runner had been caught 4 times, so this record is safe.

Two triple plays in one nine inning game. Accomplished by the Minnesota Twins, July 17th, 1990. Yes a team could make a third triple play during one of the remaining 7 innings, but the “set up” is just too unlikely, (two on, no body out).

Back-to-back homers by the same two teammates in one inning. Accomplished by Mike Cameron and Bret Boone, Seattle Mariners, May 2, 2002. In the first inning of the Mariners versus White Sox, Cameron and Boone hit back-to-back home runs. Seattle batted around… and, in the same inning, Cameron and Boone went back-to-back again.To “break” this record, teamates would have to go back-to-back-to-back. That’s just not going to happen in the same inning.

Back-to-back inside-the-park home runs. On August 27, 1977, Toby Harrah and his Rangers teammate Bump Wills hit back-to-back inside-the-park home runs. Again to break this record, you’d have to have 3 players hit consecutive inside-the-park home runs. Not going to happen.

Speaking of Toby Harrah, on June 25, 1976, Harrah became the only shortstop ever to play every inning of a doubleheader and not get a single ball hit to him. Pretty doubtful that will happen again.

Two grand slams in an inning. Accomplished by Fernando Tatis, St. Louis Cardinals, April 23, 1999. You going to tell me some player is going to hit three in an inning?

Any others?

2

nm

3

Oldest player:

Minnie Miñoso, (54)

Just too much talent coming up through organizations. A few players have gotten close to 50 within the last few decades (Julio Franco, 48 and Jamie Moyer, 49), but no one is getting to 54 again.

4

Those are single game records. There are many single season and career records that probably won’t be touched due to changes in the way the game is played.

Here are pitching records I thik will never be touched.

Most wins season: 59 by Old Hoss Radbourn
Most wins career: 511 by Cy Young
Most losses season: 48 by John Coleman
Most losses Career: 316 by Cy Young
Lowest E.R.A. 0.86 by Tim Keefe (I suppose that one could be matched or beaten)
Most strikeouts: 513 by Matt Kilroy
Most shutouts season: 16 by Grover Alexander
Most Shutouts career: Walter Johnson 110

There are many others that likely will never be matched.

5

Triples, career: Sam Crawford, 309
Triples, season: Chief Wilson, 36

Utterly untouchable. Nobody will ever get close.

Also impossible given pitch counts and 5-man rotations:

Wins in a season: Old Hoss Radbourne, 60 OR Jack Chesbro, 41 (all-time/modern era)
Complete games: Cy Young, 749, 712 more than C.C. Sabathia, the current active leader, and only 24 games less than Nolan Ryan started in a 27-year career.

6

Miñoso made appearances with the independent St. Paul Saints of the Northern League in 1993 and 2003 (when he was 77). Hew drew a walk in the latter appearance. So he appeared in professional baseball in 7 different decades – the 40s through the 00s.

7

Also consider the inverse: both grand slams were against THE SAME PITCHER (Chan Ho Park). I don’t imagine a manager ever leaving in a pitcher long enough to surrender three grand slams in a game, let alone one inning.

8

Here are a couple non-pitching records I don’t think will be challenged soon.

Most home runs in a double-header is 5, held by both Stan Musial (May 2, 1954) and Nate Colbert (August 1, 1972). Main reason: the almost complete absence of the double-header.

Ricky Henderson’s 130 stolen bases in 1982. Pitchers have learned to spend less time getting their pitches off, severely reducing the baserunners chances. It’s been 29 years since anyone (Vince Coleman in this case) stole more than 100 bases, with the most since then being 93 by Ricky Henderson and with the numbers trending downward ever since.

9

One unassisted triple play in a game. Considering there have been only 15 ever, the odds against two in the same game are astronomical.

10

I don’t think this is true, particularly if players from the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean countries routinely start revealing their actual ages.

11

I think Cal Ripken’s record of 2632 consecutive games played is unlikely to ever be broken.

12

I agree. Bartolo Colon comes to mind.

13

They said the same thing about Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2130 games.

I don’t see why Ripken’s record could not be broken. It requires a player play sixteen years and change without missing a game. It’s not at all implausible that a good young outfielder could find himself having gone five years without missing a game and if he’s a good and popular player, at that point you’d start going out of your way to keep him in the lineup and if he stays healthy, the record could fall. It’s not LIKELY but it’s very possible. The record is quite breakable.

I would also suggest the record of two triple plays in one game could be broken. It’s unlikely but there is nothing impossible about it. Fielding is better than ever.

That is as compared to truly “unbreakable” records, of which this thread has really identified two types:

**1. Freak occurrences that cannot be broken unless something once-in-a-million-years freakish happens. ** Vandermeer’s two straight no hitters, which is a record only “Broken” if someone throws three, or Tatis’s two grand slams in one inning.

2. Records made unbreakable by changes in the way the game is played. Basically every pitching record for endurance is now unbreakable because pitchers don’t pitch very much anymore; the standards for complete games and such are wildly different from just 30-35 years ago, and 30-35 years ago the way pitchers were used in the dead ball era was unthinkable. The only way someone’s going to win 42 games in a season or pitch 750 complete games or whatever is if baseball as a sport is radically changed, like if they make games 5 innings long or something.

14

Don’t count out Bartolo Colon. :slight_smile:

15

No one’s going to touch Walter Johnson’s .433 single-season batting average for a pitcher (100 PAs). AL pitchers don’t bat, of course, and those in the NL are lucky to hit .200.

16

Most players who are adept at stealing bases these days aren’t sent by the manager (or a base coach) - they have an automatic green light to steal whenever they want. Of course, the reason they’re adept at stealing bases is because they know when they’re up against a battery that they’re not going to get a base off of, they stay on first.

17

His career record of 1,406 stolen bases also looks pretty much unbreakable - someone would have to average 70 steals a year over a 20-year career, and it’s pretty uncommon now for the major league leader to steal 70 bases.

18

I’ve always thought that Rennie Stennett’s modern record of 7 hits in a 9 inning game would be impossible to break. To break it, you would basically have to get one hit per inning. It seems unlikely.

Similarly, the record for hits in an extra-inning game is 9 (in 18 innings) by Johnny Burnett. I can’t wrap my head around someone getting 10 hits in a game, no matter how long it goes.

19

DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak?

20

As in previous threads on this subject, my vote is for career complete games, which record is held by Cy Young at 749. To put this in perspective, among currently active pitchers with the most complete games, the total of the top 50 is 653.

Even more out of reach would by Cy Young’s record for most complete game losses. I haven’t been able to find the number, but it’s probably over 250. I suspect this exceeds the current total in all MLB games over a typical 10-year stretch.