Sports feats that have never been accomplished

The Game Room
1

There are some sports feats that have been accomplished so rarely that every occurrence of them can be tracked… unassisted triple plays and perfect games in baseball, for instance.

What are some such feats that can be hypothesized but have never actually happened?

(Note that this question can be trivially answered by taking any numeric record and increasing it by one… ie, no one has ever scored 101 points in an NBA game, no one has ever had a 57 game MLB hitting streak. So I’m looking for things that are absolutes, either they happened or they didn’t, nothing with a greater-than-some-number component.)
For instance, has there ever been an NFL game in which all the scoring was in the form of safeties? Has there been a game-ending unassisted triple play in the MLB? A savage swat block of a shot in the NBA that flies all the way down the court into the other basket?

2

Whilst it’s sort of a number based record, in 200 years (by some accounts) of first-class cricket, no bowler has taken all the 20 wickets available to take.

3

No woman has broken the 4 minute mile.

4

Looks like it, yeah:

5

In 2009, utility infielder Eric Bruntlett of the Phillies ended the game against the Mets with an unassisted triple play. I still remember how baffled the Mets players looked at going from no outs with baserunners, to having 3 outs and losing the game almost immediately.

Looks like that was the first unassisted triple play to end a game in the National League. It also happened once in 1927 for the Detroit Tigers.

6

Here’s the triple play video

7

While there have been a number of perfect games, no pitcher in a complete game has ever struck out every player he faced, the record being 20.

8

I don’t think any NBA player has scored all the points for his team in a quarter. I think, I can’t be sure though

9

No NBA, MLB, or NHL team has finished the season undefeated.

10

No NBA game has ever been a shutout.

11

(soccer) No team in England has ever won the Grand Slam of UEFA Champions League, Premiership, FA Cup and League Cup in one season. The nearest was Man Utd who won the treble (Champions League, Premiership, FA Cup) in the 1998-99 season and are the only team to do that (though Liverpool have done the ‘treble’ of the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup).

Celtic did the Scottish Grandslam in 1967 (European Cup, Scottish League, Scottish FA Cup and Scottish League Cup).

12

No fair ball has ever been hit out of the old Yankee Stadium.

13

I don’t believe anyone has run a legitimate marathon in under 2 hrs. Outdoors, no strong wind pushing them.

14

Has there ever been a men’s tennis final in the US Open, Australian, French, or Wimbledon that ended 6-0 6-0 6-0?

I would guess there has been a women’s, but I’m not sure about that either.

15

True. The current record is 2:03:59 . The recent 2:03:02 at Boston is not eligible for record consideration due to the point to point course and the overall 459 ft drop in elevation.

16

Steffi Graf, Natalia Zvereva, 1988 French Open. Left as an exercise for the reader which of them won.

17

Has anyone ever led the MLB in homers and steals in a season? Seems to me that those leaders are two completely different types of humans.

18

No team (or driver) has ever won every race in a Formula 1 season. McLaren won all but 1 in 1988 (and took all but one of the pole positions, also a record) but didn’t win the Italian Grand Prix (#12) because Ayrton Senna hit a back marker while easily leading. Ferrari won 7 of 8 in 1952, missing out on the Indy 500 (which it didn’t enter).

No driver has ever won the Drivers’ World Championship in his first season. Well, sort of. Nino Farina won the first F1 drivers’ championship in 1950, and since it was the first season of F1, it was effectively his first year.

Jacques Villeneuve, Lewis Hamilton and Juan Manuel Fangio came closest (2nd), and all did win the title in their second seasons (and Fangio doesn’t really count, because he was also only in his first year by virtue of it being the first year of F1).

No Wimbledon men’s champion has ever won two of three sets to love, let alone all three. Closest was Fred Perry in '35: 6–1, 6–1, 6–0. Closest in the open era was McEnroe over Connors in '84, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2.

Guillermo Villas won the '77 French Open 6-0, 6-3, 6-0. Bjorn Borg spotted Manny Orantes a two set lead in '74, and then squashed him: 2–6, 6–7, 6–0, 6–1, 6–1.

Closest at the US Open is Connors over Rosewall in '74, 6–1, 6–0, 6–1.

Nobody has even come close in Oz.

19

In 1909, Ty Cobb led the AL with 76 stolen bases and 9 home runs. Both numbers would have been good for the NL lead as well - Red Murray and Bob Bescher lead the NL with 7 HRs and 54 SBs, respectively.

In modern times, Jose Canseco and Alfonso Soriano came the closest, I think. Canseco had 42 HRs (first in the AL and MLB) and 40 SB (4th in the AL) in 1988, and Soriano had 39 HRs (5th in the AL) and 41 SBs (1st in the AL) in 2002. Their rankings both fall, though, if you consider NL players as well.

20

Has anybody ever taken six wickets in an over?