Y’see, I tend to think of Rickey’s 130-sb season as a very breakable record. If baseball has a manager who will send his speedy leadoff hitter to that extent again, I can see that going.
Another one that’s in this category is Eddie Collins’ 512 career sacrifice bunts. It’s very uncommon for a good hitter to bunt much anymore, and the mediocre hitters who do bunt a lot will have a hard time staying in baseball long enough to approach Collins’ total. Collins set the record because he was one of the best second basemen in baseball for over twenty years and he batted third or cleanup for most of that time–but spent his prime years in the dead ball era when a sacrifice bunt was a more legitimate strategic tool for a good hitter. Since his retirement over eighty years ago, no one has come within 60% of his total, and the active leader (Omar Vizquel) is less than halfway there; the #2 active guy, Juan Pierre, has only 131. I’d say the bunting record is more secure than Henderson’s SB-in-a-season mark, but if somebody comes along with no power but enough peripheral skills to stay in the league 20 years–and a manager who likes to bunt way more than anyone in the game today–they might have a shot. Collins’ record is not nearly as safe as Radbourn’s or Young’s, but it is arguably safer than any other comparable offensive record in baseball.
Indeed, I would argue that the way things are going, Henderson’s record for walks is also quite breakable. You just have to be a patient hitter over a long career, and in a time when the ability to be selective as a hitter is greatly valued, perhaps more than ever, why would we think Henderson did something that cannot be done again?
His career record for steals is SO much higher than anyone else that I’d bet money it won’t be broken, but the walk record? Sure. Leadoff homers? Sure, why not? Again, all you need is a leadoff hitter with power who lasts a long time, and as teams become more sabermetrically inclined they become more willing to led someone with power lead off.
WILL those record be broken? I don’t know. COULD they? Sure. Neither is out-of-sight ridiculous like Chief Wilson’s 36 triples.
Dimaggio’s 56 consecutive games with a hit, while theoretically ‘breakable’ at any time, will probably never be broken in my lifetime. Two solid months of getting a hit every night! People get giddy when someone gets to 30 nowadays; the closest we’ve gotten since 1941 is Rose (44? 45?) and Molitor (I think 39). That’s still like two weeks away.
Equally untouchable: Consecutive games reaching base - 84 games by Ted Williams.
I hear this one a lot, but I’m not sure why DiMaggio’s streak is so venerated. First of all, Ted Williams had a higher batting average during the same span, which takes the edge off of the achievement for me just a bit. Secondly, Tony Gwynn-type hitters don’t go 0-4 all that often, so there’s no outstanding reason someone couldn’t put together a streak longer than 1/3 of a season. The Clipper’s record is over 70 years old now, so it’s obviously a staggering achievement, but it’s more *surprising *in its endurance for me than it is impressive.
I cannot say that Nolan Ryan’s career strikeout record will never be broken…but man, that would take some doing, especially since no one is getting the innings now that Ryan got in his prime. I’m sure someone will come around and tell me why I’m wrong.
Re: Dimaggio’s hitting streak - it’s not just the batting average (I’m sure people have gone on six-week tears with amazing batting averages of .500 or higher, for example) - it’s both the consistency and the luck needed.
Even baseball superstars only get a hit every 3 times to the plate or so. In a typical 3-game series, they’d get say 12 at-bats, so say they get 4 hits…the trick is you have to get at least one hit per game, instead of ‘1-4 in game 1, 0-4 in game 2, and 3-4 in game 3’, for example.
If you went up to plate 3 times, grounded out your first time up and got walked the second and third times…your streak is over. In some cases the player only gets one official at bat…if he doesn’t hit safely, bye-bye streak.
Not going 0-fer for any game for two months is just insane. The only player I’ve ever seen that I thought -might- stand a chance is someone like Ichiro that could leg out infield hits, but even he’s only to 24 or 25 games, IIRC.
The record I’m talking about is unintentional walks, which if you take a look, you’ll see is pretty amazing.
Note that for Ruth and some others all of their walks were recorded as unintentional since they didn’t keep track of intentional walks back then. But just note the recent players - with the exception of Bonds, no one has even broken 1500, and Henderson is hanging out at over 2100…
It should always be noted with Chamberlain’s 100 point game that this is in the NBA. !00 points and more had been scored by individuals in college games before Chamberlain did it in the pros (a pro teammate of Wilt’s, Paul Arizin, did it). Plenty of high schoolers (even girls )in high school and in international professional competition.
Leonard Mlodinow has a bit in his book, The Drunkard’s Walk, about DiMaggio. There’s some analysis that, IIRC, says it’s pretty much what you’d expect out of 100 years of the sport regardless of exceptional skill. Same thing with Maris. You take a ton of average hitters, in Maris’ case, or good hitters, in DiMaggio’s, and you’ll eventually get lots of homeruns and long hit streaks.
Given that Hershiser only broke Drysdale’s record by one inning I would say that it will almost surely be broken, perhaps even by someone playing today.
First of all, they later revised the figure from yesterday’s Superb Owl to 108 yards.
Second, though, why can’t a 109-yard record be broken? That still leaves room for a 109-and-a-half return, or a 109-and-two-feet record, or a 109-and-35-inches record, and so on.
