Jerry Rice has an interesting one. He was traded mid-season but because of the way the bye weeks worked out, he played in 17 games in one football season. This would, of course, be broken if they increase to an 18 game schedule as has been seriously discussed lately. I doubt that that will happen now that the focus is on long term injuries.
Hell, you can still gloat to Cleveland and Detroit fans. 
In short, he’s currently 279 saves ahead of the nearest active pitcher. Zachary D. Rymer (MLB Lead Writer for bleacherreport.com) has specifics.
In the past they’ve been treated as a 163rd regular season game.
I don’t buy this at all. Rivera didn’t start racking up 40-save seasons until he was 27; someone with Rivera-level talent (or somewhat less) starting at age 22 could easily blow by him by 200 saves over the course of a career.
But another pitcher has gotten to 601, just behind Rivera. It doesn’t seem impossible to me someone could get to 609.
Rymer’s column is so full of weird leaps in logic (and bizarre statements - seriously, he can only think of two unbreakable baseball records? He he watched any baseball?) I struggle to believe it was edited. He mentions the existence of Trevor Hoffman and then appears to completely forget Hoffman’s existence and the implications it has for the alleged unbreakability of the record. All of his major points are questionable:
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Rivera has pitched a long time. Well, yes, he has. But by Rymer’s own admission, Rivera’s longetivity is not unique in baseball history. It is clearly possible to pitch just as long as Rivera has. Rymer points out that relievers “just don’t tend to last,” which is sort of silly - NO position “tends to last” - but you don’t need most people to pitch a thousand games, you just need one. Fifteen pitchers, almost all of them recent pitchers, have pitched 1,000 games, and there will be more.
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Rivera is dominant. Yes, he is, perhaps the most dominant pitcher ever. But you really don’t need to be THAT dominant to pile up saves, as evidenced by the likes of Francisco Rodriguez or Bobby Thigpen. Rivera has actually only led the league in saves three times; his career total is a function of his being a closer for 15 years.
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The Yankees are dominant. Well, okay, so how did Trevor Hoffman save basically the same number of games? Was there a Padre dynasty I’ve forgotten about?
I think everyone understands that bad teams tend to give their closers almost as many save opportunities as good teams, don’t they? Bad teams win close games, great teams win blowouts.
I don’t know that any current closer is the man to break it but I don’t see what would be so unlikely about someone being made a closer at age 24 and just being left there and not getting hurt. Even a moderately good closer can save 40 games a year, when they’re used solely in save situations, as closers tend to be now.
Now, what WOULD solidify Rivera’s record is if baseball teams, as a group, realize how stupid it is to use one guy solely in ninth-inning-save situations, and sttart using the relief ace as a stopper, the way they used to. That would increase the value of relief aces but reduce their save totals.
Bill James once said that a record is probably safe if it represents 20 years of league-leading performance. Save leaders appear to average around 45-50 saves, so Rivera’s record is about 13 seasons of league-leading performance-not easy to break, exactly, but vulnerable. If you assume tho that closers are less likely to last a long time in the role than say a starting pitcher in his, then yes the record is probably harder to break than the above analysis indicates.
Long, loooooong way short of the record.
Armstrong won about 10 races in his life - 7 TDFs, 1 WC, and a couple of other minors. Several riders have won over 200 races in their careers - Eddie Merckx won somewhere between 4-500.
Oh, sorry - no one else ever won while doping, of course.
I really think all records can be broken, unless rules have changed or if it is impossible to exceed the record according to the rules of the game (like a 300 in bowling). Human beings are improving their skills, strength and fitness, tactics and strategies in games are always evolving. Just because (for example) in baseball right now, complete games are rare and teams carry large numbers of starting and relief pitchers does not mean that will always be the case.
I was going to try and formulate an argument that maybe Barry Bonds could have done it with a few decent on-base guys in front of him, but (a) such calculations are beyond me, and (b) Bonds was walked way too much and would never get near the number of hits Wilson had, and (c) anyway I want Wilson to keep the record because he was really short and had shockingly tiny feet.
There seems to be a lot of interesting discussion going on but I have to draw people back to a point made on the first page.
Don Bradman’s lifetime batting average is more than half as much again as the next best.
That appears to be the current gold standard in terms of “unbreakable” and should be used as the yardstick by which all other sporting records are judged.
If the record you are discussing isn’t as exceptional as that one, then I’d suggest it is far more likely to be broken or matched.
Many of the baseball records that are touted as unbreakable are thought so because the way the game is played has changed so much – eg, it’s hard for a pitcher to win 59 games in a season when he only starts 35. In athletic endeavors that are measured objectively, performance has generally improved from 50 or 100 years ago. So my North American-centric question is: is there something about the way cricket is now played that mas made it so difficult for a modern batsman to get anywhere near Bradman, or is he just an outlier?
Another record that is untouchable because the game has changed so much:
Tris Speaker holds the all-time record for assists by an outfielder (449). To give you some idea of how unreachable a record that is, consider a few outfielders with GREAT throwing arms and long careers.
Roberto Clemente had “only” 266 assists
Carl Yastrzemski and Willie Mays had “only” 195
Al Kaline had “only” 170
Dave Winfield had “only” 166
Dwight Evans had “only” 157
Speaker played in the dead ball era, which meant he could play a shallow center field, giving him many more opportunities to throw runners out. He even had a few unassisted double plays to his credit, because in his day, center fielders often weren’t all that far from second base.
No other outfielder will ever get so many assists, because no other outfielder can play where he played.
Not especially, the next people on the list are a fair spread across the decades. Not what you’d expect if the game had changed substantially.
The equipment hasn’t really evolved, the laws haven’t changed that much. The pool of players has increased, pitches are probably of a higher standard generally which should make batting easier if anything.
I think he really is just a freak.
A look at the list shows how exceptional he was.
How did he do such fantastic stunts?
You mean how did he drive in 191 runs?
Wilson was a very good hitter but the 191 RBI are kind of a product of the time and place. Everyone could hit in 1930. The league average was .303, and was about .310 discounting pitchers. Wilson played on a team with a .378 on base percentage, which is a ridiculous figure, impossible for a team to have today. It was also in a time when fielding was not at all up to today’s standards; the average fielder made almost twice as many errors. So Wilson was a very good power hitter on a good hitting team in a time when a cleanup hitter had more guys on base in front of him than ever since people started hitting home runs.
I think he meantsomething else.
Would be surprised to see John Stockton’s assist records be broken, either the 7 seasons over 1000 (4 of those being consecutive), or the overall record of 15806. Jason Kidd is almost 4000 assists short, which may not sound like much until you realize he would have to replicate his best season (808 in 2001-2002) for another five years. (He’s also 40 years old.) Steve Nash needs about 5000. He would have to have his best season (898 in 2007-2008) for almost 6 years. (He is 39 years old.) Stockton retired at age 41.
Impossible to break? No. But it’s another one of those things that requires the current direction of the game to to change in order to entice that kind of play.
His steal record of 3265 might be even harder to break.
That’s creepy.
On 7/20/84 German Uwe Hohn broke the world record in the javelin by over 5m with a throw of 104.80m. That is 343’ 10"- more than the distance from an American Football field goal line to clear out of the opposite end zone.
The international governing body already had plans to redesign the javelin to make it stick point first in the ground much more often. Hohn’s amazing throw also led to concern that he might some day throw it into the stands, with unpleasant results for any spectator who did not get out of the way quickly enough.
Redesign was implemented by moving the center of gravity and making the tip more blunt. Although weight and length remained the same reduced aerodynamic efficiency resulted, leading to shorter throws (before any spectator came to grief). A new world record progression was begun with for the modified javelin, so Hohn’s record with the retired model is a perpetual world record.