The first to spring to my mind was Rocky “The Rock” Marciano. Retired undefeated as World Heavyweight Champion, 49-0, 43 knockouts, no draws.
If my math is correct, he only needed 3 more runs to average 100 for his career. Did he realize this in his last game?
Here are a couple that haven’t been mentioned yet:
NFL: George Blanda played 26 NFL seasons, first as a quarterback/placekicker, then later as a kicker only. And it wasn’t a Gordie Howe-style gimmick where he suited up and hobbled around for one shift; Blanda was a contributing member of an NFL roster (the Raiders were his last team, I believe) at age 48.
NBA: Not as gaudy as Wilt’s 100 point game, but probably as difficult to break, would be his record 55 rebounds in one game. I mean, give me a break.
If Brett Favre starts every game this season before he retires he will hold the record for quaterback consecutive starts at 237.
The closest to this record is Peyton Manning with 128. Manning would have to play another 6+ years not missing a game to beat this record.
Having been cheered roundly on his way to the crease in what was obviously his very last test innings (on the 14th of August 1948 at the Kennington Oval), Bradman faced just two balls from English leg-spinner Eric Hollies and was bowled by the second - a googly.
It must have been obvious to everyone in the entire world what he needed to do to average 100.
In 1899, my undergraduate school, The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, won five consecutive football games in six days!
Nov. 9 (Thursday) at Austin: Sewanee 12 Texas 0
Nov. 10 (Friday) at Houston: Sewanee 10 Texas A&M 0
Nov. 11 (Saturday) at New Orleans: Sewanee 23 Tulane 0
Nov. 13 (Monday) at Baton Rouge: Sewanee 34 LSU 0
Nov. 14 (Tuesday) at Memphis: Sewanee 12 Ole Miss 0
Doubt that record will ever be broken!
Another impressive effort: Miss Alice Legh won the British women’s archery championship 23 times between 1881 and 1922.
If I’m reading that correctly, that’s five consecutive shut-out victories in six days, which is even more impressive.
The Yankees’ record 5 consecutive World Series victories (1949-1953) is unlikely to be broken.
The 1899 Cleveland Spiders lost 134 games. No MLB team will match that.
Connie Mack set some unbreakable records as manager (7755 games managed, 3731 games won, 3948 games lost).
You are indeed. Their record that year was 12-0-0; points: Sewanee 322, Opponents 10. All 10 points were scored by Auburn.
Some of Jerry Rices stats are unbelievable:
Career receptions: 1,549 (2nd is Cris Carter with 1,101)
Career touchdown receptions: 197 (2nd is Cris Carter with 130)
Career receiving yards: 22,895 (2nd is Tim Brown with 14,934)
While maybe not unbreakable, the descrepancies between his records and the closest are unbelievable. Thats almost 8,000 yards.
He also at one point caught for 1,848 yards in a single season. Thats absolutely ludicrous for a receiver.
Four. He scored 6996 runs for 70 times out. Obviously, his average was comfortably higher than 100 prior to his final innings. You bet your boots he knew it. Run-scoring was Bradman’s obsession, and the secret of his success was that when he was having a good day he extracted every drop from it; his conversion rate of hundreds into really big scores was phenomenal. (And even if, as Neville Cardus semi-seriously suggested, Bradman was automatically given out on reaching 100, his first-class average would still have been among the best.)
Conditions favour batsmen today, but to an extent they also favoured batsmen in Bradman’s era - the LBW law was more batsman-friendly, especially before 1935. Despite favourable conditions, Bradman’s international average is still over 50% better than his nearest rivals, including those who are rightly considered giants of the game.
I also doubt that anyone will match Jack Hobbs’s lifetime achievement of 199 first-class hundreds. It’s rare for anyone to make a hundred hundreds (there have been twenty or thirty such instances in the game’s history, beginning with W G Grace) - and it’s unheard-of today for a batsman to continue playing right through his forties, as Hobbs did, scoring the larger part of his centuries in that part of his career.
De La Salle High School’s 151 game unbeaten streak (it ended in 2004 but I believe that it was the result of 12+ undefeated seasons).
While I doubt that it is truly unbreakable, it is certainly remarkable.
Randy Moss is 28 or 29, if he has 8-10 more years similar to his first 8, he will be right at Jerry Rice’s career marks.
One that can’t by definition be broken, but wil never ever be tied, is an NCAA team going undefeated, untied and unscored upon. I think 1939 was the last time it happened.
NCAA football I mean :smack:
Bill Elliott’s 212.809 mph at Talladega is probably going to stand forever as the fastest lap ever turned in competition in a Nextel (Winston) Cup car.
Rusty Wallace did take an unrestricted 2004-spec Dodge out at Talladega for a test and was unofficially turning laps at 221 mph, but there was no scoring & timing system in use (and it was actually a test of communications tech for Nextel.)
Most movies starred in where the keeper scores the winning goal: 1
I think it’s possible that Sly might reprise his role and knock Pele out of the recordbooks and into obscurity.
For that matter, I doubt that his record of 18 PGA Tour wins in one year is likely to fall, seeing how winning as many as eight in one years has only been achieved six times in the last fifty years.
I’m pleased this thread has a second wind because I want to put in a good word for the brilliant Irish steeplechaser Arkle.
This was a racehorse out of the very top draw. He won 3 Cheltenham Gold Cups (1964-1966) amongst other championship races but his claim to fame lies with the opinion of the Irish handicappers.
For the Irish Grand National they devised two different sets of weights for each horse. One set was to be used if Arkle didn’t run in the race and represented a fairly normal weight spread. The other set was to be used if Arkle did run, in which case he got the maximum weight possible and all the other animals carried the automatic bottom weight.
Arkle ran, and won giving 35lb all round. As far as I am aware this dual handicapping of a horse race is unique in the sport.
While those are both quite impressive, there’s always a chance that someone will get hot for one game (and get a lot of help along the way).
The one record that Wilt has that I think is truly unbreakable is Average Points Per Game in a Season. In 1962, he scored 4029 points, which means he *averaged *50.4 PPG. That’s not just one hot game, that’s 50 points each and every night for 80 games.
For the record, Michael Jordan is second on the list (actually, he’s 5th, because Chamberlain holds the top four spots) at 37.1 PPG.