Hardest Records to Break

With Barry Bonds' assault on the all time home run record taking place before our very eyes this seems like a good time to dust off an old favorite topic of mine and that's "what are the hardest records in sports to break"? I've seen this debated many times by sports writers and generally they get it all wrong. They say things like breaking the record for most consecutive no hitters is the toughest record in all of sports to break. To do this you would need to pitch three consecutive no hitters which seems impossible, but couldn't you see someone getting on a hot streak and doing it? I know it's not likely but come on, it's three games. Even a bad pitcher could get lucky and do it. So that brings me to my first point, all records that are going to be the toughest to break are all career related. Anyone can get on a hot streak but sustained excellence often for close to twenty years is much more difficult to duplicate. Secondly they should be significant records so for instance I don't really care who has the most penalty minutes in hockey and third they should be individual. Let's reward the player and not the team. Lastly I'm only going to include records from sports I know somewhat about. So sorry cricket fans none of your records are on the list.

Here's some notable exemptions. Jerry Rice's 22 895 receiving yards is most likely never going to be broken but with the ageless Marvin Harrison you just never know. There was too much doubt to put it on the list.

Cal Ripken's playing streak isn't on there because it's not that big of a deal. So he played a bunch of games in a row. He should have taken a rest because it hurt his team in September with his annual decline in production.


Here we go the official list of the five hardest records to break in sports.

5) Basketball's Highest Average Points per game for an entire season
Wilt Chamberlain 50.4 points 1961-1962.

O.K. it seems like I'm contradicting myself and frankly I am but come on can you really see someone ever averaging 50.4 points for an entire season ever again? Current scoring leaders would need to score about 20 more points per game just to get it. Other Chamberlain records that I considered were the most rebounds in a career 23,924 (15 per game for twenty years.) and rebounds per game in a season 22.9. I ultimately felt that with the advances in health care we could see someone play twenty five seasons and possibly break the total rebounds and I feel that the 50.4 points is harder to get to than 22.9 rebounds.


4) NHL Most points in a career
Wayne Gretzky 2857

Anyone who thinks that Sidney Crosby is breaking this record is dreaming. All he'll have to do is average 115 points a season for 25 years. Probably the most untouchable record that was recorded recently. There are plenty of other Gretzky records that I could have one this list as well like most points in a season 215, most assists, most goals, etc. This one however seems the most untouchable.

3) MLB Highest Batting Average
Ty Cobb .367

Baseball could have it's own list of top ten unbeatable records but I'll limit myself to two. One batting and one pitching. I can't really see anyone having a long career hitting .367 with the amount of relievers and specialists in today's game. Other records I considered were most stolen bases all time (Ricky Henderson 1406) But it's conceivable that stolen bases could become more of a trend and someone beats it. One I didn't consider was DiMaggio's hit streak. Everyone thinks it's untouchable but every couple years someone makes a legitimate run at it. It's just a matter of time before someone beats it.

2) Boxing Most Wins
Willie Pep 230
Most distinguished fighters top out at about 50 wins which is just over 20% of the necessary wins required to break the record. With the amount of time between fights now it's safe to say this record isn't going down.


1) MLB Most wins
Cy Young 511

This is without a doubt the most untouchable record in all of sports. No one is coming close and no one is ever going to surpass it. With the five man rotation that teams use now most people think it's very unlikely to see any young pitchers reach 300 wins. That doesn't even come close to the required 512 to break it. To put it in perspective last year no pitcher won twenty games but for you to break the record it would require 26 straight years of 20 wins. The other pitching stat that I considered was for the best era ever which Walsh owns at 1.82. It's very unlikely someones breaking that one but there is no way that anyone tops the most wins in MLB history.