The Unbreakable Record

I remember a few years ago there was a special on Baseball Tonight about the hardest records to break in baseball. After Barry Bonds beat Hank Aaron's home run record, conversation picked up about which records may never be broken. There are tons of records, and after all, they are made to be broken. At the Hall of Fame this summer, on the last day of work, I went up to the third floor and tinkered with their interactive touch screen exhibit, which included every record of offensive, defensive, and pitching categories. You can arrange it by year, position, stat category, etc. It's an awesome exhibit and made me ponder which records are the hardest to break. The really old ones like Cy Young's 511 wins and 749 shutouts, Old Hoss Radbourn's 59 win season, and Will White's 75 complete games in a season will never be touched. That's not to say these guys are so much more skilled than the guys today, but the game has just changed so that won't work. Starters pitch every 5th day and only have 100 or so pitches to work with. It's just not mathematically possible to get 511 wins or 75 complete games. The closest active pitchers are Tim Hudson (206) and CC Sabathia (205). With their increasing age (and Hudson's nasty injury last year), they have an outside shot at 300 wins, but won't hold a candle to 511. So keeping the modernity of the game in perspective, here's what I think. 

Here are a few of the top, but not the hardest to break (in my opinion):
1) Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak. For nearly a third of the season (consecutively), the Yankee Clipper got a hit. That's just amazing. Rain, shine, home, away, no matter who is pitching, he's out there hitting. May 15 to July 16, 1941 you could count on Joe D getting a hit. But I think it will be reached eventually. In 2006, Phillies infielders Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley racked up 36 game hit streaks. They were still 20 games off the pace, but I think a player will eventually make it up to 56, if not 57. As the game progresses, I think the stars will align and some physical freak like Mike Trout will beat it. I would say Cabrera but you need some speed, too, which Trout has. Heck even Michael Cuddyer had a hitting streak throughout all of June. I think it will be done.

2) Hank Aaron's 25 All-Star Game appearances. Hank was a special player, there is no doubting that, but 25 will be hard to beat. When he played, there were 2 All-Star Games per season, so it was a lot easier to rack up appearances, but I think there might be someone to be able to tie it at least. Going back to Trout, he already has 2 appearances and is entering his age 22 season. If he keeps it up, he'd have to play to age 45 to tie Hank. Possible? Soft maybe. Probable? Doubtful.

3) Hack Wilson's 191 RBI's in 1930. No one has even come close to touching this since ManRam collected 165 in 1999. The tough one about this one is that it doesn't necessarily rely on the player as much as it does the tablesetters. You have guys like Chris Davis who smash 55 home runs, but only collect 138 RBI's because of the lineup they were in. He hit 4th or 5th most of the season, after Brian Roberts (.312 OBP), Machado (.314 OBP), Markakis (.329), and Adam Jones. The OBPs of the first three guys aren't great, and if they're in scoring position, Jones most likely will drive them in, so Davis lost out on a lot of chances. Then you have other guys like Keith Hernandez who would barely crack 10 home runs but always between 90-100 RBIs. Again, I think the stars will align, both in terms of talent on team, and someone will get there. 

But the one record I don't think will ever be broken is Cal Ripken's. No, not his games played streak, because as Bill James wrote, there is always someone determined enough to be in the lineup every day. But his consecutive innings played streak. For five straight years, he did not miss a single inning of baseball, totaling 8,264 innings. The active leader right now is Prince Fielder with 505 games but there were multiple times in 2013 that he left a game early. But back to Ripken - June 5th, 1982 (his rookie year) to September 14, 1987. Throughout this span, he wasn't just on the field, he was a major contributor. He won the 1982 ROY and the 1983 MVP, while additionally tacking on 4 Silver Sluggers and an All-Star appearance every year. He wasn't just there taking up space, he was there making plays and earning his spot. My parents got married in 1981 and my sister was born in 1988 - Ripken played almost every inning throughout that span. That is absolutely crazy. 

That September 14th game wasn't pretty. Ripken went 2-4 to boost his average to .251 on the 1987 season, but the Orioles allowed 18 runs to the Jays. So it was 18-3 and manager Cal Ripken, Sr elected to take him out and put in defensive minded Ron Washington for the ninth inning (same Washington that manages the Rangers today). Washington did not get an at-bat, nor did he field a ground ball. Unfortunately, the Baltimore Sun archives only go back to 1990 so there isn't mention of reasons why. However, according to the New York Times on September 16, manager Cal Ripken said "I wanted everybody to stop writing about the streak. I was going to end it sometime, tonight seemed right." On putting in Washington, he said, "What the heck? He wasn't going to hit a 20 run home run." Well, no, he wasn't but the season would be over in 20 games, let your son finish it out and deal with the media after the season. I disagree with Ripken's managerial decision, but we don't know how Junior felt.

For now, I don't think the innings streak will be beaten. Especially given how many injuries we've seen this spring. They just don't make durability like that anymore.

Thanks for reading today. For your trouble, here's the awesome video of Ripken going yard in his last All-Star game in 2001 - the oldest player to hit a homer in All-Star history and becoming one of four players to ever win All-Star MVP twice.