Baseball's Truly Unbreakable Records

Looking at some really crazy baseball records
On the heels of Barry Bonds inching closer to the all time HR record, I came across an old issue of The Baseball Research Journal #31 published by SABR. There was a very interesting and entertaining article on baseball records entitled baseball's Most Unbreakable Records by Joe Dittmar. We often think of the most unbreakable record being DiMaggio's hit streak or Cy Young's Win total. But there are far more unbreakable records than these.

Firstly, DiMaggio's streak, unlikely though its was, is certainly repeatable. There is nothing structurally about the game or its rules that makes it unlikely that it will be broken, and forever is an awfully long time. In my mind it is foolish to say that such a record can't be broken. The same thought was made about Lou Gehrig's streak and that was broken by a huge margin.

In fact, hard as it may seem, there were quite a few players in history who had more than a 1% chance at the record. There was an analysis of the various challengers over time in a prior issue of the BRJ, some of whom had a 4% chance at a 56 game streak at some point during a season. DiMaggio's streak was amazing, but more so because it happened so late in baseball history, and because he had less than a 1% chance at such a streak. If you are interested in the details of this research let me know.

Similarly, Cy Young's Win record, though much more untouchable than DiMaggio's streak, is also "breakable." Granted, it may take a fundamental shift in how pitcher's are used, or even a rule change, but those could happen. OK I am stretching it. But it is at least conceivable that it could happen.

Other records seem to me to be much more unlikely to be broken even than Cy Young's record (though it is probably in the top ten). For example, Cliff Heathcote and Joel Youngblood's record of having played for two teams in the same day, the "Most Teams Played for In One day" record. To break this a player will have to play in three games for three different teams in one day!!