Joe Dimaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.  Orel Hershiser’s 59-straight scoreless innings streak.  Cy Young’s 511 wins.  There are many records in baseball that are widely accepted as ones that could never possibly be broken.  Of course, they can “never be broken” until they are—they also said that no one could beat Hank Aaron’s home run record, or Roger Maris’s single-season record, or the season hits record, but those fell.  There have been some records set over the last few years that should join this group of unbreakables, and here they are in particular order.

7. Anthony Young losses

Poor Anthony Young lost 27 straight decisions even though his career ERA was a not-bad 3.89.  Actually, another great loss record is the 1988 Orioles losing 21 games in a row to start the season, but I just thought of it and don’t really want to bump any of these other records off of the list.

6. Twin triple plays

On July 17, 1990, the Twins turned two triple plays in the same game against the Red Sox and still lost, 1-0.  This led to the immortal words of M.C. Hammer on SportsCenter’s plays of the year, “Twins, two times, triple play, one game, I can’t touch that.” 

Exactly. 



5. 1998 Yankees

Between the regular season and the playoffs, the ’98 Yankees won 125 games, 98 of them due to the intangibles of Derek Jeter, both seemingly unbreakable, at least until Jeter’s unborn child plays for the Yankees.  This one could have been the 1988 Orioles starting out 0-21.

4. Eric Gagne save streak

Watching him get lit up consistently in Milwaukee makes it easy to forget the Gagne once saved 84 games in a row.  Like wins, saves are quite a misleading stat (pitch the last three innings of a 6,000 to 0 game and you get a save), but if you have ever had a frustrating closer for your team (like seemingly half of them this year), you realize how hard it is to get three in a row, much less 28 times that.

3. Fernando Tatis grand slams

First off, you could easily make the case that no one could possibly hit three grand slams in one inning, even in Bronco league, so this should be hands-down #1.  True…but it’s easier to imagine it being at least tied than the other two in front of it, so here it stays.  Of course, you could take a different approach entirely and say that no one in six billion years could break Chan Ho Park’s record of giving up two grand slams in one inning to the same player.

2. Greg Maddux win streak

Much is made nowadays about there never being another 300-game winner because of longevity, bullpens, and so on, never mind that the exact same thing was said when Maddux and Glavine and Clemens were still much younger.  But good Lord, how could anyone possibly think that someone could beat Maddux’s record of 17 straight seasons with 15 or more wins?  Better yet, the streak is 19 in a row of 13 or more wins.  It takes health, decent bullpens, good teams, amazing skill, and quite a bit of luck to do something like that.  Maddux should just go ahead and try to pitch until he is 70 years old and set that record for good too.

1. Barry Bonds IBBs

Prior to 2002, Willie McCovey had held the single-season intentional walk record for 32 years.  Barry Bonds broke the record that year with 68.    Two years later, he re-broke the record with…120.  It doesn’t even seem right when you look at it.  He was put on base purposely 120 times.  That number of regular walks would have led the American League each of the last four years.  You could throw his .609 OB% or his 232 overall walks on this list too, but the intentional passes seem like the most ungodly.  It’s hard to imagine this ever being broken unless robots are finally allowed to play in the major leagues.

The Top 7 is written by Jason Major.  He intentionally walked to school every day of his life - even when he was old enough to drive.  Email him at jason@joesportsfan.com