Records (books) are made to be broken

It’s easy to find this info on-line, but getting less so to get them in book form.

Here’s a list I just read about “The 25 Invincible MLB Records” along with my personal take on whether their validity. Most are questions of longevity. Generally speaking, fewer players stock around long enough to take aim at historic marks. Then there’s the “era” factor; some of these were set in the early years of the game when it was relatively easy to accumulate such numbers. Forget about wins, complete games, and shutouts since pitchers are often taken out of the game before they can gate a decision, which obviously affects the latter two categories.

The records from the site above don’t seem to be in any particular order.

Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak: Very difficult, but I wouldn’t say impossible. Takes a lot of luck and you never know.
Tris Speaker’s 792 doubles: Agreed. Longevity issues. Freddie Freeman tops the active list with 473.
Pete Rose’s 4,256 hits: Obviously.
Hoss Radbourn’s 59 wins: According to Baseball-Reference.com, it’s 60. Either way, that record was set in 1884 when he complete all 73 of his starts, so, yeah…
Ed Reulbach’s two shutouts on the same day: See the paragraph above.
Wahoo Sam Crawford’s 309 triples: Charlie Blackmon is tops among active players…with 63.
Walter Johnson’s 110 shutouts: See the paragraph above.
Cal Ripken Jr.s 2,632 consecutive games. Don’t even ask. See paragraph above.
Barry Bonds’ 73 home runs in one season: Hey, you never know. Like the hitting streak, it would take a lot of luck but not impossible.
Joe Sewell’s 115 games without a strikeout: Again, I could see this happening. It wasn’t that long (relatively speaking) that Tony Gwynn k’d just 35 times in 160 games. If a hitter spaced them out…
Ichiro Suzuki’s 262 hits in a season: Like the home runs, it could happen.
Hack Wilson’s 191 RBIs in a season: See line above.
Ty Cobb’s .366 batting average: Yeah, no.
Barry Bonds 2,558 walks: no one has the patience, fear factor, and, again longevity to approach this one.
Orel Hershisers 59 innings without a run: It would have to be extreme luck since no manager these days would allow a pitcher such opportunities do go deep into a game.
Bob Shaw’s five balks in one game: Oh, this would be the first to be rewritten.
Johnny Vander Meer’s two straight no-hitters: Breaking it, no. Tying it, perhaps.
Hank Aaron’s 6,856 total bases: Aaron’s combination of home runs and longevity point to no.
Sammy Sosa’s three seasons of 60+ home runs: If this was three consecutive seasons, I’d say no. But with Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso (no to mention the next big slugger on his way up), I’d have to assume that this could go in the not-too-distant future.
Rickey Henderson’s 1,406 stolen bases: Even with the new rules, no.
Connie Mack’s 3,948 losses as a manager: Even if he had a 25-year career, the manager would have to lose an average of 159 games to match Mack.
Fernando Tatis’ two grand slams in one inning: Because, like Vander Meer, you have to do it times, meaning you have to come uo three times in the same inning. If I was a Magic 8-Ball, I’d say “It doesn’t look likely.”
Cy Young’s 511 career wins: Just so you know, Zack Greinke leads active pitchers in appearances, just 75 fewer than Young’s wins.
Nolan Ryan’s 5,714 strikeouts: Even taking into consideration the rise in the number of strikeouts per season, a pitcher would need to throw a lot of innings. Madison Bumgarner comes in 346th on the all-time list with 2,209.1.

This just in.

I was going to post this yesterday but it got too late. So today there was this from MLB.com: “Watch ’em fall! Records we want to see broken in ’24.” They include the current holder and who might break it. Among them:

Longest home run of the Statcast Era — Nomar Mazara / Shohei Ohtani. I don’t have a whole lot of interest in these “Statcast era” kinds of things.
Most strikeouts in a season by a rookie — Dwight Gooden / Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Gooden tossed 218 innings in his debut season. Logan Webb led the NL with 216 last year. Does anyone think the Dodgers would let a rookie throw that much? Granted, you might not need so many innings to get to that point, but it’s a stretch.
Most stolen bases in a season — Rickey Henderson / Corbin Carroll. Reading Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original by Howard Bryant these days. One of the knocks on a record like this is that a player has to be selfish. He has to be willing to steal at any time, regardless of the game situation. As I mentioned above, even with the new rules, I doubt this will happen.
Fastest pitch of the pitch-tracking era — Aroldis Chapman / Jhoan Duran. Yawn. I mean impressive, but again, a Statcast era thing. And yes, I know they’ve been tracking this stuff for decades.
Most consecutive games with a HR — Ken Griffey Jr., Don Mattingly, and Dale Long / Ohtani/Aaron Judge. The record is eight, so that means someone would have to go yard in nine straight games. Impossible? No. Unlikely? Yes.
Most strikeouts by a pitcher in a 9-inning game: Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Max Scherzer, and Kerry Wood / Spencer Strider — First the pitcher would have to throw nine innings. You know how many complete games were thrown last year? In both leagues? Thirty-five, and none of them were by Spencer Strider. Odds are against this one.
Hardest-hit ball of the Statcast Era — Oneil Cruz / Ronald Acuna Jr. Not even gonna bother.
Most saves in a season — Francisco Rodriguez / Emmanuel Clase. On the Guardians?? Hahahahaha.

There are a lot of records I would want to se broken more than most of these.