Topic #6, Group #1: Most Unbreakable Record

[klunderbunker]

This thread is to be used by those in Group #1 (see the stickied thread for rosters if you're unsure of where you are). Any other posts in here will be flagged for spam and deleted. You have four days from the time this is posted to post (as in the time this is posted on Thursday, which is approximately when the new topic will go up. Note that I mean 96 hours after MY initial post, not the lead off debater.) your arguments, rebuttals and anything else you want. Best overall debater in that time period receives 10 points, second receives 9, third receives 8, all others receive 7.

Hitting Lead-Off in this debate is CH David. He has 24 hours to reply and if he doesn't then it's open season.

Again: 4 days, best overall poster gets first place points.

Topic: What sports record in professional or college sports is the least likely to be broken?

Scores will be posted as soon as the three judges give their scores.

Go.

 

[CH David]

First of all I just want to apologize for being absent in the past two debates.

A lot of the top ones in all of sports will probably be chosen and for good reason. There is Joltin' Joe and his hitting streak, Walter Johnson with shutouts, Wilt scoring 100 in a game. I'm going to go with the 511 wins by Cy Young.

This is a record that nobody will break. Now it is a chore just to get to 300 in 20 years. Cy Young broke 500 in 21 years, both in the National League and the upstart American League. Walter Johnson has 417 and he is second on the all time list. Young was one of the ultimate horses in an era of horses (baseball talk).

You can try and discredit it, saying it was in a time where only 3-4 guys pitched in the rotation! So? There were tons of other pitchers who pitched a lot and from 1875-1930, 10 pitchers, including Young, won 300 games. So winning 300 in the Golden Era was tough. Even then, that marks as a big reason why it won't ever be broken. In an era of the 5 man rotation, you are only going to get 35 starts a season at the most. To win 500 games you would have to stay healthy all year (not a guarantee) and have to win 25 decisions each year for 20 years to even reach 500 wins. There is no way it is going to happen.

 

[Big Sexy]

CH, you have the right sport and the right player but the wrong record.

Open​

The most unbreakable record in all of sports is Cy Young's record of 749 complete games. That is a ridiculous number. Pitchers nowadays will never even reach close to 200 complete games let alone 749. Roger Clemens pitched just 118 complete games in his career. Greg Maddux pitched just 109. Tom Glavine pitched just 56, and these are all guys that have over 300 wins. Let's be honest, there are tons of records out there that are never going to be broken. Cy Young's all time wins mark is also one of those records. However, pitchers have come and will come much closer to that win mark then they ever will his complete games mark.

Unbreakability​

To reach Cy Young's complete games mark, a pitcher would have to pitch 40 complete games for 19 straight seasons. With the 5 man rotations baseball now has pitchers don't even get 40 starts in a season let alone pitch complete games in all of them. It would be huge news if a player pitched 10 complete games in one season. The 749 complete games record is literally impossible to break in this day and age.

 

[The People's Peep]

I too would like to apologize for missing the last topic. Sorry about that.

As for my choice, its a bit different from the previous two choices. CH and Sexy both picked records that are unbreakable. But the reason those records are unbreakable is because the game has changed so much over the last century. So for me, the most unbreakable record that isnt a result of playing in certain time is Wayne Gretzky's record for points.

The man known as "The Great One" accumulated a total of 2857 points. 2nd place on that list is Mark Messier with 1887 points. Gretzky has over a thousand points on the next best player. Gretzky got all of these points in 1487 games. This means that he averaged almost 2 points a game (1.92 to be exact, an NHL record). Mario Lemieux had the next best points/game average with 1.88, but after that, it drops all the way to Mike Bossy's 1.49.

Today, even the best players have trouble getting one point a game. Undoubtably, the best player in the game today is Sidney Crosby. He has been compared to Gretzky and is one of the best players since the age of Gretzky. But even Crosby will have a difficult time catching up to The Great One. Currently, Crosby has 572 points in 412 games. That means he average 1.38 points a game. At this rate, Crosby would need to play 2071 games to catch up to Crosby. That could be a problem considering that "Mr. Hockey" Gordie Howe, who played for 26 seasons, holds the record for most games played at 1767 games.

Clearly, Wayne Gretzky's skill is something that might never be matched. Because of this, many of records might never be broken. But his record for points is the most impressive record of his, and for me, its one of the most unbreakable records in sports history.

 

[Big Sexy]

I too would like to apologize for missing the last topic. Sorry about that.

As for my choice, its a bit different from the previous two choices. CH and Sexy both picked records that are unbreakable. But the reason those records are unbreakable is because the game has changed so much over the last century. So for me, the most unbreakable record that isnt a result of playing in certain time is Wayne Gretzky's record for points.

The man known as "The Great One" accumulated a total of 2857 points. 2nd place on that list is Mark Messier with 1887 points. Gretzky has over a thousand points on the next best player. Gretzky got all of these points in 1487 games. This means that he averaged almost 2 points a game (1.92 to be exact, an NHL record). Mario Lemieux had the next best points/game average with 1.88, but after that, it drops all the way to Mike Bossy's 1.49.

Today, even the best players have trouble getting one point a game. Undoubtably, the best player in the game today is Sidney Crosby. He has been compared to Gretzky and is one of the best players since the age of Gretzky. But even Crosby will have a difficult time catching up to The Great One. Currently, Crosby has 572 points in 412 games. That means he average 1.38 points a game. At this rate, Crosby would need to play 2071 games to catch up to Crosby. That could be a problem considering that "Mr. Hockey" Gordie Howe, who played for 26 seasons, holds the record for most games played at 1767 games.

Clearly, Wayne Gretzky's skill is something that might never be matched. Because of this, many of records might never be broken. But his record for points is the most impressive record of his, and for me, its one of the most unbreakable records in sports history.

I agree that the main reason why Cy Young's records won't be broken is because the game is completely different now then it was back in the dead ball era, however, the question is what record is most unbreakable. Having a time period added to the question may have made it a better debate but as it stands we're talking about any record from any time period.

Gretzky's record is nothing short of amazing and it most likely will never get broken but there is a much greater chance of his points record getting broken then Cy Young's complete games record because Cy's record really is virtually impossible to break. Gretzky is easily the greatest hockey player of all time but who knows what could happen in 30 years. Maybe the second coming of Gretzky comes around and the record gets broken. Highly unlikely, but still a small possibility.

 

[mrbrownstone]

There is one record in sports that can never be broken and in all likelihood will never even come close to being broken. What I am talking about is Sir Donald Bradman's career batting average of 99.94, in the most stats driven game in the world, cricket.

Why will this record never be broken, well to answer that I must first explain what this record truly means. You see a batting average is made by dividing the number of innings played by the number of runs scored thus creating an average score. Now why will this never be broken? Well the next closest to this record is currently England's Jonothan Trott averaging just over 61, a difference of approximately 40 runs. In the 70 years since Bradman retired no the closest to him is 40 off, if after 70 years no one has come even remotely close they why would anyone believe the record will ever be surpassed?

You also have to take into account the differences in the game today, now days players play far more games in their careers meaning more innings. The more innings you face it the harder and harder it gets to keep that average consistently up, after all every single player no matter how good goes through a form slump at some stage during their career so it is near impossible to keep your average that high for a sustained period of time.

 

[The People's Peep]

Gretzky's record is nothing short of amazing and it most likely will never get broken but there is a much greater chance of his points record getting broken then Cy Young's complete games record because Cy's record really is virtually impossible to break. Gretzky is easily the greatest hockey player of all time but who knows what could happen in 30 years. Maybe the second coming of Gretzky comes around and the record gets broken. Highly unlikely, but still a small possibility.

The same could be said for Cy Young. Maybe not to the extent of a reincarnation, but maybe a return to the three or four man rotation. You never know what the future holds. With the way medicine advances, maybe they create some new medication that allows for faster recovery or just something that helps the players. Like you said, highly unlikely, but you never know.

 

[Big Sexy]

The same could be said for Cy Young. Maybe not to the extent of a reincarnation, but maybe a return to the three or four man rotation. You never know what the future holds. With the way medicine advances, maybe they create some new medication that allows for faster recovery or just something that helps the players. Like you said, highly unlikely, but you never know.

The chances of a Gretzky like player coming in the future, while very slim, are still somewhat in the realm of reasonable possibility. The game of baseball digressing a hundred years and medicine advancing so much that players can pitch as much and as often as you are suggesting is as close to impossible as you can get.

 

[CH David]

There is one record in sports that can never be broken and in all likelihood will never even come close to being broken. What I am talking about is Sir Donald Bradman's career batting average of 99.94, in the most stats driven game in the world, cricket.

Why will this record never be broken, well to answer that I must first explain what this record truly means. You see a batting average is made by dividing the number of innings played by the number of runs scored thus creating an average score. Now why will this never be broken? Well the next closest to this record is currently England's Jonothan Trott averaging just over 61, a difference of approximately 40 runs. In the 70 years since Bradman retired no the closest to him is 40 off, if after 70 years no one has come even remotely close they why would anyone believe the record will ever be surpassed?

You also have to take into account the differences in the game today, now days players play far more games in their careers meaning more innings. The more innings you face it the harder and harder it gets to keep that average consistently up, after all every single player no matter how good goes through a form slump at some stage during their career so it is near impossible to keep your average that high for a sustained period of time.

Your first sentence is false based on the pretense of only one. In all reality there are plenty. Also, the last sentence of your second paragraph could also be said about Big Sexy and my records, except ours are from about 100 years ago.

Now I'm not going to pretend that I know about cricket. I know that the bat looks like the paddles used in Dazed and Confused and that's about it. But just from a quick look at what has been said about him on the web, it looks like he is the cricket version of Wayne Gretzky when it comes to batsmen. That's not a bad thing but I'll get into it in my next paragraph.

Wayne Gretzky and Sir Donald Bradman are two of their greatest at their respective position of sport (Bradman) and greatest ever (Gretzky). Their records will most likely never be broken. However, that's not to say that there isn't a solid chance with the right player, and right circumstances they can't break it. What made Gretzky so great was his almost psychic anticipation of how the puck would be played. It also helped that he didn't need to worry about being messed with. He had his enforcers so he wouldn't get messed with a lot. Sir Donald was a fine batsmen who used his high drive as a kid to work on his reaction time. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibilities that a kid now or in the future could be as dedicated as he was and can break the record. It's a bit of a stretch, but weirder shit has happened in sports.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

I'm going to go about this a little differently and say that the most unbreakable sports record is NFL quarterback Brett Favre's 336 interceptions. Let's look at the reasons why this record will never be broken:

In today's NFL, the quarterback position is the most important and scrutinized on the roster.​

Long gone are the days where a defense or coaching genius could easily get you to the Super Bowl and a shot at the Lombardi Trophy. Over the past 10 Super Bowls (including this upcoming one), there have only been three out of 20 competing teams that arguably didn't get to the big show due to the exceptional work of their quarterback (QB): the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the 2003 Carolina Panthers, and the 2006 Chicago Bears. Furthermore, only the Buccaneers came out victorious; the Panthers and the Bears respectively fell to teams led by Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, the two most-praised QBs of this era.

While Brett Favre is undoubtedly one of the greatest QBs to ever play the game, he is unique in the NFL of today in that no team would gamble on a veteran QB that throws up so many interceptions with all of his many touchdowns. With the exception of injury, one bad season now (heck, maybe even just half of a season) almost always leads to a back-up role or a starting position that one is just keeping warm until the offseason.

The time frame for a rookie QB to prove himself is now smaller than ever.​

It's already been shown that there aren't any starting QBs like Favre in the NFL today. Now it's time to show why there won't be another QB like Favre again. While a brilliant rookie season might buy you a little bit of time, a less-then-stellar surely starts the death watch (the two most significant examples of this being Brady Quinn and Matt Leinart, two former first-round picks who were benched in favor of other QBs after less than a regular season-full of games). As I've already emphasized above, a high ratio of touchdowns to interceptions is key to a QB keeping his starting position in the NFL. While a bad season or two mixed in with eight or nine amazing ones is acceptable, two consecutively bad seasons or just as many bad as good seasons is not. Favre had more than his fair share of poor seasonal performances; if drafted today, he probably wouldn't even have been given a shot past his mediocre rookie season with the Falcons.

Performance concerns aside, a quarterback with as many seasons and starts as Favre is a rarity.

Brett Favre holds numerous records, most of them positive. One of these positive records is his number of consecutive starts, 297, which comes out to roughly 18.5 seasons as a starting QB. The only current QB close to this number of consecutive starts is Peyton Manning with 208. While Manning will almost surely pass this record, he will also almost surely never reach Favre's number of interceptions. Should Manning surpass Favre's record by playing for six more seasons, he'd have to average 22 interceptions per season to come to Favre's number of 336. However, save for two seasons, Manning has never thrown more than 19 interceptions in a season. Such a slide in performance is unlikely not only because of Manning's abilities but also because of the high probability that he'd be pulled in favor of someone else should he regress that much.

The NFL of today is extremely risk-averse, especially when it comes to the position of QB. Consequently, relative rather than absolute numbers are the most used indications of someone's performance. High-reward, high-risk QBs like Favre are simply not favored anymore in the NFL, and I find it highly unlikely that they ever will be favored again.