What Are the Most Untouchable Records in Sports?
I ran across this post on Threads the other day: “What’s the hardest record in sports history to ever break?” A sampling of the replies:
- “Bill Russell’s 11 NBA championships including 8 in a row.”
- “Lionel Messi scored 91 goals in the 2012 calendar year.”
- “Cy Young 749 complete games.”
- “Fernando Tatis (Sr) - 2 Grand Slams in the same inning. Most of the others mentioned here are highly improbable, but there’s no way anyone ever hits 3 slams in one inning.”
- “Lionel Messi’s 8 Ballon d’or”
- “Sir Donald Bradman’s batting average in Test cricket. His 99.97.”
- “Russian wrestler Aleksandr Karelin. Undefeated for 13 years. 887 wins and 2 losses, both by single point.”
Last year, The Athletic offered a list of their own, which included Wayne Gretzky’s 1,963 career assists, the furthest goal in soccer (96.01 meters), Michael Phelps’ 23 Olympic golds, and Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game.
Poking around the internet a bit, there’s also FloJo’s 100m record, UConn women’s basketball team’s 111 wins in a row, Cal Ripken’s consecutive game streak, and Simone Biles’ 30 world championship medals.
Any additions to the list?




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Hard to imagine John Stockton's records for career steals or assists being broken.
As long as they keep playing, nobody is ever going to "beat" the Philadelphia Phillies for losingest sports franchise - they've lost over 11,000 games and counting.
From the world of tennis: Roger Federer’s 237 consecutive weeks as Number 1 (followed by Jimmy Connors with 160). Steffi Graf’s 377 total weeks as Number 1 (followed by Martina Navratilova with 332). (Plus Steffi Graf’s Calendar Golden Grand Slam, as mentioned in the Atlantic).
Wayne Gretzky - 50 goals in 39 games in 1981-82; next best is 50 goals in 50 games (several players, including Gretzky).
Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game consecutive hitting streak in 1941 seems untouchable. It’s a whole different game now.
I'm going with Johnny Vander Meer's back to back no-hitters. Someone's going to have to throw 3 straight no-hitters to beat this one... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Vander_Meer
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