Most Unbreakable Record In Baseball

56, 511, 4256, 383, 5714, 2632, 130.....All these are milestones in baseball that some believe are unbreakable records. All of these records are held by legends of the game and in some cases, are the reasons why they're considered legends. The game has evolved over the 150+ years it has existed and with the way it is played today, are these records unbreakable?

56...Out of these records listed above, I believe the one that could fall the easiest is 56, as in consecutive games with a hit. Held by Joltin' Joe DiMaggio, he set this record in 1941. In 73 years since he set the record, the closest players to come to it were Pete Rose in 1978 with 44 games and Paul Molitor with 39 in 1987. Both of them hall of fame caliber players in their own right, but still miles away from Joltin' Joe.

So why do I think this record is breakable? First off it was accomplished in a single season. I believe that most single season records are easier to beat than career long records. Especially in this case where a player on a hot streak could try to go after the record. Also, it technically has been beaten before, but on other levels of baseball. Robin Ventura hit in 58 straight games in 1987 for Oklahoma State. Plus the game hasn't changed so much, that the number can't be hit.

130...The most stolen bases in a single season is held by legendary leadoff man, Rickey Henderson. If he played today, fantasy baseball players would draft him first overall because he could single handedly win you the stolen bases category. Since he broke the record in 1982, the next closest was Vince Coleman with 110 in 1985 and 109 in 1987. Since that 1987 year, no one has even had over 100 stolen bases in a season and the most since Rickey and Vince is Jose Reyes with 78 in 2007.

Baseball changed. "Money Ball", power hitters, and stolen bases being more evenly distributed among teammates have caused the running game to change. The Money Ball method cites that your team has a better chance to score if the game is played straight up, without trying to bunt or steal bases. Ironic that the team that has employed this tactic is the Oakland A's, the very team that employed Rickey Henderson for much of his career including his record breaking 1982 year. The "Steroid Era" also is a reason for the drop. Power hitting became gold in the MLB and even if one of your faster players is on base, you would hold him off from running so you wouldn't bug your power hitter who is at-bat.  Finally teams seem to spread out the stolen bases these days. You'll have more players on a team with ten or more stolen bases, but none with very high individual numbers.

4256...The all time hits record held by Pete Rose, a player who played for 24 years. He had ten seasons with 200 or more hits and several more that just finished just short such as 198 in 1972. He also led the league in hits for seven different seasons. Is this record breakable? I think so, although it would take the right circumstances to do so.

The current active leader is Derek Jeter, who is on a farewell tour. Unfortunately, he won't break the record because he ONLY has 3363 hits as I type this blog out. He's ninth on the all-time hits list, but as long as he stays healthy for his final season, should be able to move past the sixth spot currently held by Cap Anson with 3435 hits. He could even move past Tris Speaker for fifth, who has 3514, but that would take some great hitting by Jeter.

If star Japanese player, Ichiro Suzuki came to the MLB earlier, he could have had an outside shot. He broke the single season record for hits and despite having only fourteen seasons under his belt (the last three which haven't been too productive), he currently has 2768 hits. He too has ten 200 hits or more seasons (all of them in a row) and also like Pete Rose, has led the league seven times. Unfortunately, he didn't come over to the MLB until he was 27 years old, spending his younger years in the Japanese baseball league. He currently has 4046 hits between the two professional leagues, but that takes into account that even though he hit 1278 in Japan, they only play 130-140 games a season. He too is currently playing, and by the end of his career, should have more hits overall than Pete Rose, but unfortunately for him, it won't count.

Currently playing, with a small outside shot of getting near the record, is Miguel Cabrera. He currently has 2058 hits in twelve seasons, but has spent the last couple of years dominating the MLB in not just average, but overall hitting. He won the triple crown in 2012. He also plays in the American League, which will allow for him to hit as a designated hitter, long after his fielding days are over.

2632...This was achieved by Cal Ripken Jr., breaking the Iron Horse Lou Gehrig's record of 2130. The closet since the record being set in 1998 was Miguel Tejada with 1152 games, but that ended in 2007. The most recent streak was at 547, broken this year by Prince Fielder. Unfortunately a herniated disk in his neck forced him into a season ending surgery. Can this record be broken? There is a small chance that it can, but with managers being overly conservative with players, especially star players, Cal Ripken Jr. was a member of a dying breed.

383/5714...Nolan Ryan's records for strike outs in a single season and in a career, in the modern era. In 1973, Ryan broke Sandy Koufax' record of 382 and since then, the closest was Randy Johnson in 2001 with 372. Both Koufax and Ryan accomplished the feat when teams ran with four man rotations. Ryan had pitched in 40 games when he had 383 strikeouts, giving him an average of 10.6 per 9 innings pitched. When Johnson threw 372, he average 13.4 strikeouts per 9 innings, but he did it in the five man rotation era while only pitching in 34 games. So why is this record harder to break than the all-time hits record? With five man rotations sometimes giving way to six man rotations, innings limits being set by teams and player's agents, and pitch counts rarely going 100 pitches, star pitchers are sometimes only limited to 30 starts in a season now. This means they would have to average nearly 13 strikeouts a game, when they now rarely go over seven innings a game.

With the career record, Ryan accomplished this in twenty-seven seasons and quite frankly was a durable, freak of nature. Several other players of the same makeup have followed since (Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden), but various factors prevented them from breaking Ryan's career record. Johnson never pitched a complete season until he was 26 years old and by the time Ryan was 26, he 1205 career strikeouts, including two seasons with over 300. Clemens had 1215 by the time he was 26, but retired by age 44, had two seasons shortened by injury, and two more seasons that he didn't start playing until midseason. Of this bunch, Gooden had the most strikeouts by age 26, with 1541, but injuries and drug problems proved to be road blocks in his career, preventing him from being a future Hall-of-Famer.

Currently, CC Sabathia is the active leader with 2437, but that's in fourteen seasons and his body has been breaking down the last few. The three current players with the best shots are Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, and Clayton Kershaw. At age 28, Hernandez has 1786 strikeouts, fairly close to Ryan's pace. Verlander has 1721, but is 31 years old. Both Hernandez and Verlander have been solid when it comes to health as well. Finally at age 26, Kershaw currently has 1252 strikeouts, 47 more than Ryan at the same age and the season still isn't over. By the time all three retire, it's easy to believe that they'll all be in the top twenty-five of all-time, but to break the top five, they'll have to prove themselves to be freaks of nature like Ryan, Johnson, and Clemens.

Finally, the record that will be the most impossible to break, is 511 career wins. Set by Cy Young himself, he averaged 22 wins a season for his entire 22 year career. In Cy Young's days, he often would pitch as much as 50 games in a season, starting around 45 in a season at his peak. Today, a reliever that pitches in 50 games in a season, is considered to have pitched in a lot of games, at that's usually around 1 inning at a time. Cy Young started so many games, that he lost 316 games.

The closest in recent years has been Greg Maddux (355) and Roger Clemens (354) and both of them retired in their 40's. Greg Maddux pitched for one of the longest dynasties in baseball and Clemens was a freak of nature. In his time, Cy Young had over 815 career starts, but the closest active leader is CC Sabathia with 440. As with the strikeout records, with limited innings/pitch counts, five/six man rotations, and the wear and tear of pitching a whole career, this record is the most untouchable in baseball.

The 2014 Hall of Fame Vote (a joke)

The BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) should be ashamed of themselves. As a writer, you are there to judge players fairly and be unbiased with your picks for the Hall of Fame. In the past three years, a large portion of the BBWAA has been childish, petty, playing favorites, vindictive, and even revenge seeking.

A small group of these writers call themselves "The Gatekeepers" and have been voting unfairly and/or based on rumors. The Gatekeepers refuse to vote for ANYONE who played during the "steroid era" because their belief is that everyone is tainted. Anyone from your large power hitters (i.e. Mark McGwire) to the speedy infielders (i.e. Craig Biggio), to even the average shaped pitchers (i.e. Greg Maddux). Whatever happened to innocent 'til proven guilty?

One writer, Dan Le Batard, sold his vote (for money for charity) to the website Deadspin.com and became the only writer to actually be stripped of his vote for abuse of his vote. I agree he should have been stripped, but the irony is that Deadspin let their readers vote their top ten picks for the Hall and the readers actually came up with a good vote (Maddux, Glavine, Thomas, Piazza, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Edgar Martinez, Bagwell). Another writer allowed to keep his vote though, voted for players such as Jacque Jones, JT Snow, and Kenny Rogers over Biggio and Thomas. If you can't take your vote seriously, you should lose it. The BBWAA is a lifetime membership and some of the voters no longer cover sports and writer admittedly said he doesn't even watch baseball anymore. These writers should lose their votes too.

People without votes include Bill James (MLB's official historian), many of the journalist for MLB.com and the MLB Channel, and even people who have seen more baseball than ninety-nine percent of writers such as Vin Scully. The group of people voting for the Hall of Fame should be re-examined. Several current writers have submitted no votes for the past three years. You should be stripped of your vote. There is no excuse not to be able to find one vote in years that had so many deserving players.

In this year's ballot, there were arguably fifteen players or so that have Hall Of Fame credentials. Each writer is unfortunately restricted to ten votes, but a large number of players should end up going. Only three were selected (Maddux, Glavine, Thomas). It was nice to see a pitcher with a rookie season after 1970, finally make it. It's not as if there were no deserving pitchers in that group. Jack Morris, the winningest pitcher of the '80's fits in that deserving group, but only three players total was embarrassing.

First off, some players should be considered a no brainer when it comes to the Hall of Fame and with no valid argument against voting the player (i.e. Babe Ruth) and therefore should receive one hundred percent of a vote, which has never happened in history. Greg Maddux should have been one of these players, but a handful of voters actually made a case against him.

What is strange is some of these writers acknowledged that they WILL vote for players such as Manny Ramirez when he becomes eligible. Ramirez tested positive twice after the new rules of suspension came out (i.e. 50/100/150/life). Why would he be okay in their eyes, but not someone like Fred McGriff, who never tested positive, never was accused, and never even changed body shape all that much while he played. Some writers will cite that he didn't hit the benchmark numbers of five hundred homers or three thousand hits. McGriff hit four hundred ninety-three home runs and was a league leader in homeruns during the strike shortened season on 1994. In one hundred thirteen games he had thirty-four homeruns and could have easily hit seven more.

Rafael Palmeiro fell off the ballot this year with less than five percent of the vote and is the first player with over three thousand hits and/or five hundred homeruns to fall of the Hall of Fame ballot. In his case, I believe a case can be made for him not to make because he DID test positive for steroids, but other power hitters such as Jeff Bagwell, Fred McGriff, and even speedsters like Tim Raines never did. The same writers will hold Mark McGwire accountable for doing "Andro" when he played with the Cardinals, but in the late '90's, the medical community classified "Andro" as a supplement and not a steroid, nor was it even banned by Major League Baseball at the time. What he was doing was completely within the rules of baseball during that time period.

Craig Biggio comes up as a player that was gypped out of the honor this year. He was two votes short, the closest any player has come, without being voted in. He is one of the top ten second baseman of all time, amassing over three thousand hits, four gold gloves, five silver sluggers, and holds the record for being beaned the most in the modern day era. He is the only player in MLB history that has over three thousand hits, six hundred doubles, four hundred stolen bases, and two hundred stolen bases. He fell nine homeruns short of being only the second player in history to amass three thousand hits, three hundred homers, and three hundred stolen bases (Willie Mays being the only one). He played three positions to benefit his team, starting off his career as a all-star catcher, switching over to second base to become a gold glover, and moving to centerfield to benefit his team. He is undoubtedly a Hall Of Famer and it is said he will make it next year. The problem lies that for those who vote for him next year, they essentially only have nine votes for Hall of Fame instead of ten because of the travesty of not voting him in this season.

With only three players going this year, the already crowded vote gets even more crowded next year when players such as John Smoltz, Gary Sheffield, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez become eligible. With the already crowded ballot, there's a good chance that several players might fall under the five percent minimum to stay on the ballot the next season, that are better players than ones currently in the Hall.

The biggest snubs are Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, neither of which have ever tested positive for steroids. One writer said he would never vote for Bonds because "he is a mean person". This may be true, but former players such as Ty Cobb made it and he was a known racist and even possibly killed a man and he made it. Clemens even tested for international competition and passed when he drug tested for the Olympics. Clemens only negative was that he tested in front of Congress that he never cheated on his wife, a question that had nothing to do with drugs, and he was found later of lying about that. The only thing Barry was ever proven to lie about was paying the correct amount of taxes. Neither should be a reason to keep the all time home run leader and possibly the best pitcher of the last fifty years out of the Hall.

Other players such as Tim Raines (a poor man's Rickey Henderson), Mike Piazza (horrible defense, but best hitting catcher), Mike Mussina (arguably better than Glavine), Jeff Bagwell (best first basemen of the '90's), Sammy Sosa (only proved to have had a corked bat in his final season), and Jack Morris were also gypped from becoming fellow Hall members. Good arguments could also have been made for Edgar Martinez (no defense), Lee Smith (retired as the all time saves leader), Curt Schilling (lack of consistency), Jeff Kent (lack of defense), Alan Trammell (in the shadow of Cal, Ozzie, and Larkin) and Larry Walker (lack of health).

The BBWAA needs to get their act together. With the way the group of writers has acted as a whole, if they continue to vote the way they have for the past few seasons, it will tarnish the validity of the Hall of Fame and players that are well deserving, will never make it. Embarrassing.