To read the introduction, click here.

Previous parts of the list are here: 50-46 , 45-41.

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40. Ted Williams .482 career on-base percentage

The “moneyball” era has changed how teams and fans view offensive statistics. We still value batting average, home runs, and RBIs, but On Base Percentage has become one of the most consistent ways to measure offensive effectiveness.

That considered, Teddy Ballgame is the hands down career leader in OBP at .482. Only four players have eclipsed .482 in a single season in the 51 years since Williams retired (Mickey Mantle, Norm Cash, Frank Thomas, and Barry Bonds; Bonds did it in multiple seasons). Todd Helton (.4213) and Albert Pujols (.4211) are the highest-ranking active players; they rank 17th & 18th, respectively.

Impressive Fact: Williams’ longest career hitting streak was only 23 games. Yet he holds the record for reaching base successfully in the most games at 84. Surrounding his hit-streak record, Joe DiMaggio only reached base in 74 consecutive games.

–Joey Sparks

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39. Connie Mack’s 3731 career MLB managerial victories

Hire yourself, never fire yourself, and you can hold every record in the book. That was, basically, Connie Mack’s philosophy. As owner-manager (later in life) of the Philadelphia Athletics (now the Oakland A’s), Mack just kept on allowing himself to manage, despite oftentimes terrible seasons.

The result is a career in managing that spanned some 54 seasons, the final 50 with the A’s.

He ended his career with an astounding 3731 victories, easily outpacing John McGraw’s 2763. The leader among active managers is Tony Larussa, who would need to average 90 wins per season for almost 13 straight years to match Mack. Next on the active list is Jim Leyland, who has under 1600 career wins!

Special Note: We mentioned how Mack’s teams often were not so good. He also has the career record for managerial losses (which will never be touched, either). He lost a mind-blowing 3948 games. That’s right, the manager with the most wins in MLB history…has a losing record!

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38. Donald Bradman’s 99.94 test batting average in cricket

You may know little to nothing about cricket [editor’s note: none of us understands cricket either, but we thought this was a cool record]. But in this game, a player’s batting average is the total number of runs he has scored divided by the number of times he has been out. Since the number of runs a player scores and how often he gets out are primarily measures of his own playing ability, and largely independent of his team mates, you can truly tell how good a player is by his batting average. From 1928-1948, D.G. Bradman had a Test batting average of 99.94. Here are the next five highest averages in the history of Cricket: 2. J.L. Trott 66.77 (2009–Present) 3. R.G. Pollock 60.97 (1963–1970). 4. G.A. Headley 60.83 (1930–1954) 5. H. Sutcliffe 60.73 (1924–1935). “The fact that Bradman’s average is so far above that of any other cricketer has led several statisticians to argue that, statistically at least, he was the greatest sportsman in any sport” (Players and Officials).

–Jeremiah Tatum

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37. Margaret Court Smith’s 62 career Grand Slam tennis victories

In tennis, the “Grand Slam” events are the US Open (hardcourt), Australian Open (hardcourt), French Open (clay), and Wimbledon (grass). To win titles at each of these is a rare achievement.

To be good at both singles and doubles tennis is also rare.

And then, there is Margaret Court (later Margaret Court Smith), who won every way possible, amassing a total of 62 grand slam titles. She won every tournament, won in singles, won in doubles, won in mixed doubles…she won all the time! An Australian, Smith’s favorite tournament seemed to be her home-nation’s major, in which she won the singles title 11 times. For perspective, Billy Jean King won 12 singles titles total for her entire career.

Many thought that Martina Navratilova would eclipse Smith’s record, but she finished with 59 career major titles. When her “bid” ended up short, this record became unbreakable. With few players playing all three types of tournaments (singles, doubles, mixed doubles) anymore, Smith’s 62 grand slam titles will remain the mark.

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36. Babe Ruth’s .690 career slugging percentage

Slugging percentage is basically how many bases a player reaches per at bat. For example, if a player hits a single in his first at-bat, his slugging percentage would be 1.000. If he hits a double, it would be 2.000. And so on.

Babe Ruth was so dominant that, on average, he was 69% of the way to first base every time he walked up to the plate! On the career slugging percentage leader board, Ruth is farther ahead of #2 (Ted Williams, .634) than the difference between Williams and #9 (Manny Ramirez, .586). The current leader is Albert Pujols. While his career slugging percentage is an amazing .624, he would have to become a significantly better power hitter in the later years of his career to even approach Ruth’s record. Considering how rare it is for a hitter to do that, Ruth’s record is very safe.

…and considering the “steroid era” hitters couldn’t even approach this record… you’d have to think it’s going to stand for a long, long time.

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We’re 15 records into the list. What are your thoughts thus far?