The 50 Most “Unbreakable” Records in Sports : Introduction

It’s one of the reasons we buy tickets, fill seats, and watch game after game. It’s one of the great debates among avid fans of all sports. It’s one of ways a name becomes synonymous with the history of a sport, either for good or bad.

It’s the record that will “never” be broken.

The old sports adage is, “Records were made to be broken.” There are some records, though, that have either (1) stood so long, or (2) are so far afield from any other number that they–we think–will never be broken.

So, we decided to list them. And, yes, I mean “we.” I am a huge fan of sports, but I wanted some help with this list, to make sure that as many numbers were thought of and discussed as possible. Over the past 2 months, four of us have been been working on the list. Besides myself, you will see the work (and, later in this series, the writings) of Joey Sparks, Jeremiah Tatum, and Matt Reaves. I am grateful for their input, and appreciate their help.

To put this list together, we each compiled our own personal lists of records from the world of sports that we feel could never be broken. Then we combined the lists to see similarities and differences. Finally, we ranked them. Of course, since we feel all of these are “unbreakable,” this was not an easy task. So, think of this more as a list that goes from “quite unlikely to be broken” all the way to “there’s not a chance in our lifetime this will ever even be approached.”

We hope you enjoy the list.  So you’ll know, here is our planned posting schedule:

Tuesday, September 20: numbers 50-46 in the morning, numbers 45-41 in the evening.

Wednesday, September 21: numbers 40-36 in the morning, numbers 35-31 in the evening.

Friday, September 23: numbers 30-26 in the morning, numbers 25-21 in the evening.

Monday, September 26: numbers 20-16 in the morning, numbers 15-11 in the evening.

Tuesday, September 27: numbers 10-6

Wednesday, September 28: numbers 5-1

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Just to whet your appetite, I thought I’d share a few of the records we discussed that did not make our final cut. Ready to argue? Here are a few (in no particular order):

• Brett Favre’s 297 consecutive games started in the NFL
• Johnny VanderMeer throws 2 consecutive no-hitters
• Emmitt Smith’s NFL rushing record of 18,355 yards
• Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game in the NBA

You read that right: none of these made the final list of 50. So, what did? Get ready for the list, starting next week!

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What would you include? What are your thoughts on the four listed that did not make the final cut?