Sports Records Least Likely to be Broken

My local paper had a brief blurb today referring to the list of Top 10 Unbreakable Sports Records, from the interesting site AskMen.com (which I hadn't visited before). Go read the article to find out why they chose each of the following:

1. Cal Ripken's 2,632 consecutive baseball games played.
2. Jerry Rice's 22,895 NFL pass-receiving yards.
3. Cy Young's 511 career pitching victories.
4. John Wooden's 88 straight wins as a college basketball coach.
5. Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point basketball game.
6. Wayne Gretsky's 215-point season.
7. Nolan Ryan's 7 no-hitters.
8. Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average.
9. Michael Schumacher's 7 Forumula racing championships.
10. Rocky Marciano's 49-0 boxing record.

These are all very impressive records of course. Discussion's of this subject often start with Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, so it is interesting that it is missing from their list. I could see someone breaking that record someday though, so I'm not lobbying for it to be included.

I don't know much about racing or boxing, so I can't comment on the last two selections. Cobb's average seems safe, as does Nolan's number of no-no's. I wonder though what is harder to top: Nolan's mark, or Roger Clemens' 7 Cy Young awards?

I'm not a Hockey fan so I won't comment on Gretsky's record. Wooden's seems untoppable, given the broader competition that exists today, and because so many great players leave school for the NBA after one or two years.

But what struck me about this list, was Cy Young's career wins total only ranking third. Those top three are all highly unlikely to be topped, but it would take a change in the nature of the modern game for a pitcher to come anywhere near Young's 511 wins. The main reason is that we don't have three-man rotations any more, we have five-man rotations. As the author states: "A pitcher today would need to average 25 wins a season for 21 years to surpass Young; with an average of just 35 starts each year, that's an all-but-impossible task." Someone could more easily break the records of Ripken or Rice, because those wouldn't require a change in how their respective sports are currently played.