Ken Burns Baseball

Ripken's record will never fall for the same reason Gehrig's record DID fall: it's a discretionary record, to some extent the player, and his team management, can "decide" whether to break it or not.

Ripken's career had a very high early peak, then for most of the rest of his career settled into a long downward slide -- every 4-5 years he would spike upward a little bit, then settle back into the long eventual decline. By his mid-30s, when he was turning in seasons like .252 with 14 HRs, it was hard to argue he was much better than an average shortstop -- and hard to argue the consecutive-games streak was doing the team any good.

As a result, in recent years, you haven't seen any real impressive consecutive-games streaks: team managers nip them in the bud, sit guys out a couple games every year, so they won't be hands-tied in the future, "Yeah, I know Joe Schmoe is hitting .213, but he's got 1,100 consecutive games played and he's chasing Ripken, so we have to keep him in there."

 

Hideki Matsui and Miguel Tajeda recently had pretty impressive streaks broken.

 

After watching Ichiro have several 20-game streaks, I feel that Dimaggio's record won't be broken without some changes to the way the game is played and reported these days.

If and when it is broken, it will be by a player like Ichiro; a contact hitter who doesn't walk or strike out much. For a power hitter, Joltin' Joe was phenomenal about not striking out.

It won't be Ichiro, in my opinion. He has two sets of press to worry about, and he refuses to change his approach to meet the occasion. Except that the more the team wins, the more often he gives himself up at the plate.

 

Yep good call out on that one, he missed by one RBI jerk.

Hack was also a drunk who ruined his career pretty shortly after setting that record, sort of like how you will once you set the SportsJournalists.com record for insults.

 

Ramirez only played in 91 games and had 60 RBIs in 1994, his second season in the bigs. He had 165 RBIs in 1999.

Juan Gonzalez only played two seasons (and that's being generous) for Cleveland; 140 games in 2001 and one -- with one at-bat -- in 2005.

Gonzalez and Ramirez never played on the same team. Ramirez went to Boston in December, 2000.

 

Hank?

It's Hack.

Look it up, Tonto.

 

Has anyone ever seen boots and idiotsnetwork on the same thread at the same time?

 

Hank Greenberg. Hack Wilson. Two different people.

There's your old-school baseball lesson for the day, Indiansnetwork.

 

Fuck off. It's like saying the career wins record is 512 ... no, oops, off by one. :

Wilson's RBI record was famously listed at 190 for years. Recently, in 1999, the record was changed to 191 because it was found that a scorekeeper made an error, giving an RBI to Charlie Grimm when it should have gone to Wilson.

 

I missed idiotsnetwork's comment. Nice to see everyone picking up the slack.

 

I don't think it's the same thing in any other sport, but there are certain numbers in baseball every fan should know: 511 wins, 5,714 strikeouts, 56-game hitting streak, 2,652 consecutive games, seven no-hitters, 73 (61) and 714, 715 (and soon Bonds' finished total) home runs. I don't think Wilson's RBI record is one of those numbers, only because it's not talked about as much, but it damn well should be.

 

The mistake on the RBI record is understandable. It was 190 for many years and then just recently readjusted after some deep research discovered Wilson had been shorted an RBI along the way that season. (sorry Buck, had already posted. Didn't mean to DB).

I'd be surprised if the Ripken, Joe D, and Nolan R strikeout and no-hit record are ever touched.

The RBI record will fall someday. The other pitching marks (wins, ERA, etc.) will never be broken because the game has evolved so much, obviously.

The record for season triples (36, Chief Wilson, Pirates, 1912) might not ever be broken because ballparks are so much smaller and outfielders so much faster. The doubles record (67, Earl Webb, 1931) might fall, for the same reasons.