Cy Young – 511 wins. A pitcher would have to win 20 games a year for 25 seasons to do this… and he’d still be 11 short. And you have to do it for 25 years to catch Cy Young.
Cy Young – 749 complete games. Due to the drastically changed way in which MLB pitchers are now used, with all the substitutions, relief pitchers, and pitch counts, I will even go so far as to say that, as the game now is, this record is completely impossible to break. Doubt it? Then think about this: the current MLB leader in career complete games is Justin Verlander. Uh…he has 25.
Cal Ripken – 2,632 consecutive games played streak. With today’s pampered and coddled players and the big money invested in them, I don’t see anyone playing all 162 games in 16+ seasons straight.
Nolan Ryan – 5,714 strikeouts. No way anyone touches this record with pitch counts and the babying of starters today.
Rickey Henderson – 1,406 stolen bases.
Jerry Rice – 22,895 yards receiving; 197 receiving touchdowns.
Jim Brown – 8 rushing titles (in nine years). Barry Sanders, Emmitt and Payton also had eight… combined.
Wilt Chamberlain – 50.4 points per game in the 1961–62 season. The closest was Michael Jordan’s 37.1 PPG in the 1986–87 season.
Bill Russell – 11 NBA Championships
Boston Celtics – 8 straight NBA championship. With 30 teams in the league, and the era of free agency and salary cap, winning 2 or 3 in a row is hard enough.
Wayne Gretzky – 2,857 career points. 894 career goals. 92 goals and 212 points in 1981–82. 1.92 points per game.
John Wooden – 7 consecutive NCAA men’s basketball national championship.
Leicester City – Winning the English Premier League title in the 2015–16 season as a 5000–1 long shot. After that season, the highest odds to win EPL offered by the British sports book is 1000–1.
