Baseball’s Untouchable Milestones – Part 2
Ty Cobb held the record of the highest number of hits, 4191 for 78 years. That all changed when Pete Rose came along in 1985 and broke Cobb’s record by finishing off his career with 4,256 hits. Among today’s current players, Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees
has 3,000 which is quite mediocre compared to Cobb’s or Rose’s record, but is the highest from among today’s players.
Pitching a no-hitter is definitely something. So holding the record for the maximum number of no-hitters in the duration of player’s career is quite an accomplishment. Nolan Ryan holds the record for pitching seven no-hitters in the duration of his marvelous
career. He pitched his first and second no-hitter in the year 1973, on May 15th and July 15th respectively. The next two came on September 28, 1974 and then a year after that on September 26, 1981. His first five no-hitters came when
he was with the California Angels. As a Texas Rangers he hit this final two. The first in June 1990 and the second one in May 1991. His last one that he hit in May 1991 was at the age of 44 which also set a record of him being the oldest pitcher to throw a
no-hitter.
Everyone is familiar with the Cy Young Award, but very few people know that the award is named after the pitcher-par-excellence Cy Young. He is one of the best pitchers in all of Major League Baseball, but he also holds the record for the highest number
of career wins. He won a mind boggling 511 games in his 22-year MLB career. Walter Johnson comes near his record with 417 wins. From among today’s players Jamie Moyer of the Philadelphia Phillies has 267 which are roughly half of what Young achieved. There
isn’t much hope that he will be able to go any further. He would be missing the entire 2011 season due to injuries and since he is 47 already, he would be retiring soon.
Cal Ripken Jr. should be given credit for breaking Lou Gehrig’s record which was not surpassed for more than half a century when he played 2,632 games. This ranked him Number one on the consecutive-games-played list, with Gehrig coming behind him at 2,030.
Ripken left behind the Iron House with quite a margin and his name was recognised as among the great players of MLB. In today’s baseball, it really is a sad situation since players can’t seem to hold themselves together for consecutive number of games. Matt
Kemp of the Los Angeles Dodgers has the highest number with 200 games which is quite a shame compared to the numbers put up by Gehrig and Ripken.
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