The NBA season is starting to gain momentum, as we now are lowered down to one NBA team: The Golden State Warriors. Stephen Curry is currently the favorite to win his 2nd MVP award, as he looks to set record breaking numbers this season. He's already only 3 three pointers away from tying his dad's, Dell Curry's, career total, and he's not even in his thirties yet. Over in the NFL, Peyton Manning is 1 win away from being the all time wins leader in football history, and only 3 yards away from the career yards record. With all this going on I stopped and thought to myself, these records are being broken, but there has to be some records that will never be broke. Thus, we are presented with this post. I'm going to show you the statistics of a couple records that will never be broken.
The first record I will break down is Wilt Chamberlain. And I'm not talking about his 100 point game. Kobe Bryant has shown us that while that record is outstanding, it can be broken. I'm also not going to talk about his 50 rebound game, although I believe it will be a long time before someone breaks that record. I'm talking about the 1961-1962 season where he averaged 50 point a game. Let's face it. Back in that time period the NBA was a joke. It was the Celtics and Lakers competing for the championship every year (with the exception of the Rochester Royals every now and then). Many people weren't interested in watching it and, unless you're 7 feet tall, many weren't going to try to make the NBA either. But that doesn't discard the fact that he scored 50 points a game! Stephen Curry is so beast right now people don't even know how to handle themselves anymore and he's only at about 35 points a game. That's 15 points less than Wilt's record. It usually takes an entire half to achieve that many points. From a mathematic point of view, it's mind boggling. Plus, that's consistently for 82 games! Although Curry is great, I see him only ending up with no more than 27 points a game this season. Furthermore, in order to average 50 points a game, he had to be consistent. If he were to "struggle" and end up with only, say, 30 points, that means he would have to have a total of 70 points the next game to stay on track. 70 points! that happens once every other season! Wilt, you'll be in the record books for ever.
The next unbreakable record was set by Joe Dimaggio. When you think of Joe, many remember his 56 game hitting streak. That is the record I'm putting on this list. Many look at this feat the way I did with Wilt Chamberlain's record: mathematically. Except when you look at this with a mathematical standpoint, it starts to look not as good. A good baseball player like Mike Trout or Troy Tulowitski get about a .300 average. That's 3 hits in 10 at bats. When you hit 1, 2, or 3 in the lineup, you'll get about 4 plate appearances a game. That means in every 5 games a good player will have 6 hits. (6 hits in 10 plate appearances). Okay, that makes sense. But that's if you're that consistent for 56 games! Baseball has been and always will be the most inconsistent sport. In football, if you have 10 straight games with 10 receptions, that's normal if you're a good player. In basketball you can count on a good player to score 25 every night for 10 or so games. But in baseball, the best players can only be counted on to get a hit once every 5 or 6 games at a time. That's from, say, May 1st to May 6th. If you were to break Joe Dimaggio's streak starting in May 1st, you'd have to stay that consistent until June 29th! That's all May and all June! No one will ever hit a ball that consistently ever again, especially with pitchers just getting better and better.
Over to college basketball, with an unbreakable record set by a team. The UCLA Bruins' magical 88 game winning streak. This record will never be broken. Sure, this team was around when the NBA was a sports no one was really that interested in, but 88 games! That's incredible. We look at the Kentucky Wildcats as one of the best college teams in history, and they won 39 straight without winning a National Championship. 88 games is two entire seasons gone undefeated. If they were in the NBA, they would've gone an entire NBA season without losing. The closest team to ever do that is the 90's Bulls, who finished with 72 wins and 10 losses. That team was supposedly unbeatable, but they still are 10 entire wins away from being the UCLA team in the 70's. The Golden State Warriors currently have 10 wins with no losses. I joke with my piers that they will go undefeated through 82 games, but it is obviously a joke. Many find it impossible to reach that feat in the NBA but then discard or take for granted the team that pulled off the so called unreachable feat.
Finally, we end off with Cy Young. This record isn't really taken for granted, but that doesn't make me deny how unbreakable it is. Throughout's Cy's career, he posted 511 wins. Many pitchers will pitch for about 20 seasons, meaning in order to break this (512 wins or more) you would need 26 wins EVERY SINGLE YEAR. That's incredible! Think about it, sure, a player can get 26 wins in a season, but getting that number from the time your 20 to the time your 40 without one year where you only get 25 wins. You look at the star pitchers of the future like Jacob DeGrom and Jake Arrieta (who strangely are both name Jacob) who only came away with 22 wins this season. And that's the Cy Young of the season!(pitcher of the year, not the guy were talking about even though the award is named after the guy were talking about. Man, this is getting confusing!) So if even the best pitcher in the league can't record 26 wins, I'm positive no one can do that for 26 years consecutively. Ultimately, he got am award named after him (that we discussed earlier) and is probably the greatest pitcher of all time. Maybe...
There is a lot of commotion going around that Cy wouldn't be as dominant in today's league. Back then pitchers didn't, well, pitch as much as they do now, and hitters weren't very good (except my man Joe Dimaggio). Regardless, this is a great record that will never be broken.
One of the most magical years in history was 1903. The year Major League Baseball was introduced. America’s great pastime started by simply creating certain teams. Many of them are still around today and have outstanding history such as the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, the Chicago Cubs, and… the Cleveland Indians. For more than a century, baseball and many other great American sports have used Indian names such as the Indians, Redskins, Utes, and others. Many are beginning to think these names are racist towards Indians, and should be changed. Though there are valued arguments on both sides, Native American names should not be required to be changed.
First, many don’t realize that people have grown a true love for these tribes. They used to live here and we are making people remember them through sports. Steve Wulf from ESPN says “Those cities do have a legacy of equality of which they can be proud”. When a team like the Cleveland Indians hoist the World Series trophy, The real Indians will see that and realize what an honor it is that there dedicating it to them. This proves that the Indians are taking part of these histories or legacies, and people love these Indians and want them to be a part of these great teams.
Secondly, most of these tribes have full knowledge of this and approve of them. The University of Utah recently paid respect to the mighty Ute tribe by approving it with the tribe themselves. “The Ute indian tribe encourages the University of Utah to use the Ute name in there sporting events with full support” said a reporter. These tribes aren’t insulted at all. This proves that we’re not going behind the Native American’s back. They know exactly what names are in these leagues and approve of them.
In addition, these sports teams’ names are to honor the tribes that once lived here. Lindsay Lowe from Scholastic news said “names such as Braves and Chiefs celebrate values such as strength and bravery.” These names are to honor the Native Americans who were put through misery due to Andrew Jackson. They helped us in a big way, and now it’s time to reward them with a very high honor; having the very valuable honor of having a team from this nation's pastime: sports.
Some believe that the names are insulting to these Indians and should be removed. Although this side makes a pretty valuable argument, they fail to consider that these tribes are not insulted and, in fact, take it as a privilege to get that honor. John Two-Hawks, a current Native American, said himself, “They would not be offended. It’s true” when talking about his tribe. This and some of the other arguments prove that the Indians are not insulted and actually are honored.
These reasons are just a few why sports teams should not be required to change their name. It is more honorable than many think. They portray our love for the Native Americans who once lived on our land. They are also 100% knowledgeable about this. In addition, we are proud of them and want to show the pride we have for them by giving them a great honor. We need to forget the nonsense about this debate and remember the history that comes with these great Indian names. We must continue our honor for the Indians by giving them one of the highest honors: sports.
