10 More Awesome Baseball Records (Really, Really Hard to Beat!)

A Brief History

On August 20, 1938, Yankees’ first baseman and “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig hit his 23^rd Grand Slam of his career, a monumental major league baseball record that stood for 75 years until topped by Alex Rodriguez. Previously we listed “10 Awesome Baseball Records,” “What a Day For Baseball Records,” and “What a Day For Baseball Records, The Sequel.” Today we go after another 10 baseball records that we think are incredibly hard to match and incredibly impressive. Or just nifty records. In a word, awesome! Many pitching records will be hard to match now that relief pitching has become so prevalent. Few starters finish complete games, which means few chances for no-hitters, 1-hitters, shut outs, and even wins. Even with a longer season, many records seem out of reach due to modern baseball tactics. Lowering the pitching mound, taking away the spit ball, shrinking the strike zone and making ball parks with shorter home run fences hurts pitching record prospects, but perhaps helps batters pile up records. Improvements in gloves make fielding a far more reliable practice than it was back in the day, as does the proliferation of artificial surfaces and domed stadiums. Fitness and medical advances allow players to play longer and healthier, while expansion waters down competition, possibly allowing more career records to be broken.

Digging Deeper

1. 12 career 1-hitters thrown, Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller.

As stated above, pitching statistics for starting pitchers have become increasing difficult to amass over the course of a season or a career. A modern pitcher that has given up only 1 hit in 8 2/3 innings will be pulled for a relief pitcher if he puts a couple runners on base in the 9^th inning if the score is close, ruining his chance for notching a 1 hit complete game performance. Ryan threw a record 7 no-hit ball games, and Feller tossed 3 such gems. How close these 2 stars came to notching even more no-hitters! A bit of trivia for you baseball fans, a total of 10 pitchers have thrown back-to-back 1-hitters, 3 of those incidents coming before 1911. Although no-hitters get all the press, 1 hitters are pretty rare as well, with the record for 1-hitters in a season by a single team being 5 (by the 1965 Baltimore Orioles).

2. 749 Career Complete Games pitched, Cy Young.

The award for best pitcher each year is named after Cy Young for a reason. Not only did he throw a record 749 career complete games, the #2 guy on the list trails him by 103 complete games! To put this in perspective, one of the greatest pitchers in recent decades was Roger Clemens who pitched for 24 years (1984-2007) and notched only 118 complete games for his entire career! To show just how hard it would be for a modern pitcher to approach this awesome record, Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians is the reigning American League Cy Young winner (for 2017) when he threw a career high 5 complete games and led the major leagues in the category! (And he only makes $10,700,000 salary for 2018, what a bargain!) Unless something changes drastically in the way major league baseball is played, Cy Young’s record of complete games will not be seriously challenged. Some guy named Will White has the record for complete games in a single season, with a staggering 75. Of course, that was back in 1879 so we really do not think of that record as relevant to what we consider modern major leagues. In 1904, over 86% of games started were finished by the same pitcher. By 2014, that statistic had dropped to only 2.4% of games pitched being complete games!

3. 511 Career Wins, Cy young.

For pretty much the same reasons as the above entry, this massive total of wins will probably never be challenged. Pitchers do not get the amount of starts they used to as teams protect their enormous investments by controlling pitch counts and protect every little injury. Again, like the above entry, Young is so far ahead of #2 on the list it is stunning, with Walter “Big Train” Johnson coming in with 417 career wins. A total of 24 major league pitchers have pitched 300 or more wins, but only 2 have reached the 400 mark. The leading active pitcher is Bartolo Colon with 247 wins (of which 7 have come during the 2018 baseball season as of August 19, 2018). At 45 years of age (currently), we do not believe Colon will move much higher on the all time list than his current 49^th place. (CC Sabathia is second leading active pitcher in career wins, with 244 victories, 7 of those coming in the 2018 season.)

4. Hit for “Natural Cycle” with Grand Slam finish, Tony Lazzeri.

On June 3, 1932, the same day that Yankees teammate Lou Gehrig became the first major league player to hit 4 home runs in 1 game, Lazerri hit for the Cycle, smacking a single, double, triple and home run in 1 game. In fact, Lazerri hit for what is known as a “Natural Cycle,” meaning the single, double, triple and homer came in succession. Not only that, but Lazerri became the first major league batter to finish a Natural Cycle with a Grand Slam home run, a feat that has never been equaled in the 86+ years since! When you consider how much the major leagues have expanded and also the increase from 154 games to 162 games in a season, his record of being the only slugger to achieve a Natural Cycle with a Grand Slam is all the more remarkable. Sure, it can be done, but it will be a BIG DEAL when someone finally matches the feat. Considering the thousands and thousands of games played in the past 86 years, this major league record is one of the hardest to top.

5. 11 RBI’s in Single Game (American League), Tony Lazzeri.

This Yankee great played with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, so much of his excellence may have been overshadowed by the more publicized players, but Lazerri was no slouch at the plate! As you can see by the above listing, Lazerri is no stranger to baseball records. By being the first major leaguer to hit 2 Grand Slams in one game on May 24, 1936, he also managed to drive in an all time American League single game record of 11 RBI’s. (In 1982, Wilbert Robinson of the Orioles tied Lazerri’s AL record. No known relation to Brooks Robinson or Frank Robinson!) As with his Natural Cycle feat, the fact that his record for single game RBI’s has lasted so long is incredible. Of course, no major leaguer has bested the 2 Grand Slams in 1 game record, though it has been tied.

6. 12 RBI’s in Single Game (National League), Jim Bottomley.

Just like Tony Lazerri, Bottomley of the St. Louis Cardinals has had his record tied, this time by Mark Whiten, also of the Cardinals in 1993. The fact remains, that no National League player has yet to best Bottomley’s 12 ribbies in one game, and he did it in 1924! Yikes! That is a record nearing 100 years without being beaten. (Trivia: The single season team RBI record was set in 1894 by the Boston Beaneaters of the National League.)

7. 25 Career Grand Slams, Alex Rodriguez.

Better known to baseball fans as A-Rod, Alex has topped the great Lou Gehrig in this category, while Gehrig remains #2 with 23 career slams. The only other player with 20 or more is Manny Ramirez with 21 career Grand Slams. On the all time career Grand Slam list, the highest ranking player to have played recently is Ryan Howard with 15, ranking #13 all time. Howard has been out of the major leagues since 2017, and no active player ranks in the Top 20. Will A-Rod’s record last as long as Gehrig’s did? We will have to wait to see, but our guess is that this impressive record will stand for some years yet.

8. Stealing Home, 54 Career, 8 Single Season, Ty Cobb.

Ty Cobb’s feat of stealing home a record 54 times in a career is so far above everyone else that the #2 all time home thief is Max Cary with “only” 33 steals of home. This record is domination of a statistic if there ever was. Cobb also has the single season record of stealing home 8 times in one season. The all time major league leader in stolen bases, Ricky Henderson, only stole home 4 times in his entire career! On the other hand, uber-slugger Babe Ruth stole home 10 times in his career, ranking him tied for #32 on the career home stealing list. As far as big sluggers go, Lou Gehrig is tops, with 15 swipes of the plate, giving him a rank of #18 all time. No other player that stole home at least 10 times is what you would consider a power hitter.

9. 31 Wins by a Pitcher in as Single Season, Denny McLain.

No, this accomplishment is not an all time major league or even American League record, but it is the last time a major league pitcher won 30 or more games in a single season with 2018 marking the 50^th Anniversary of the feat. In 1968, McLain won 31 and lost 6 for the American League Champion Detroit Tigers (though the Tigers lost to the Cardinals in the World Series), a massive total of 37 decisions. It is rare today for a pitcher to even get a total of 30 decisions, let alone 37. Although a total of 11 seasons of 30 wins or more have been hurled by major league pitchers since 1900, the chances of a pitcher repeating the feat anytime soon is remote to say the least. The all time record for wins in a season since 1900 by a pitcher is 41 by Jack Chesbro of the Yankees in 1904, while in the “live ball era” since 1920, only 3 pitchers have won 31 games, McLain, Jim Bagby and Lefty Grove.

10. Lowest Number of Errors to Lead the League for a Season, 19, Asdrúbal Cabrera, Alcides Escobar, and Trevor Plouffe.

In 2012 the above listed players managed to lead the American League with 19 errors committed apiece, the lowest amount of errors ever to lead a major league for a season. Before 1900 the greasy finger award would routinely go to a player that committed 100 or more errors, but over the years field grooming and construction of gloves have both improved to the point of reducing errors dramatically. The National League record in our made up category is a low of 20 errors committed by the NL leaders in 2017, Orlando Arcia and Dansby Swanson. Considering that even in strike shortened seasons players fumbled the baseball more often than the names listed here, it is apparent that even these league leaders in inefficiency are pretty darn good fielders. We do not expect this record to last, as fielders just keep getting better, but as it has been said about really good fielders, “He makes an error on a ball a normal fielder wouldn’t even reach.”

Question for students (and subscribers): What records would you add to this list? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.

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