Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Great athletic feats

The latest issue of The Sporting News has a list of what the editors feel are the greatest athletic feats ever over the past 125 years.

Not surprisingly, the first two are what you would expect--Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak and Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game.

To understand the enormity of DiMaggio's achievement, consider the following:
- The stretch of hits began on May 15 and ultimately ended on July 17 when DiMaggio was "robbed" of a couple of base hits by third baseman Ken Keltner of the Cleveland Indians.
- Not only did DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games but over that stretch he had 13 games with two hits, five with three hits and four with four hits.
- And, perhaps as proof that this was not a fluke, DiMaggio once had a streak in the minor leagues where he hit safely in 61 straight games!

As for Wilt the Stilt, the closest an NBA player has come to the century scoring mark was Kobe Bryant's 81 in 2006. Prior to that, it was David Thompson's 73 in 1978.

Like DiMaggio, Chamberlain's 100 wasn't a one-time prolific output. Only 22 times in NBA history has a player scored 65 or more points in a game and Chamberlain is responsible for 15 of those marks. The other players who have achieved that level are Bryant (twice), Thompson, Elgin Baylor, David Robinson, Michael Jordan and Pete Maravich.

While Joe D's and Wilt's records seem unattainable, so too does the achievement voted third--UCLA's seven consecutive national basketball titles. No school has won more than twice in a row since that streak, which stretched from 1967 to 1973.

Here are the other achievements noted by The Sporting News:

1. DiMaggio's streak
2. Wilt's 100
3. UCLA's seven straight
4. Cy Young's 511 wins
5. Nolan Ryan's seven no-hitters
6. Jerry Rice's 208 touchdowns
7. Wayne Gretzky's 215-point season
8. Pete Rose's 4,256 hits
9. Bill Russell's 11 championships
10. Pete Maravich's 44.2 career points per game

On this last mark, we need to take pause. Pistol Pete played in an era where there was no three-point line. This caused Sam King, who covered LSU for the Baton Rouge State-Times (now defunct), to go back and study play-by-play charts from Maravich's years at the school. King determined that the Pistol averaged 7.2 baskets per game from behind today's arc. That means, if nothing else changed, that Maravich's average would easily have been above 50 per game.

No player since has approached Maravich's output--the closest is Austin Carr, of Notre Dame, who averaged 34.6 points per game during his career.

What current day achievements deserve possible recognition? How about Jimmy Johnson's five straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships given that only one other driver in NASCAR history (Cale Yarborough) has won as many as three straight titles? Or, Joe Paterno has won 401 games at Penn State--an impressive stretch which includes 21 season of double-digit victories.

My miss from the above list? It would have to be Cal Ripken's streak of 2,632 straight games played.

Fun debate, huh?

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