thependulumswings

Opinions on the quality of individual original content programming on ESPN vary.  It ranges from excellent to steaming hot, mid summer Manhattan, New York, New York garbage.  Yep, that’s quite the range.  Two that we feel are on the excellent side are Outside the Lines and 30 for 30.

So, the other night when James Harden’s scoring streak crossed over 30 thirty games with 30 points or more per, we began to wonder.  What “inside the lines” performance, regardless of the sport, is the most excellent of all time?  Harden’s run is indeed impressive.  But, it’s not even the best historically in basketball.  Wilt Chamberlain holds the all-time record at an amazing 65 straight games, set during his astounding 1961-62 campaign, when he averaged an NBA-record 50.4 points and set the single-game scoring mark with 100 points against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962.

The record of playing in 2,632 consecutive games over more than 16 MLB years is held by Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles. Ripken surpassed Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees, whose record of 2,130 consecutive games had stood for 56 years.  Impressive.  But, that speaks, at the least, to good for a long time.  Tiger Woods once made 142 consecutive cuts on the PGA Tour over several years.  Very Impressive.  That speaks, at the least, to very good over a long period of time.

But that’s not what we’re after.  We are after a run of unmatched, high level, measurable success while we scan multiple sports.  Yet its very hard to measure across sports.

Wilt Chamberlain’s run is the type of run we’re looking for.  How about Oscar Robertson’s season of averaging a triple double? In the 1961–62 season, Robertson became the first player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season, with 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists.   Robertson also set a then-NBA record for the most triple-doubles during the regular season with 41 triple-doubles; the record would stand for over half a century when, in 2016–17, Russell Westbrook recorded 42 and joined Robertson as the only other player to average a triple-double for an entire season.  Very, very impressive.  Now we’re getting somewhere.

Is there anything harder to do, though, than hit a baseball consistently for a long stretch?  Yankee Joe DiMaggio holds the Major League Baseball record with a streak of 56 consecutive games in which he got at least one hit.  In 1941, it began on May 15 and ended July 17. DiMaggio hit .408 during his streak (91-for-223), with 15 home runs and 55 runs batted in.  Baseball’s best get out seven out of every ten time they bat over the course of most careers.

Surely one off night, or one dominant pitcher, would prevent any mortal from going 56 straight games.  Ask Pete Rose. “Pressure? Well it ain’t hitting in forty-four straight games, because I done that and it was fun. The playoffs are pressure.” – Pete Rose .  He forgot (or as they say today misremembered) that he was chasing Joltin’ Joe D. and fell quite short.  Forty-four is over 20% less than 56.  You may have heard that Peter Rose, aka Charlie Hustle, sometimes has trouble telling the truth.

Wayne Gretzky was also unstoppable for a run on ice that left all others stone cold. The Great One scored the most points in one season including the playoffs with 255 in 1984-1985.  Nestled inside of that run was four goals in one period and most assists in one game with seven.  There are many other candidates we are sure.

Rocky Marciano never lost a boxing match.  Never.  49-0.  Byron Nelson won 11 straight golf tournaments.  11.

We could go on.  Choosing one across sports is impossible.  But, someone once said “Impossible is Nothing.”  Not for nothing, we choose The Big O, Oscar Robertson’s season of triple doubles by the slimmest of margins over Marilyn Monroe’s ex husband’s hit streak.  What’s your choice?