New Hallowed Record?

In light of a total schmuck laying claim to the all-time HR record, Kevin Hench of Fox Sports has just posted his top ten candidates for the new most hallowed record in all of sports. I thought I would chime in with my list of the top-ten most hallowed records in all of sports:

1. 2,632 - Cal Ripken. There are few numbers in sports that you can say just the number and any average sports fan knows exactly what you are talking about. This is the one record that will NEVER be broken. Even #2 has a chance of going down.

2. 56 - Joe DiMaggio. Nobody has really ever come within 20 games of the hitting streak record, but I believe that somehow, this one is acheivable. It's a long shot, but it could happen. And it will be a major day when it does.

3. 59 - Orel Hershiser. I am not a Dodger fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I love Hershiser. This is a dominant record that I just don't see being broken. It could go down to a closer at some point, but not to a starter.

4. 11 - Phil Hellmuth. Of course this is high on my list. Even though THIS record is also held by a shmuck, it's unique in that two guys are on the edge of catching him and it could happen at any world series event. Hellmuth will probably have 20 bracelets before he dies and will continue to break his own record as he'll be around to play poker a LOT longer than Doyle, and Chan just doesn't play a ton of events any more.

5. 33/28 - Ladanian Tomlinson. Gotta love a Charger holding the single-season touchdown and rushing touchdown records. Especially when he had TWO passing TDs last season!

6. 1080 and the Double Backflip - Nobody and Travis Pastrana. I have turned into an X-games fan. I love watching the pipe events (bike and board) and the MotoX events. Someday someone else will be crazy enough to do a suicidal double-back flip (although Pastrana has said he will never do it again), and eventually people will be doing it with all the other MotoX tricks thrown in. The 1080 is the new holy grail for skateboarding, and has been for eight years. Shaun White will get it down eventually and he'll probably get it done on his snowboard at some point, too.

7. 38,387 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Who is the best basketball player of all-time? Michael Jordan. Even he didn't come within 6,000 points of Kareems all-time scoring mark in the NBA, despite averaging 6 points more per game. Of course, he retired young, but that record still belongs to Kareem regardless. The closest active players (Shaq and Reggie Miller) are at the end of their careers and are still 13,000 points away. Allan Iverson is the next person with any chance to get close. He's played in about half as many games as Kareem and already has 20,824. He averages 27.9 points per game, which is third all-time behind Jordan and Wilt (30.1 each). What about Kobe? He's played in 1/2 a seasons worth of games more than Iverson, but has averaged just 24.6 points per game. Of course, over the last two seasons he's averaged 33.5 ppg and is only getting more dominant. Chances are, he'll pass Iverson in the next two seasons and be on pace to break the record before he's finished.

8. 660/714/755 - Mays/Ruth/Aaron. The day that Alex Rodriguez passes the Hammer, I'll be ready to call him the all-time home run king. He'll also pass Bonds eventually and that'll be icing on the cake.

9. 11- John Wooden. I also have no passion for UCLA, but I have mad love for Wooden. His ten championships as a coach and one as a player will probably never be matched. He was the greatest college basketball coach of all-time and had four undefeated seasons in that time.

10. Undefeated Seasons (College Basketball and NFL). In the NCAA, only 12 teams have gone undefeated since 1939 and the last time it happened was Indiana in 1976 - 31 years ago. Only two teams since have entered the NCAA tournament undefeated and neither of them survived to win the championship. Even more impressively, the 1972 Dolphins are the only team in the history of the NFL to finish with a perfect record. Although the Akron Pros (8-0-1 in 1920) the Canton Bulldogs (21-0-3 between '22 and '23) and the 1929 Green Bay Packers (12-0-1) all had undefeated seasons, none were perfect. The Chicago Bears twice went undefeated through the regular season ('34 and '42), but neither team won it all.