March 11, 2021: Record Keepers

The 1982 season was highlighted by some great individual accomplishments. I love baseball stats. I used to comb through the sports section of the newspaper (yeah, remember those?) every morning during breakfast looking at the league leaders in each category. With 162 games in a season year in and year out, stats are built up over time in baseball like no other sport. I look at some of these stats, some of these records, and think they will never be broken.

Let’s start with wins for the pitchers. In 1982, Gaylord Perry recorded his 300th win. There are 24 guys who have recorded 300 wins in the major leagues; who will be next? Nobody, at least not any time soon. Verlander with 226 and Greinke at 208 are the closest; I don’t see either of those guys doing it. We may not see another 300 game winner in our lifetimes. The 511 career wins by Cy Young I think is safe to say will never be beaten. What about stolen bases? In 1982, you had Rickey Henderson breaking Lou Brock’s single season record with 130 stolen bases. You know how many TEAMS had more than that in 2019? One, the Texas Rangers who had one more than Rickey did all year with 131. You know who the leader was? Mallex Smith with 46. Continuing with the theme of stats that will never be broken, Rickey’s 130 in a single season, and 1,406 career are pretty safe. OK, I think I may have one that tops that. In 1982, a guy named Cal Ripken Jr made his debut, and in May of that year, started a streak that is one of the most impressive ever. He would go on to play 2,631 more of those games… in a row. Yep, 2,632 straight games… quick math divided by 162… over 16 straight years played; good Lord. That’s freaking insane…

How about the 3,000 strikeout club? With the increase of strikeouts in today’s game, certainly we’ll have more guys that do this, like Fergie Jenkins in 1982, right? Well, with 2,784 strikeouts, we may have a guy who joins the club this year with Max Scherzer. And yes, although the strikeouts are up, the innings pitched by these guys is down; two forces working against each other. We may have some guys reach that 3,000 mark, but I think Nolan Ryan can rest easy with his career total of 5,714.

Yeah, there were some pretty good pennant races in 82 as well. Cardinals Braves and Brewers Angels was the result in the Championship Series’; yes, the Brewers were still in the AL back then, I guess it was OK to like them back then? Well, certainly in this year’s World Series I would have been rooting for them if I remembered the games. Playing against the Cardinals gives you my cheers regardless of who you are, although I wasn’t necessarily like that when I was a kid. One of the Cardinals I did like was Ozzie Smith, and of course I liked Paul Molitor and Robin Yount, and yes, those powder blue uniforms that were famous back then were freaking awesome. The 82 Series featured a team making its 13th appearance in the Fall Classic against a team making its 1st. The Cards would go on to win their 9th title, while the Brewers would never make it back. It was a classic World Series; how can you NOT say that when they go 7 games?

Yeah, 1982 would be the last year I cannot recall any specific baseball memories… and the last year I didn’t play as a kid. Yep, 1983 would bring this 6, and then 7 year old his first memories of the major league game and the Harrison park game. Ahh, to be a kid playing the game again… speaking of that, I need to find my son somewhere to play, since the Chicago Park district will not be having baseball again this year… bummer.