I had some stuff scribbled in my notebook for use in my column after I heard Buster Olney declare that Greg Maddux would be the last 350 game winner. But it hasn’t actually gone anywhere yet.

One thing I had in mind, but I wasn’t able to hammer out was an adaption of Clarke’s First Law. [i]When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. [/i] There’s a lot of truth there that translates to the situation at hand. We’ve heard before that certain milestones were unattainable only to later watch smebody pass it by. The “unbreakable” consecutive games streak, Maris’ 61, Aaron’s HR record.

I don’t think any record is “unbreakable” just because we don’t know how the game will evolve or what kind of unique talent is on his way in the near or even distant future.

I would say that it’s UNLIKELY that anybody will pass Cy at 511 wins, 316 losses, or 749 complete games, Ed Walsh at 1.82 ERA, Cobb at .366 BA, Sam Crawford at 309 triples. The game is just extremely different than when they were set. We might watch another Rose collect a ton of hits (picture Ichiro playing his entire career in the US), or another Nolan Ryan, or another Bonds or ARod smacking HR’s left and right. I don’t know if we’ll ever see pre-1920 pitching durability or batting averages.

there is no record that is “unbreakable” as a rule. Any record could be broken. Now there are certainly some that are more likely (such as the Bonds HR mark) to be broken than others (Cy’s wins record). That doesn’t mean that there is an untouchable record.

The real question that we have to ask is how long will organized baseball exist? We’re only ~120 years into things. If we go another thousand or so, there’s no telling what amazing things might eventually happen. Also the possibility of a schedule change (more games maybe, although I think that’s a longshot) or rules change makes predictions much trickier.

I can’t imagine anybody throwing three consecutive no hitters in a season to break the Johnny Vander Meer record. I don’t think the game will ever shift again to give the pitchers such an advantage to make it possible.