Lance Armstrong has won his fifth consecutive
Tour de France to tie the record held
by
Spain's Miguel Indurain from 1991-'95.
Like
our top 10 individual streaks listed
below,
if Armstrong can win six in a row,
it may
never
be beaten.
1. Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak
DiMaggio's streak was appreciated in
its
day, and it may be the most unbreakable
record
in
baseball. In the 62 years since the Yankee
Clipper set the mark, Pete Rose has
come
closest to
equaling it -- and he was able to hit in
"only" 44 straight, an NL record.
|
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| Every year, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting
streak becomes more amazing. |
Joe D. was bummed that the Indians shut him
down on July 17, 1941. "Did you know
if I
got a hit
tonight I would have made $10,000?" he said.
"The Heinz 57 people wanted to make
some
kind of
deal." The next game DiMaggio started another
streak, getting at least one hit in
another
16
straight.
2. Edwin Moses' 107 straight hurdles finals
wins
For nine years, nine months, and nine
days,
Edwin Moses proved, literally, unbeatable.
The two-time Olympic champ won 107
straight
finals in the 400-meter intermediate
hurdles
(also going 15-0
in qualifying races during that time), setting
the world record of 47.02 seconds and
gathering
the 11
fastest times in the event.
On June 4, 1987, Moses, 31, finally lost,
defeated by 21-year-old Danny Harris
in an
early-season
contest.
"In 10 years, Moses faced hundreds of different
competitors, but nobody beat him; some
even
quit
the event out of frustration," wrote Juan
Williams in the Washington Post. "Fashions
changed,
politics went conservative, the U.S. boycotted
the Olympics in 1980 and participated
in
1984. But
none of it affected Edwin Moses, who just
kept running away from the competition."
3. Orel Hershiser's 59 consecutive scoreless
innings
On Aug. 30, 1988, the Dodgers faced
the Expos
at Stade Olympique. Orel Hershiser
was on
the mound.
In the bottom of the fifth, with the Dodgers
up 4-0, the Expos scored two runs.
It was
the last
time a team would score on Hershiser that
season. He blanked the Expos for the
final
four innings
of that game, upping his record to 18-8 and
lowering his ERA to 2.84.
Here's what the rest of his year looked like:
Sept. 5: At Atlanta, 9 IP, 0 runs, 4 hits
Sept. 10: In LA vs. the Reds, 9 IP,
0 runs,
7 hits
Sept. 14: In LA, vs. the Braves, 9
IP, 0
runs, 6 hits
Sept. 19: At Houston, 9 IP, 0 runs,
4 hits
Sept. 23: At San Francisco, 9 IP, 0
runs,
5 hits
Sept. 28: At San Diego, 10 IP, 0 runs,
4
hits
Hershiser had pitched 59 scoreless innings,
breaking Don Drysdale's mark by 1/3
of an
inning. At
the end of the streak, his ERA was 2.26,
more than half a run lower than it
had been
just a month
earlier.
In the first game of the NLCS, Hershiser
blanked the Mets for another 8 straight
innings,
finally
surrendering a score in the ninth when Darryl
Strawberry doubled home Gregg Jefferies.
On Opening Day, April 5, 1989, the Reds'
Barry Larkin scored a run in the bottom
of
the first
inning to end Hershiser's regular-season
streak.
|
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| We all wanted to give Ripken a high-five
when he broke Lou Gehrig's record. |
4. Cal Ripken's 2,632 consecutive games streak
On Sept. 20, 1998, Cal Ripken did not
play.
His name had appeared in O's box scores
2,632
straight
times until that date, breaking Lou Gehrig's
previous record by 502 games.
5. Johnny Unitas's 47-game TD pass streak
It began in 1956, and ended in 1960.
In a
streak that spanned five seasons, Unitas
threw a TD pass in every game -- 17 more
games than the next-longest streak,
30, by
Dan Marino. In the course of the streak,
Unitas connected with Raymond Berry
38
times. He hit Lenny Moore in the end zone
27 times.
"While Unitas was putting up his amazing
total of 47 in a row, there was little
attention
brought
to what he was doing," wrote John Steadman
in the Baltimore Sun. "The country
has become
aware of
his rich natural ability, but there was only
casual mention of how, game after game,
he
was firing
touchdown passes."
Unitas paid the streak no mind. "Records
don't mean a thing to me," he said
after
his 40th
straight TD pass game, against Green Bay.
"Nothing is as important as winning
… I imagine
if I was
record-hungry, the thing wouldn't have been
extended this far. It makes no difference
to me when
it stops."
6. Rocky Marciano's 49-bout winning streak
In the spring of 1947, Marciano, fighting
under an assumed name so that he could
remain
an
amateur, earned $35 by knocking out Lee Epperson.
It was his first pro bout. In April
1956,
nine
years later, "The Brockton Blockbuster,"
31, announced his retirement. The heavyweight
champ since
knocking out Jersey Joe Walcott in Philly
on Sept. 23, 1952, Marciano's final,
49th
straight win,
had come over Archie Moore, a knockout in
nine rounds.
He retired undefeated.
"Of all the heavyweight champions he came
closer than any other to having lifted
himself
by his
bootstraps," wrote New York Times columnist
Arthur Daley the week after Marciano
hung
up his
gloves. "Crude almost to the point of hopelessness,
he slaved at his business with an intensity
few men could match. And he won as much by
the magnificence of a thoroughly disciplined
body as he
did by the thunder in his fists."
7. Bjorn Borg's five straight Wimbledon titles
Between 1976 and 1980, the long-haired,
stoic
Swede owned the grass courts at Wimbledon,
winning
35 straight matches and five straight titles,
with his fifth and last championship
coming
in an
epic five-set match against John McEnroe.
Borg had won his first Wimbledon title over
Ilie Nastase in 1976, then defeated
Jimmy
Connors in
the 1977 and 1978 finals, and Roscoe Tanner
in 1979.
Borg, 24, called his 1980 championship win
over McEnroe "the best match I have
ever
played at
Wimbledon." A year later, McEnroe finally
ended Borg's Wimbledon streak, beating
him
in a
four-set final.
8. Cael Sanderson's 159 straight college
wrestling wins
Sanderson, an Iowa State wrestler,
finished
his college career with a 159-0 record,
having
won
four straight national titles, his last one
in the 197-pound class after three
titles
at 184
pounds. No other college wrestler has gone
undefeated, not even the great Dan
Gable,
who won 100
straight in the late 1960s and 1970. SI named
Sanderson's feat the second-most impressive
in
college sports history, behind only the day
Jesse Owens set four world records.
9. Wayne Gretzky's 51-game scoring streak
The Great One tallied either a goal
or an
assist in each of the Edmonton Oilers'
first
51 games in
the 1983-1984 record, a point-scoring streak
that still stands. During the streak,
which
ended on
Jan. 28, 1984, Gretzky scored 61 goals and
assisted on 92 others.
Gretzky had broken his own record, set in
1982-83, when he went 30 straight games
with
a goal or
an assist.
10. Chick Hearn's 3,338 consecutive games
broadcasting streak
The voice of the Lakers broadcast every
Laker
game between Nov. 21, 1965 and Dec.
16, 2001
--
3,338 straight. Hearn's streak was broken
when he had to undergo heart surgery.
"It's
very
strange," said Stu Lantz, Hearn's broadcast
partner every game for 15 years, before
the
missed game on Dec. 21. "It's strange
and
it hasn't even started yet. I can't
envision
it
happening. The one constant with this franchise,
in its existence in Los Angeles, has
been
Chick.
Players come and go. Jerry, Elgin, Wilt,
Kareem, Magic, now we've got Shaq,
Kobe.
They'll have to
go at some point in time. But the one constant
through all of that has been Chick."
Also receiving votes:
Ted Williams, 16 straight times reaching
base, 1957
Calvin Murphy, 78 straight free throws
made,
1980-81
Martina Navratilova, six consecutive
Wimbledon
titles, 1982-87
Sonja Henie, 10 straight women's world
figure
skating championships, 1927-36
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