MicroBob, congratulations, after your explanation, I finally feel that I understand cricket. Many have tried and you were the first to not fail.

Nothing utmost remarkable, but still a solid stat is german goalie Sepp Maier's streak of 442 consecutive games in Bundesliga soccer. What I would like to know is if such a streak by any player exists in any of the other big leagues (England, Spain or Italy). Maybe someone knowledgeable can step in ...

Why is it almost certain? It's been 66 years, no one has done it since JVanDM, very few have even been close, and only a handful of pitchers since that time even have 2 in an entire career.

how long do you think people will continue to play baseball?

I'm sure there are other streaks there of 18 consecutive hitless innings that involved only one no-hitter in the middle perhaps (or a reliever without a no-hitter involved) but wasn't able to find much on that.

Also, at the end of 1988 Dave Stieb pitched back-to-back 1-hitters. Both of them were no-hit bids that were broken up with 2 outs and 2 strikes in the 9th inning. Pretty amazing. In his 2nd start of 1989 he had a perfect game broken up with 2 outs in the 9th inning. That's 3 one-hitters out of 4 consecutive starts (over 2 seasons) which were all 8.2ip worth of no-hitters. That's pretty freaking close.

In 1990 he finally got his elusive no-hitter.

If you don't think a guy like Halladay or some young, fresh super-stud like Ubaldo Jimenez or a Strasburg or whoever else comes along with wicked stuff could potentially pull off back-to-back no-no's at some point you're crazy.

They did stop the game, IIRC, sort of. The third and fourth quarters combined were only 15 minutes.

Haha. It took me freaking forever to have even the most basic understanding. People who know cricket and don't get baseball have a tough time explaining it because they just skip parts that they think are assumed.

I'm also extremely proud to have gotten my fiance to the point where she actually gets baseball decently. She originally came from a country that doesn't have baseball. Two years ago she literally didn't know the difference between a home-run and a strikeout and attending a game live just looked like a bunch of people randomly running around in circles to her.

Obviously there are lots of other really basic rules and subtleties in cricket. Hitting it over the wall is a 6 and bouncing it off the wall is a 4. It's pretty interesting stuff overall though. Bowler might be out there throwing the same style ball over and over willing to concede 10-20 runs or so to the same batsman just waiting for the right moment to sneak a slightly different one in there that goes a little higher or with a different spin that might be slightly more likely to induce a pop-up for a catchable ball and an out. Of course, without gloves and with a harder ball a pop-up is not an automatic out like in baseball. Typically one player will cup his hands and try to deflect it over to a teammate waiting to catch it because it's too hard to catch it on his own...similar to how a foul ball into the stands in baseball is usually caught by the 2nd or 3rd guy because by then it's easier to hang on to it.

Not really a stat but LaBron James is the best player in the NBA and he may not even be the best player on his team.

Goldberg won 173 straight wrestling matches to start his career.

It took a cattle prod to the chest during a match to stop it!

Amen, I agree it will be repeated. Stieb was sick all over it. The one I always liked was Mike Scott at the end of the '86 regular season. He clinched the pennant with a no-hitter and had one start left. He was wielding nearly unhittable stuff with a nearly unhittable pitch. He was odds-on to pitch a 3-hitter at that point. Something like a 15/1 K/W ratio and 15 hits over 5 starts. But even more than that was watching him utterly mismatch the hitters like they were junior high or something. I was on the edge of my seat. This was a spot where it could happen and not be a fluke. He pitched a 2-hitter in the last start and then a 3-hitter and 5-hitter in playoffs. Over his last 4 starts he gave up 10 hits, "averaging" a 2 1/2 hitter. It was like Stieb, but more dominant.

Really? You think that is the most amazing stat of Rice's? That he was the only receiver to play past 40?

I mean, sure that's cool, I guess. He played when he was old.

8 seed wins Natl Championship by 2 pts after shooting 79% from floor for the game. Yawn.

This year will mark 25 years since a Frenchman won the Tour de France.

Prior to Greg Lemond's win in 1986, the French had won 20 of the previous 33.

Too busy surrendering to the English to ride.

Gary Lineker. Great career (2nd top goalscorer of all time for English national team, top goalscorer at 1986 world cup etc.). 546 games for club and country, 0 yellow cards.

Bonus photo of Lineker aged 48:

Zero yellow cards? That is truly amazing...

You would think at the very least a biased (consciously or not) referee somewhere would give one.

This is a pretty sick accurate post. I ignored the different quality of gear that was being used, but it's probably/easily as influential as covered/uncovered pitches. Esp. the fact that the protective gear that was being used was really only the difference between a pill hurting like all hell and a pill breaking bones. I'm probably sporting some slightly above average gear these days and I can't remember the last time being hit on the pads/gloves hurt.

My old cricket club had a family day at which Bill Ponsford's nephew was the special guest. He brought a whole lot of the gear Bill used from his first test series (crazy how much that stuff would sell for). The gloves he used were one of the first examples of the noodle gloves (padding down the finger) and were pretty much comparable in quality to the gloves that these days come in the $5 cricket kits at Target/KMart stores. Pretty astonishing.

I do remember that when enough years had gone by that his incredible record was commontalk but it was also clear that Lineker was in the twilight of his career, there was sense of "50 games for Lineker to avoid a yellow card" etc. And you should know that he's very very popular (his nickname is 'Mr Nice Guy'), just a real class act and national hero/treasure, so you definitely wouldn't have wanted to be the ref that gave him a yellow card in one of his final couple of seasons. I imagine he would have gotten away with a borderline offence during this period, *if he committed one* which he not have. The record is pretty legit, and incredile.

There is a similar player, Alan Smith who although not as accomplished a player as Lineker, was a fine footballer in his own right (13 appearances for England), who went the first 12 years of his 14 year career without a yellow card. He then received the only card of his career. I remember at the time the ref took a lot of flak for breaking the streak (it was a petty yellow card, borderline at best, and it was considered that he should have taken Smith's record in to consideration before permanently blemishing it).

The best comparison I can think of is Michael Owen. 14 (injury blighted) yr career so far, and plays a similar 'striker who would never need to make a risky tackle and is level headed and won't get in to fights' mould. He is at 15 yellows and 1 red. To NEVER get a yellow card as an outfielder over 546 games is really just mindblowing.

Holy jeez look at the abs on that!

Pete Maravich averaged 44 ppg over his entire NCAA career at LSU before the introduction of the 3 point line. Before or after, that's damn impressive.

That Lineker thing is like Wilt Chamberlain never fouling out in 1045 career games (and 160 playoff games?), which seems incredibly difficult for a center. But that's probably equal parts getting the benefit of the officiating, and playing like a wuss when he was in danger of being disqualified (as the reports suggest).

Ronaldo Luis Nazário de Lima. 599 games, 409 goals. GG.

i have read that once wilt got his 5th foul he would completely stop playing defence. he was OBSESSED with stats, more so then winning games. bill russell said that when they would play each other that bill would let wilt run up his stats in the first three quarters, but keep the game close, because he knew that when wilt got the stats he wanted, he would stop playing as hard. russell would work him in the 4th quarters.

I dont see russell's 11 championships as the best player on his team being beaten

basically russell is a way better then wilt

he took a ******ed amount of shots. senior year 37.6 a game. i guess taking that many shots in a game for a season is an amazing stat in itself.