Any true fan of baseball knows that the game has changed so much since Abner Doubleday invented the sport in 1839. One alteration is in the way the pitching structure has changed so much throughout the years. In today’s game, it has become very rare for a pitcher to complete the game in which he started game. Current and future players will be lucky to simply reach double digit complete games in their entire career. That’s exactly why this record will most definitely never be broken, and the complete impossibility is why Cy Young’s record for complete games earns him the second slot on the unbreakable records list.

The legendary career of Denton “Cy” Young began in the year 1890 when he became a pitcher for the Cleveland Spiders. He pitched for the Spiders for eight years and in the Major Leagues for a total of twenty-two. The year 1937 was a big one for Cy as he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, immortalizing his career and life forever. Every year, a pitcher from each of the two leagues, National and American, is awarded the “Cy Young Award” for being the most outstanding pitcher in the league.  Within that career, Cy took control of many records, including most career wins, innings pitched, games started, and the most important one, most complete games.

With his 749 complete games, it is undoubtedly one of the safest records to keep. As stated earlier, it has become very uncommon for a pitcher to throw a complete game as relief and closing pitchers have become an essential part of defensive strategy. Some teams have even adapted to a more relief pitcher heavy strategy, changing pitchers each time the other team’s batting order comes back to the top, so batters never face the same pitcher twice. With that strategy, a pitcher would only be only the mound for 3 innings at most. It’s obvious that if strategies like this are being implemented into different teams’ gameplans, no one will ever come close to reaching an absurd number like 749.

To add some perspective, the closest active player to this record is Adam Wainwright at 28 complete games. That’s 3.7% of the way there as he is nearing the end of his career. That doesn’t even put him in the top 1000 players when you include all pitchers since the creation of Major League Baseball. How can anyone come close to a record like that when baseball has changed so much? The simple answer: they can’t.

It’s easy to realize how colossal Cy’s record is, which is why it deserves its high placement on my list, but there is still one more record that will always belong to the player who owns it, and as unbelievable as Cy Young’s record is, the one that follows is somehow more impressive.