The Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t put out a new edition every year for nothing. ““The notion that records are invulnerable is foolish,’’ says Bill James, a Kansas author widely considered the father of statistical baseball analysis. Still, some feats are more easily bettered than others. Watching Michael Jordan dominate a basketball game, it’s tough to imagine what a better player might look like. To see sprinter Donovan Bailey cover 100 meters in 9.84 seconds, as he did at last year’s Olympic Games in Atlanta, is to wonder just how much faster a human being could possibly run. As we head into the 21st century, it may seem that we’re reaching the outer limits of human athletic potential. Can sports records really continue to fall indefinitely?
Records based on longevity certainly can. For example, baseball great Lou Gehrig’s streak, playing in 2,130 consecutive games, ““was one record we assumed would never be broken,’’ says Lyle Spatz, records-committee chair of the Statistical Association of Baseball Research. Pampered modern-day players were thought to lack the grit of earlier competitors–until Baltimore’s Cal Ripken played his 2,131st straight game two years ago. He’s since added more than 300 games to the streak. ““Whenever Cal gets that one done, it’ll be a herculean task to break it,’’ says Steve Stone, a former big-league pitcher who now broadcasts for the Chicago Cubs.
Records in team sports also tend to be subject to adjustments in the game. Football running back Eric Dickerson broke O. J. Simpson’s season rushing record in 1984, but he had the benefit of two extra games in which to do it. Maris had eight more games in which to hit his 61 homers than Ruth did to hit his 60. Rules changes favorable to batters–notably the smaller strike zone–have placed just about every hitting record in jeopardy. Perhaps the only baseball landmark considered unassailable is pitcher Cy Young’s 511 career victories. Pitchers today simply don’t play enough games over the course of a career.
In track-and-field events, the playing field remains more constant. A marathon will always be 26.2 miles long and humans will never have more than two feet. Harder tracks, better shoes, and more efficient training have led to great gains in athletic performance over the past century. But the margins by which records are broken is decreasing. Scientists generally agree that there’s a ceiling to human athletic performance, but just where it lies is unknown. ““We’re out in the ozone when we’re dealing with sports performance,’’ says Dr. David Martin, chairman of sports science for USA Track & Field. ““The athletes are in uncharted territory.’’ For instance, the current marathon record–2:06:50, set by Belayneh Densimo in 1988–isn’t likely to be beaten by much, but it is likely to be beaten. ““I’ve long since learned that you just don’t tell these people they can’t do something,’’ says Martin. In other words, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
