The Record that can NEVER be broken

Hi folks, I'm Peter Lemieux with Rounding Third, where I tell baseball stories. Today's story is about a Hall of Famer almost no one remembers, who holds a record that will never be broken. It starts with something that has quietly vanished from the game: the 20-game winner. In the 1950s the big leagues produced thirty 20-game winners. The 1960s had twenty-nine. Then the slide began: twenty-three in the 1970s, twenty-two in the 1980s, eighteen in the 1990s, nineteen from 2000 to 2009, and just twelve from 2010 to 2019. Since 2020 there have been none at all. The last 20-game winner was Justin Verlander in 2019. Rewind to 1971 and it was a different world. That year the Baltimore Orioles had four 20-game winners on one staff: Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson. A year later Steve Carlton won 27 games for a Phillies team that won only 59 all season, nearly half of his club's victories. Then the bullpen took over, the save became an official statistic in 1969, and starters stopped going the distance. To find the real record, you have to go all the way back to the 1880s and a pitcher named Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn. In 1884, pitching for the Providence Grays, Radbourn won 60 games in a single season. When his rival Charlie Sweeney was thrown off the team in the middle of the year, Old Hoss pitched nearly every game the rest of the way. His arm got so sore he could not comb his hair, so he warmed up by tossing from a few feet away and slowly stretching the distance until he could pitch. The numbers from that one season are almost hard to believe: 60 wins, 679 innings, 73 complete games, 441 strikeouts, and a 1.38 ERA. He led the National League in wins, ERA, and strikeouts, then pitched every inning of every game in the three game World Series. He finished his career with 310 wins, later lost an eye in a hunting accident, and died at 42. In 1939 he was elected to the Hall of Fame. That era is gone and it is never coming back. But here is a tip of the hat to Old Hoss Radbourn and the most unbreakable record in baseball. CHAPTERS 0:00 A record that can never be broken 0:24 The vanishing 20-game winner 1:02 20-game winners by decade 2:24 The 1971 Orioles and four 20-game winners 3:12 Steve Carlton's 1972: 27 wins on a 59-win team 3:44 How the bullpen changed everything 4:21 Cy Young and 511 wins 4:51 Meet Old Hoss Radbourn 5:20 The 1884 season: 60 wins 5:56 Every inning of the World Series 6:24 The Charlie Sweeney feud 7:04 Sweeney quits and Old Hoss carries the team 8:22 An arm too sore to comb his hair 8:41 The staggering 1884 numbers 9:07 After baseball 9:29 A tip of the hat to Old Hoss If you love baseball stories like this one, hit like and subscribe to Rounding Third for more. Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@RoundingThirdPodcast More from BadderSports: https://www.baddersports.com #Baseball #BaseballHistory #OldHossRadbourn #RoundingThird #BadderSports