Cigar Aficionado

It was once said that art is long and life is short. So it is with sports records: records set over long tracts of time—and not merely over months or a year—are often more impressive than records of short duration. The greatest marks aren’t merely the ones most cited in tavern talk or on sports radio. Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak—lasting a third of a baseball season—often gets cited, uncritically, as “the most unbreakable record.” But it’s far from the greatest, or even the one with the longest odds of being matched. To say a record won’t be broken is often true, but doesn’t take us far enough in ranking them. While some of the feats listed here might one …