There was also no three-point line, so the game was oriented more to what went on directly underneath the goal. And who or what large mass took up most of the paint beneath the goal?
I figure if I can't average 50 in a six-year-old YMCA league, I have no business being out there.
Most Career Assists (1963) by a NHL Player by Wayne Gretzky
If an assist was made up of only the assister and scorer, then maybe this record holds a little more weight. But an assist to a goal can go to two players. So if a defenseman clears the puck, it's picked up by a teammate, the teammate shoots, it's saved, another teammate shoots the rebound, and it goes in, all three players earn a point, with the defenseman and the second player to touch the puck credited with an assist.
Translate that to basketball:
Magic passes to Worthy, Worthy shoots, misses, Kareem scores on a put back. Do either Magic or Worthy deserve an assist? Not to take away from Gretzky, who is probably the greatest athlete of the '80s, but if we didn't count this record, would it really hurt his legacy?
Batting Average in a Season (.406) by Ted Williams
Batting .406 is a great accomplishment. Only one thing wrong with this—it's not a record!
Teddy Baseball is simply the last player to bat over .400 for a season. So why do we hold this number in such high regard?
If, in the next 30 years, no player is able to bat over .350, are we going to replace .406 with .364 by Larry "Chipper" Jones? That, to me, sounds less like a yardstick for greatness and more like a lowering of standards.
A Benz isn't quite a Benz if a McDonald's employee can afford one.
Any Distinction Between the Live-ball Era and Pre-1920 in Major League Baseball
Again, if you tamper with numbers well enough, you can get the desired stat. Why should we differentiate records in baseball based on eras? Oh wait! Aren't they trying to do that now? Look here, gods of baseball. By tampering with records and choosing which numbers you are going to acknowledge, you are making more of a mockery out of these numbers than any chemical can do.
As a mathematician, I know how we as human beings invest a lot of reaction into certain numbers in life. A quantity of one million subconsciously sets off a hormonal reaction when we try to fathom that amount of anything. Advertisers exclaim a product is worth $999.99 and for a split second we forget that it's only one measly cent less than $1,000.
There's nothing wrong with tying numbers to certain things because it provides a conventional reaction. The problem exists when the numbers are separated from the very entity they are supposed to represent.
When we remove the athletes from the remarkable feats they set, we forget about all the hard work, commitment, and luck these athletes demonstrated to reach such levels, and that's what makes sports so appealing to all of us.
I leave the floor open to you. What other numbers should we banish from the sports records books?
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