Examining the Next Sports Droughts to End After American Pharoah's Triple Crown
Before Saturday, it had been 37 years since a horse won the Triple Crown—an extra carrot or two for you, American Pharoah. And now that Affirmed's 1978 win has essentially been removed from the minds of sports fans, we’re off to decide what improbability is next to be conquered.
Will it be someone hitting .400 in the majors, a college basketball or NFL team going undefeated or even Novak Djokovic winning the French Open after another disappointment?
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Ted Williams finished the season with a .406 batting average in 1941, and as if to prove the sporting gods were in full attendance that year, Joe DiMaggio had a 56-game hitting streak. But in the 21st century, those numbers are the stuff of dreams.
Sport has changed in so many ways—length of schedules, improved competition, day games after night games, promotional demands, alterations in style—that many longtime milestones or records seem untouchable.
Journalist O.B. Keeler borrowed the term “Grand Slam” from the card game bridge to describe what Bobby Jones did in 1930, when he won the four major golf championships of that time: the U.S. Open, the British Open, the U.S. Amateur and the British Amateur.
The phrase has been borrowed and misused to refer to tennis and golf career achievements; had Djokovic won the French Open, he would have earned the career Slam.
Serena Williams, who won the Australian Open and French Open this year, has a chance to be the first Grand Slam winner since Steffi Graf in 1988. No man has done it since Rod Laver accomplished the feat in 1969. Williams has won each of the tournaments, 20 overall, but she's never won more than two in any given year. At 33, can she break through as American Pharoah did?
For golf, Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods each won three majors in 1953 and 2000, respectively. Now Tiger can’t even break 80, and there’s too much depth for anyone to come close to winning every major, but Rory McIlroy won two, the British and PGA, a year ago. In fact, since 2010, first-time major winners have won 13 of the 21 majors played. So forget that idea. The field is just too talented now.
Also, get over the thought of a Division I college basketball team going through a year unblemished, especially since Kentucky, with all that talent, couldn’t do it this year. The Wildcats almost did it, sure, but we’re not dealing in almosts.
Not since Indiana in 1976, 39 years ago, when Bobby Knight wore checkered coats, has a school finished unbeaten. Before that, UCLA used to do it regularly. Now, there are too many excellent players on too many excellent teams, and the best players move on after one season. There are also 35-game schedules to deal with.
Since we're talking hoops, let’s go to the NBA. If somebody gets a triple-double today, it’s top-of-the-broadcast material. In 1961-62, the Cincinnati Royals' Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double, with 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists. “He’s so great, he scares me,” the late Celtics coach Red Auerbach said of Robertson. No one is ever going to top Robertson's achievement.
It’s been more than 20 years since David Robinson of the San Antonio Spurs recorded the last quadruple-double in the NBA. He had 34 points, 10 assists, 10 rebounds and 10 blocked shots on Feb. 17, 1994.
Hakeem Olajuwon (1990), Alvin Robertson (1986) and Nate Thurmond (1974) were the others with quads, though Robertson’s total included double figures in steals, not blocks. The closest anyone came to pulling it off this year was New Orleans' Anthony Davis, who had 36 points, 14 rebounds, nine blocks and seven assists March 15 against Denver. If anyone has a shot at this milestone, it's undoubtedly Davis.
Back to baseball, where in these days of pitch counts, large bullpens and managers who are quick with the hook, we won't see anyone win 30 major league games again. The last 30-game winner was Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers in 1968. Now, even 20-game winners are rare.
Members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins crack open a bottle of Champagne every year an unbeaten NFL team finally loses. It took a while in the 2007 season. The Patriots were 18-0, about to make history, we thought. But the New York Giants whipped the Pats in the Super Bowl in January 2008. So the Dolphins remain the only team in the modern era to go undefeated in a season.
Isn’t hockey Canada’s national sport? Then why hasn’t a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup since Les Habitants, the Montreal Canadiens, in 1993?
It won't happen this year, with the Chicago Blackhawks and Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stanley Cup Final. But the current version of the Canadiens are a good team and should be in contention again next year. They have one of the best goaltenders in the league in Carey Price, but as we saw, it takes more than that to hoist the Cup.
In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the now-retired Michael Johnson was the only male athlete to run to gold in both the 200- and 400-meter races. Nobody else tries that pair. It’s always the 100 and 200, as we are aware from Usain Bolt’s success.
So as you can see, most sports milestones and records remain fairly safe. But strange things happen. Heck, one day the United States might win a World Cup, which it has never done, and the Chicago Cubs could win a World Series.
And to have these breakthroughs, you need a special athlete (or in American Pharoah's case, a special animal) with special circumstances and special determination. History was made Saturday. Where will you be when history is made again?
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