The most notable record associated with every MLB team

Armed with one of the most dominant pitching duos in MLB history, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, who combined for a 43-12 record and 665 strikeouts, the D-Backs reached the World Series in only their fourth year of existence. In the Fall Classic, they were heavy underdogs against a New York Yankees team that was looking for its fourth consecutive World Series win. The series went seven games, concluding with a Luis Gonzalez walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth against Mariano Rivera, giving the D-Backs one of the most dramatic –and unlikely— Series wins in history.

Spanning from 1991 to 2005, the Braves embarked upon an unprecedented run of dominance in the National League, capturing 14 straight NL East titles. It was span that covered both the pre and post wild-card eras and saw the Bobby Cox-led club reach the World Series five times, claiming the title in 1995. The era ultimately featured six Cy Young Award-winning seasons from Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, an MVP for Chipper Jones and Cox being named NL Manager of the Year three times. All of the aforementioned stars have since been enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

One of the game’s most immortal records belongs to the greatest Oriole of all time, Cal Ripken Jr. Incredibly, from 1982 to 2008, Ripken appeared in every game for the Orioles, famously surpassing the previous record of the legendary "Iron Horse," Lou Gehrig. Ripken passed Gehrig in 1995 and went on to extend the record by another 502 games. Perhaps most impressively, the 6-foot-4 Ripken did so while taking on the rigors of playing shortstop every day for much of the run.

The chase for .400 has become an annual event every summer and one that has been fruitless since Williams last reached the immortal mark for the Red Sox in 1941. Williams famously refused to sit out the final day of the season, to preserve the mark, and instead he went 6-for-8 during a doubleheader to finish at .406 for the year. It has been 78 years since Williams reached the mark, with Tony Gwynn’s .394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season being the closest any player has come since.

Although runs are not hard to find in today's game, there has yet to be a player who has cornered the market on run production to the extent that Wilson did in 1930. The Cubs center fielder drove in 191 runs that season, besting Lou Gehrig's previous three-year-old record by 16. The record has had surprisingly strong endurance, standing for 89 years. Lou Gehrig came within five of Wilson the following season, but since 1940 the closest any player has come is Manny Ramirez, who drove in 165 in 1999 — still 26 shy of tying the record.

The White Sox aren’t associated with a ton of signature records as a franchise; however one of the most impressive seasons from their ranks would be hard to top. Luke Appling won the first of his two batting titles, in 1936 when he hit .388, which endures as the highest single-season average by a shortstop in MLB history. Of his 204 hits that season, 63 percent were singles, one of the highest percentage of singles by a batting champ in MLB history.

As if tossing one no-hitter isn’t tough enough, imagine tossing another as an encore. That is exactly what Reds hurler Johnny Vander Meer did in 1938 by first no-hitting the Boston Bees (now the Atlanta Braves) on June 11 and then no-hitting the Brooklyn Dodgers on June 15 in the first night game ever at Ebbets Fields. Overall, he faced 65 consecutive batters without surrendering a hit, stretching back to the final out of his start before the first no-hitter and into the fourth inning of the outing following the second one.

This is a rather obscure record but a unique one all the same. Long before the designated hitter became a thing, pitchers in the American League would take their own hacks. And the Madison Bumgarner of AL swinging pitchers was Wes Ferrell, who hit 37 home runs as a pitcher in his career while competing in AL play. This is a virtually impossible record to conceive being broken now, as no AL manager would opt against utilizing a DH in lieu of allowing his pitcher to bat. Even the dual-threat of Shohei Ohtani is penciled in as a DH while not performing on the mound.

In their early days, before the advent of the humidor to level Colorado’s thin air elements, the Rockies hosted some of the most devastating simultaneous seasons in history. Colorado is the only team in history to have three batters hit .300 with 40 home runs and 100 RBI in the same season, a feat the Rockies accomplished in consecutive years, in 1996 and '97. In ’96, Andres Galarraga, Ellis Burks and Vinny Castilla all reached the level together, then Galarraga, Castilla and Larry Walker did it in the following year.

Although he played his last game in 1917, Crawford endures as undisputed king of baseball’s rarest hit. Crawford is the only player in MLB history to top 300 triples, a record he owns by 15 over longtime teammate Ty Cobb. Amazingly, he had five 20 triple seasons and 16 seasons of over 10. Comparatively, there has been only one player to have as many as three years of 15 or more triples since 2000 (Carl Crawford).

When the Astros clinched their first American League pennant in 2017, they accomplished a rather rare bit of history. They became the first team in MLB history to win the pennant in both the National and American Leagues, after representing the NL in the 2005 World Series. They likely prefer the experience as an AL club, considering they would go on to win their first and only pennant in franchise history as a representative of the Junior Circuit.

In 1980, Brett mounted the longest pursuit of a .400 season since Ted Williams last conquered the mythical tier in 1941. During the season, he accumulated a 30-game hitting streak and hit .462 across July and August. Brett owned a .400 average as late as Sept. 19, before a late-season slump left him just short of the mark. However, it endures as the second-highest batting average of the last 78 years, topped only by Tony Gwynn’s .394, which came during a strike-shortened 1994 campaign.

Ryan famously tossed seven no-hitters over the course of his 27-year career, a record that is highly unlikely to be broken. Ryan authored his first four no-hitters over a three-year span with the Angels between 1973-75. He became the second player in history after Sandy Koufax to throw four no-no’s, and he set a record for strikeouts during a no-hitter with 17 during his second no-hitter of 1973. This came during a year in which he set the MLB record for strikeouts in a season, at 373.

During the end of the 1988 season, Hershiser set the MLB record for most consecutive scoreless innings, with 59. The stretch ran from his final start of August and throughout the entirety of September — a run of six starts and parts of seven consecutive complete games. He narrowly bested the previous record of another Dodger Don Drysdale, who worked 58.2 scoreless in 1968. Had the postseason counted as well, Hershiser’s mark would be at 67 scoreless, as he didn’t allow a run until the eighth inning of the 1988 National League championship series.

No player in Marlins history has more hits than Castillo did, accumulating 1,273 over his 10-year stint with the club. Castillo made his first All-Star team in 2002, the same year that he embarked on a club-record, 35-game hitting streak, which ran from May 8 to June 21. It was the sixth longest such streak in National League history and the longest by a second baseman in MLB history at the time.

Molitor mounted one of the most memorable pursuits of Joe DiMaggio’s legendary 56-game hitting streak during the 1987 season. Molitor returned from the disabled list on July 16 and immediately embarked on a hit streak that would stretch out to Aug. 25, covering the span of 39 games. Molitor hit .416 during the run, which ended with him in the on-deck circle as teammate Rick Manning delivered a walk-off single against the Cleveland Indians. Overall, Molitor hit a club-record .353 for the year.

Long before they headed north for Minnesota and the Expos headed south, the Twins' home was in the nation's capital as the Washington Senators. During that tenure, the "Big Train" compiled an astonishing MLB record of 110 career shutouts, 20 more than any other pitcher in history. In 1908, Johnson once tallied three shutouts in a four-day span. To tie Johnson’s record, a pitcher would need to average five shutouts a year…for 22 years. For comparison sake, Clayton Kershaw’s 15 career SHOs leads active pitchers, while Johnson tallied 11 in 1913 alone.

One of the more obscure moments in MLB history came during Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS when Robin Ventura connected for a game-winning grand slam. It would have been the first walk-off grand slam in MLB postseason history...if Ventura would have actually made it around the bases. Instead, his teammates mobbed him before he reached second base, and since the winning run scored ahead of him, the home run counted only as a single. It is the only occurrence of this type in MLB history, thus becoming one of the most unique  — and complicated — instances to repeat.

DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game. Lou Gehrig’s 2,130 games. The entire career of Babe Ruth. There is no shortage of historically significant marks that fall underneath the Yankee umbrella. However, none is more formidable than their championship collection. Since 1923 the Yankees have won a record 27 World Series titles, by far the most championships by a single professional franchise in North American pro sports history. It is 16 more than any other MLB franchise and 69 percent of the American League’s World Series victories.

In 1982, Henderson had that most dominant singular season of stolen bases in MLB history. He swiped a record 130 bases on the year, which included 84 by the All-Star break. To put that in context, only one other player has stolen as many as 78 over a full season in the last 20 years. For Rickey, it was the biggest total of a run during which he topped the century mark in steals three times in a four-year span. Conversely, the AL team leader in stolen bases in 2018 was Cleveland — whose total of 135 was only five more than Henderson had himself in ’82.

In Carlton’s first year in Philadelphia, he was responsible for carrying the load on the mound at an unprecedented rate. Amid a terrible season for the team (59 wins), Carlton went against the grain as much as any bad-team pitcher in history, winning 27 games alongside a 1.97 ERA and 310 strikeouts. Ultimately, his 46 percent team win share is the highest by a pitcher in modern MLB history. He became one of the few pitchers in history to win a Cy Young Award while on a last place team.

One of the most incredible and unapproachable records in baseball history occurred in 1912 when Pirates right fielder Chief Wilson (far right) incredibly crushed 36 triples in a single season. It bested the previous record of 31, set in 1886, and is 10 more than any other season-best total since 1900. The closest any player has come in the past 80 years is Curtis Granderson, who had 23 three-baggers in 2007.

Gwynn spent his entire career with the Padres, establishing one of the greatest hitting careers in history. From 1983 to his final season in 2001, Gwynn never hit lower than .309, creating a National League record of 19 consecutive years hitting .300 or better. Only Ty Cobb met the mark in more straight seasons (23). Along the way, Gwynn won eight National League batting titles and hit over .350 six times. His .394 average in 1994 is the closest anyone has come to hitting .400 since 1941.

The topic of Bonds and his various historic accomplishments is a contentious one. But regardless of this, his record-setting 73 home run summer of 2001 remains a remarkable one. Bonds hit 39 homers by the All-Star break and tied Mark McGwire’s then record of 70 with three games left in the year. Bonds then went deep three more times in the final three games to establish the new mark. 

Ichiro’s penchant for astonishing hit totals reached a summit in 2004 when he broke George Sisler’s 84-year record for hits in a season. Ichiro totaled 262 hits on the year, five better than Sisler’s mark (albeit with an extra eight games on his schedule). On the year, Suzuki had 50 hits in four different months and hit .372 on the year. The season capped a run where Suzuki accounted for the most hits in a four-year time span in history, with 924.

Gibson produced one of the most legendary and stingy seasons in MLB history in 1968, when he produced a live-ball-era record for lowest ERA at 1.18. It remains the lowest ERA in MLB history in a season in which a pitcher worked 300 or more innings. On the year Gibson threw 13 shutouts (including eight consecutive) and worked 28 complete games. From June 6 to July 30, Gibson allowed three earned runs over a 99-inning span. So dominant was Gibson’s season that it played a major part in the MLB lowering the pitching mound to give pitchers less of an advantage going forward.

The 2011 Rays mounted the biggest final month deficit in MLB history to claim the American League wild-card spot. Entering September the Rays trailed the Boston Red Sox by nine games, a team they beat in six of seven games during the month. In the final game of the season, on the heels of a game-tying homer from catcher Dan Johnson, third baseman Evan Longoria capped the comeback with a dramatic walk-off home run that clinched a playoff spot and established the biggest –and quickest— rally to claim a postseason bid in MLB history.

Of his many records, the late career dominance of Ryan is one of the most remarkable — and underreported — in MLB history. Ryan did not join the Rangers until age 42 but still led the AL in strikeouts twice and threw his final two no-hitters. But he was also regularly among the toughest to hit in his career, holding opponents to a .197 average against during his Rangers tenure. It is the lowest career average against for any team for a pitcher who spent at least four years with a club.

The Blue Jays became the first non-U.S. based team to win the World Series when they beat the Atlanta Braves in six games in 1992. The decisive Game 6 was won in the top of the 11^th inning when Dave Winfield delivered a two-run double. The Braves scored one in the bottom of the 11 ^th , but Mike Timlin stopped the rally and clinched the Series win. Catcher Pat Borders won World Series MVP, hitting .450 (9-for-20) and Cito Gaston became the first African-American manager to win a World Series.

In his 15-year career — all spent with the Nationals — Zimmerman has developed a reputation for coming through when the stakes are highest. True to his nickname, “Mr. Walk-Off” has hit 11 conclusive home runs in his career, the third-most in MLB history. However, he is one shy of tying Mickey Mantle for the most in history while playing for one team, after hitting his last walk-off shot in August of 2018.