{"id":263,"date":"2019-10-18T05:54:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T05:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/?p=263"},"modified":"2019-10-18T05:56:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T05:56:41","slug":"barriers-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/18\/barriers-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"Barriers Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s tough to be aware of what’s going on in Europe when we have the World Series playoffs going on. Nonetheless, it’s worth giving a nod to Eliud Kipchoge’s accomplishment<\/a> of breaking down another human performance barrier: the sub two-hour marathon. He ran 26.2 miles in 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 40 seconds, averaging around 13 miles per hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sub two-hour marathon has been the subject of speculation for many years. Recently, this speculation has shifted from an “if” question to a “when” question. Nike’s Breaking2 campaign generated the most attention on the moonshot. Ostensibly, the organization was focused on helping a human perform at level only imaginary at the time. And, their speculation has paid off in not just increased brand credibility, but in the development of new running shoe technology<\/a>. And finally, Ineos, of Tour De France fame<\/a>, sponsored an event for Kipchoge’s latest, record-breaking bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from the 4-minute mile, few feats have marked the limits of human performance like the sub two-hour marathon. And, endurance sports favor certain types of individual performance. Thinking of baseball, however, a few notable barriers come to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undefeated Pitching Win\/Loss Record
<\/strong>Scherzer’s 2013 campaign came very close, with a 21-3 record, bested only by Ron Guidry of the 1978 New York Yankees. However, Dizzy Dean of the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals should not be overlooked as he finished the season with a better-than-modest 30-7 record. But baseball and pitching strategies were different in 1943 as Jim Baker of SB Nation points out. In addition to 33 starts, Dean had, “17 relief appearances, including both games of a doubleheader on September 23, helping the Cardinals stay ahead of the Giants in the pennant race. He then closed out the season with three starts in five days, surrendering a total of two runs, to win his 28th, 29th, and 30th games. He also pitched more than 300 innings.” Dean was truly an ironman on the mound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consecutive Games Played<\/strong>
It’s quite unbelievable to think that Cal Ripken Jr. played 16 years of baseball<\/a> without missing a half inning or took a turn at the plate. Especially considering that I get sick around this time every year and have at least one day out of the office (yes, even with a flu shot…tried those…no relief), this is an amazing feat. I don’t see the record being broken anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking .600 – On Base Percentage<\/strong>
The asterisk is there for a reason<\/a>. Removing Bonds from the picture, the record has stood since Ted Williams’ 1941 .553 OBP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glass Ceiling<\/strong>
We haven’t seen any female athletes compete in the majors. Eri Yoshida<\/a> pitched for the Maui’s minor league team in the North American baseball league. I don’t know which is more interesting, the fact that she’s female or that she pitches a sidearm knuckball. I wonder if Will Farrell<\/a> has that pitch in his arsenal. Maybe he learned “the Slurge” from Yoshida while visiting Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m sure I’m missing some even more amazing barriers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s tough to be aware of what’s going on in Europe when we have the World Series playoffs going on. Nonetheless, it’s worth giving a nod to Eliud Kipchoge’s accomplishment of breaking down another human performance barrier: the sub two-hour marathon. He ran 26.2 miles in 1 hour, 59 minutes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-records"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9FCho-4f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlanemedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}