We’ll never see that again

A quick look at the NBA standings shows that exactly three
teams — the Miami Heat, Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City
Thunder — are averaging more than 100 points per game
this season.

That fact makes what happened 50 years ago in Hershey,
Pennsylvania that much more stunning.

On March 2 of that year, Wilt Chamberlain of the
Philadelphia Warriors scored a mind-boggling 100 points in
a 169-147 win over the New York Knicks.

Chamberlain connected on 36 of 63 field goal attempts and
28 of 32 free throws in the game, which incidentally
wasn’t televised and the only audio account of the game
exists because some kid in a college dorm room decided to
record the fourth quarter of a radio replay.

It’s a shame that there’s not a better accounting of that
game, because it will never happen again. Not in the NBA.

Kobe Bryant scored 81 in a game against Toronto in 2006,
becoming only the 5th man to eclipse 70 points in a single
contest. Chamberlain did that six times.

“That’s unthinkable. It’s pretty exhausting to think about
it,” Bryant said about Chamberlain’s record after his
offensive outburst.

It got me to thinking about the other individual
accomplishments in the world of sports that we’ll likely
never see again.

• Major League Baseball – Nobody is going to break Pete
Rose’s career hit record of 4,256 hits. Derek Jeter is
the closest active player to Rose, and he’s 38 and trails
“Charlie Hustle” by almost 1,200 hits. Six years of 200
hits for Jeter? That’s not happening.

Nobody will ever approach Cy Young’s record of 511 wins.
Hell, we might be hard-pressed to ever produce another
300-game winner.

And of course, there’ Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting
streak of 1941. Untouchable.

• National Hockey League – Wayne Gretzky’s single season
record of 215 points set in 1985-86 for the Edmonton
Oilers is safe. Think about it…”The Great One” averaged
more than 2.5 points per game that season. Last year’s
NHL scoring leader, Daniel Sedin of Vancouver, had 104
points. Ho hum.

And while we’re at it, nobody will ever touch Gretzky’s
record of 92 goals in a single season, either.
Considering that only one player, Alex Ovechkin, has even
topped the 60-goal plateau since 2000, yeah, that one’s
safe too.

• Happy Gilmore’s record of taking his skate off and
trying to stab somebody should stand untested in hockey
history, although as long as Sean Avery is still on the
ice, there’s a chance somebody will try to cut him with a
skate blade.

• In the NFL, I think Emmitt Smith can rest easy knowing
that his total of 18,355 rushing yards will likely never
be approached. Smith had 11 straight years of 1,000 yards
or more, which is unbelievable.

With the window for running backs’ effectiveness at about
3 to 5 years, and the fact that NFL teams are throwing the
ball now more than ever, number 22’s figures will be hard
to reach.

—

Yahoo! Sports’ Marc J. Spears wrote a great
piece Friday illustrating that Chamberlain was always
a little embarrassed by reaching triple digits and the
attention that went along with it.

He struggled with the fact that he took 63 shots in the
game.

The humility with which Chamberlain accomplished this feat
is still refreshing to read about 50 years later.

I know we’ll never see that again.

Follow @Vincemarotta