27 MLB records that will never be broken

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Rickey Henderson has come up a lot in conversation recently here at FanSided. He’s the greatest leadoff hitter of all-time, as well as the greatest base stealer, and among the biggest reasons for both are his unbreakable 1,406 career stolen bases.

Henderson has 468 more stolen bases than No. 2 on the career list, Lou Brock. To put that into perspective, the active leader in stolen bases is Ichiro Suzuki with 490. Only Carl Crawford (470), Jose Reyes (458) and Jimmy Rollins have stolen more than 400 bags among active players.

Is there another current player that could give Henderson a run for the record? Cincinnati Reds centerfielder Billy Hamilton is the fastest man in baseball and he may have brought the art of the steal back to the spotlight, but if he’s the going to be the biggest threat to Henderson, Hamilton will need to pick up the pace.

Hamilton has only played one full season in the big leagues, when he swiped 56 bases in 2014. He would need to repeat that total 25 times to break Henderson’s record. With 86 thefts in 199 career games (through Monday May 18), Hamilton has a current average of 70 steals per 162 games. If he played 162 games and 70 steals every year, it would take him 19 seasons to pass Henderson.

Of course, one of the biggest reasons Henderson was able to steal more bases than anyone is the fact that he got on base more than all but three players in Major League history. He had a career slash of .279/.401/.419 and walked more than anyone not named Barry Bonds. He averaged more than 56 stolen bases across a 25-year big league career, and stole 74 bases per 162 games with a success rate of 80.76%.

It will take someone with incredible speed and durability to average stolen base numbers that even come close to Rickey Henderson. And without Rickey’s ability to get on base, it’s a downright impossible record to break.

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