There must be something in the human psyche that gets us excited about records being broken. We see it in sports all the time. I remember following the Major League Baseball home run record chase in 1998 between Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, and sports fans couldn’t look away. Both players ended up breaking Roger Maris’s old record of 61 home runs in a season, with McGuire knocking 70 dingers to Sosa’s 66. Sure, they were likely both Cheater Mc’Cheatfaces given the steroid culture of baseball, but it was still entertaining.
A few records are truly untouchable, proverbially etched in the books in stone. A classic example is Cy Young’s 511 wins as a baseball pitcher. In the modern game, pitchers don’t take the mound enough to rack up wins like that. The current leaders among active players are Bartolo Colon (247 wins) and CC Sabathia (246). They are 45 and 38 years old, respectively.
Another famous untouchable record that I know from being a childhood fan of Georgia Tech is the win differential record for a college football game. Back in 1916, Tech beat Cumberland College by a score of 222-0. If you are wondering how that could possibly happen, worry not! There’s a whole Wikipedia page on it.