re: Hardest feat to acomplish in sports?

Tour de France

Definitely hitting for the cycle. Both of my parents have hit a hole in one and my mom just started playing golf about 10 years ago.

Both require some luck but hitting for a cycle also requires an immense amount of athletic ability. I'm assuming we're talking about the MLB level.

I wasn't talking about batting average, keeping in mind that it lowers your batting average if you hit it right to a defender, there are too many factors to look at when actually observing stats against each other...I don't know if that makes it any more or less difficult. I would put shooting a hockey puck in the top 10 most difficult things to do in sports as well. In golf, driving accuracy is also as difficult as hitting a baseball. I just believe that hitting a baseball is the most difficult thing to do.

Baseball players brains process data quicker than others. Its absolutely fascinating. They have .2 of a second to process. Keeping in mind there are 10+ different types of pitches, different heights, hand placement, arm angles of pitchers that affect the velocity and angle of the pitch approaching. Hitters are basically making an educated guess about where the ball is going to end up in the strike zone. Warren Spahn said: Hitting is timing, pitching is upsetting timing. Had I realized that simplicity earlier, I probably would have ended up playing longer.

Piggy backing on what Yogi Berra said "you can't think and hit at the same time" I feel as if Baseball and Golf are two polar opposites trying to accomplish something very similar. With one (baseball) you have no time to think and the other (golf) you unfortunately have too much time to think.

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This was and still is an amazing feat but even with PEDs I'm not certain we will ever see this happen.

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We've had a century of data and only small increments were made before Beamon.

And then Beamon owned that record forever.

There is a limit to human physical ability...but I still believe it will happen...

People once thought no human could run a 4-minute mile.

In the 1940’s, the mile record was pushed to 4:01, where it stood for nine years, as runners struggled with the idea that, just maybe, the experts had it right. Perhaps the human body had reached its limit.

But the difference in the long jump and the mile...after Bannister broke the barrier - a lot of other runners did too - and right away.

When Beamon leaped into immortality in Mexico City - it took forever for someone to come close to him.

The long jump isn't some progression as quick as in running.

It would be an interesting topic to investigate why humans aren't evolving as fast in jumping as we seem to do in running.

That's even more evidence for it not being like the mile barrier.

Two guys owning the record for 50 years.

Unlike the mile where the floodgates opened.

I still believe it will happen but it probably won't.

You have to make up 8 inches...

Well the world record progression for half a century went by 1 or 2 inches.

Then we got drugs...in the 70's...



But even that flattened out.

The first WR in the long jump was 1901.

It was 25 feet.

100 years later...the WR was 29 feet, 4 inches.

100 years...4 feet.

As the previous poster said maybe even with PEDs humans still can't do it.

I could talk about jumping all day. I think a 30 foot jump is theoretically possible, but there aren't even any 29 foot jumpers around right now. In fact all of the mens jumping WRs (high, long, and triple) have been the same for quite a while I think.