Baseball is a sport of statistics, with a record-keeping tradition that stretches back to the nineteenth century. Career totals such as home runs, hits and strikeouts have been treated as benchmarks for generations, and a few round numbers, such as 3,000 hits or 500 home runs, have been used for decades as shorthand for Hall of Fame quality.
The usage of pitchers and the length of schedules have changed, which affects how career totals can be compared. The articles in this section take those changes into account.
Pete Rose's 4,256 career hits remain the standard that no one has approached, even as his own standing with MLB has been the subject of decades of dispute.
Barry Bonds's 762 career home runs top this list, a figure inseparable from the sport's steroid-era controversies.
Nolan Ryan's 5,714 career strikeouts lead the next-closest pitcher by more than 800 — widely considered one of baseball's least breakable records.
Career leaderboards in the NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL reward durability as much as brilliance. Here is how to read them without being misled.
Altitude, rule changes, doping-era marks and plain statistical outliers: the reasons a handful of records have gone untouched for a generation or more.