Angry fans

A number of recent injuries to Brett Favre have led to questions about whether or not his streak of 292 consecutive starts will continue. The sports junkie in us is begging for comparisons and the obvious question to ask is: whose record is more impressive, Brett Favre’s 292 consecutive starts or Cal Ripken Jr.’s 2,632 consecutive games played? Let the debate begin.

Spencer: I think the best measure for comparing records across sports is to look at the player right behind the record holder. Cal Ripken played in 23 percent more games than Lou Gehrig; Brett Favre only played in 11 percent more games than former Vikings great Jim Marshall. But the debate doesn’t end there. Obviously football is a much more violent sport than baseball. You are much more likely to sustain a major injury playing football than you are playing baseball (although baseball still has concussions, shredded knees and every variety of arm injury known to humankind). What makes a consecutive start streak impressive is not the ability to avoid major injuries (which are mostly due to chance) but the ability to deal with the lingering, nagging injuries that are inevitable for any athlete in any sport. Maybe that type of injury is slightly more likely in football than baseball, but ask yourself: are they almost nine times as likely? Because Cal Ripken has played almost NINE times as many games as Brett Favre. Additionally, while Favre has six days in between each game to recover from any nagging injury, Ripken had to go back out there the next day and do it all over again (baseball players get about one day off for every nine games they play). Finally, because the football season is so short and the baseball season is so long, there is significantly more pressure to play every game in football. It is expected for Brett Favre to play in every game he can; he never really had the choice to miss a game so we don’t know if he would have, given the option (and judging by his love of missing training camp and preseason, his work ethic is questionable). Cal Ripken could have taken days off but he never did. He played every day knowing that he could (and perhaps should) have been on the bench resting. The mental toughness exhibited by Ripken in that sense sets him apart in my mind.

Brad: I’m simply not willing to concede that mental toughness is the determinate factor here in what is an inherently physical competition –– and that’s exactly why Favre’s record is more impressive. Favre is now at 293 consecutive starts and only three players in the history of football (not counting kickers) have even played that many games total. Just for argument’s sake, 32 baseball players have appeared in more total games than Ripken did during his streak. That’s not the point though, the point is that records are made to be broken and neither of these records likely will. Ripken’s however, will be due to indifference because there will be players physically capable of doing what he did, they just won’t put the same stock in missing what amounts to .06 percent of the season. Favre’s record won’t be broken because nobody will ever again have the luck of avoiding major injury through 19 years of the most athletic humans in the world throwing themselves at you full speed, and because nobody will have the determination to play though broken thumbs, separated shoulders, battered knees, torn muscles and (most recently) a twice fractured ankle. What this debate comes down to is the question of which of these streaks is more impressive and I’m far more impressed by Favre’s ability to tough out all of the serious injuries that he encountered than I am by Ripken’s ability to decide to just not sit one out.



–– Brad Becker-Parton ’11.5 is from Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. and Spencer Wright ’11.5 is from Burlington, Vt.