Who has a more impressive streak Farve or Ripken

BOTH are impressive, in their own way. I'd go with Ripken, however, because he never got a week between starts to lick his wounds. He had to grind it out every single day over the course of six months.

Our son played 40 straight games this summer over a 42 day stretch. Even accounting for the differences in travel, hotels and the like, Ripken's streak is unbelievable. Hard to imagine but playing 144 games/162 games creates unbelieveable wear and tear. Before this summer, I would have said Favre for sure. Professional baseball is pretty amazing in terms of tearing you down. After playing the 40 games straight, mine could not imagine 41, let a lone 2,632.

infielddad and JT i agree

but football isnt so easy though the wear and tear of one game is eaqul to a weeks worth of baseball

next...1, will never underestimate the stress of the NFL. But they get 5 days to recover. If you look at one game, the NFL player gets much more stress. Then they can recover for some days. In professional baseball, you don't get rest days if you are Ripken. Just constantly stressing with no rest time.

infielddad - I have heard some question whether or not Ripken may have been hurting his team by playing day-after-day...i.e. wearing himself down, chasing a record. Gotta love a guy who wants to go out there every day...but do you think in the end it may have hurt his performance and thus the team's?

I know your son has experienced a full pro season...so thought you might have some perspective on this.

justbb, you always ask the hard questions...good ones but hard. While I think the travel at the MLB does make life easier, I know playing 40 straight games affected our son. Certainly he was not as strong or mature as Ripken, not to mention the mental strength. His manager suggested the inability to get a day off affected him and his performance. At one point he got his average to .330. By the end of the 40 games he was down to .310. At the time he insisted he still felt good. One month later admitted he was really hurting. My impression is it affects performance, but the timing might be unpredictable.

ya playing a full 6 month sechdule is very hard and i personally think Ripkens' streak is better. Last year i played a 6 month sechdule and abbout 90-100 games and i was worn down by August.

But i think what Farve has done is remarkable just not as great Ripkens'

apples and oranges. QB streaks usually end by way of injury. Baseball are usually given a day off. Much of Favre's streak happened before the roughing the sissy flags, a lot of luck involved. I wonder if Ripkins streak would have been shorter if his dad was not part of the equation. Both are legends in their sport.

I agree with RZ --the streaks are not the same

Cannot compare the two streaks because the games are vastly different, but the two great athletes are similiarly unique...they played through illness and injury at the highest level of performance and professionalism.

Both streaks are pretty incredible - but if I had to pick one to try - I would rather endure the gradual wear down (Ripken).

Brett Favre gets hit harder in one half of football than Ripken did his entire career.

Both streaks do seem unbelieveable.

rz1...TRhit...Baseballdad1228:

A triumvirate of being right on the mark!

Especially like rz1's roughing the sissy flags reference.

And itsinthegame is absolutely correct about the hits that Favre, or any NFL QB, must absorb.

justbb--you mention Ripkin may have been hurting his team some by pushing the streak. Perhpas Packers' fans are saying the same thing about Favre these days, too??

JT - I've been wondering exactly that too...and I'm not really a Packers fan.

Good point bbscout.

Good thing I kept the Ripken rookie card and not the Manny.
bbscout, nice new avatar. Looks very good on you.

This is an interesting question. I've wondered about it before.

Both streaks are nearly unimaginable.

I don't know any MLB players, so I can't say I really understand the wear and tear playing all 162 games in a baseball season involves.

I do, however, know several (mostly former, some current) NFL QB's. Every single one of them paid a tremendous physical price for their time on the field. They all were on IR at one time or another. A couple had career ending injuries.

So, my gut tells me.... football is tougher to accumulate that kind of streak.

I guess one way to judge which is more extraordinary: how many players came close to matching the streaks in the respective sports?

i think Tejada is around 850 games just under 2,000 behing Ripken.

Peyton Manning hasn't missed a srart in his career so he is getting up there.

Well in football, they pay pretty good bucks to guys whose main job is to protect you. What kind of assistance did Ripken get besides his dad, who was a ranking member of the Orioles family?

Uh...hmmm?...oh! The parking lot guy...the lot attendant in the player's lot...he probably assisted Cal...if he needed it of course.

Great thread - one aspect of Ripken's streak is the fact that it revitalized baseball at one of its low points. Ripken had Lou Gehrig staring him in the face from 1500 on and I'm sure that some days that got him over the hump. I have no idea who had the record before Favre. Also, if you were an Oriole fan, as I am, you wanted him to take the record from the dreaded Yankees.
In a historical and cultural aspect, Ripken's is much more impressive.