Joe DiMaggio’s 56 Game Hitting Streak Began 75 Years Ago Today

American Spectator ^ | May 15, 2016 | Aaron Goldstein

[HandyDandy]

Correct me if I’m wrong. His brother, Dom, a pitcher, ended his streak.

[HandyDandy]

Ok. You are wrong. Not even close. You might be suffering early onset dementia.

[ken5050]

Great comments and analysis. Many thanks

[Ransomed]

You are right, the triple crown is weird set of conditions. The RBI thing is completely random, you need people on base. But I’m not saying there aren’t players who step it up with RISP. But you can’t step it up without guys on base. An average guy and a power hitter or the rare power hitting average guy can’t control who gets on base, it’s up to their team mates.

I agree, most years the average + power is going to be the hardest. Larry Walker hit .350 to win the batting title in 2001 with 38 homers, Barry Bonds hit 73 homeruns and hit .328. The next year Bonds hit 46 home runs but hit .370. Better hitting through chemistry.

Anyhow, they are playing a Vin Scully game on MLB network.

Freegards

[Ransomed]

Cal Ripken’s record is way, way up there. Completely agree about the Pitching aspect changing the most and leaving all these unsurpassable marks.

Here’s some mind blowing stuff:

1971, 334 IP, 1.91 ERA
1972, 376 IP, 2.52 ERA
1973, 359 IP, 3.46 ERA
1974, 320 IP, 3.60 ERA

376 innings will never be topped. Especially with a 2.52 ERA.

Not exactly a superstar name, but a run that good will never be duplicated since it happened. It just can’t be done with a pitch count.

Freegards

[Alberta's Child]

Very interesting figures. Was that Catfish Hunter, or Jim Palmer?

Here's the dilemma I always face with Ripken's streak:

I don't think it is nearly as difficult to break as most other records (mainly since baseball isn't a contact sport), but I would make the case that Ripken didn't do himself any favors by playing so many consecutive games without taking an occasional game off. I think he would have had better career numbers if he had played 155-160 games every year.

Another aspect of baseball that has probably changed forever is stolen bases. You may never see Rickey Henderson's single-season record of 130 stolen bases broken -- not just because it's so difficult, but because the stolen base has diminished considerably as an offensive weapon in baseball.

I'd add one more record that might fit the "unbreakable because the game has changed" category: triples. Triples used to be more common in baseball, due to the style of play in the dead-ball era and the odd-shaped configurations of many old ballparks with fences very far from home plate. A number of players from the early years of baseball retired with more than 250 triples. There isn't a single active player today with more than 125, and I believe there have only been three players since 1980 with 20 in one season.

[Alberta's Child]

You’re welcome. I coulda been a baseball historian in another life! :-)

[Ransomed]

Left handed Knuckleball pitcher Wilbur Wood for the pale hose. An unsung hero, he did stuff like start for both games of a double header. That run early 70s is amazing, and not talked about enough, and will never be matched.

“...but I would make the case that Ripken didn’t do himself any favors by playing so many consecutive games without taking an occasional game off.”

Not to mention the Orioles W/L record, right? You need amazing endurance, luck, and an organization willing to get behind the streak as a separate thing as apart from wins or losses. He came around at the only time in MLB where it would be possible, money/contract wise.

Agree about steals, this is a shame because it made the game so much more exciting. Again, this is partly a money thing where 162 games of pounding down baselines isn’t a good investment for clubs. Injured players get paid the same as healthy players.

The only way a triple total will be broken now is by a player who plays their whole long career in Colorado, which is like playing on Mars. But a Colorado player might not play that long a career if the recovery/injury stuff of playing 81 games at that altitude is legit.

Freegards

[Pelham]

‘It’s no coincidence that most of the “unbreakable” records are pitching records. That’s because pitching is the one part of the game that has changed most dramatically — in ways that make it harder to even approach these numbers — since these records were set. ‘

http://baseballpastandpresent.com/2014/09/02/babe-ruth-greatest-world-series-game-pitched/

“A frequent refrain from supporters of Jack Morris’s Hall of Fame candidacy is that he pitched the greatest game in World Series history. Certainly, Morris placed himself in unique company in 1991 when he became the third Fall Classic pitcher to hurl a 10-inning shutout after Clem Labine in 1956 [hat tip to Devon Young] and Christy Mathewson in 1913. Morris is also the 10th and most recent pitcher with a Game 7 shutout, joining men like Dizzy Dean in 1934, Sandy Koufax in 1965 and Bret Saberhagen in 1985. In addition, Morris is the only pitcher in World Series history with an extra inning, complete game victory in Game 7.

For some fans, all of this may be more than enough to anoint Morris. By various objective measures, though, Morris’s masterpiece is far from the greatest World Series pitching performance. There’s Don Larsen’s perfect game in 1956 or journeyman Howard Ehmke’s surprise start in 1929 where the junkballer set a record at the time by striking out 13 stunned Chicago Cubs including Hall of Famers Rogers Hornsby, Hack Wilson and Kiki Cuyler twice apiece. Then there’s Bob Gibson’s five-hit shutout in 1968 where he set a World Series record that still stands with 17 strikeouts.

By Game Score, the best World Series pitching performance came in 1916 by Babe Ruth with a 97. [Morris is tied for 38th at 84.] Ruth set a World Series record that still stands when he went 14 innings for the Boston Red Sox in Game 2 on October 9, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers 2-1. He even drove in one of Boston’s runs, the New York Times noted, when Brooklyn second baseman George Cutshaw juggled a grounder in the third inning, allowing Everett Scott to score.

No one ever really talks about Game 2 of the 1916 World Series anymore, though it’s a great story. The day after it happened, the New York Times described the game as “the most thrilling world’s series battle ever fought.”

It was Ruth’s first start in a postseason game, as the 21-year-old..

http://baseballpastandpresent.com/2014/09/02/babe-ruth-greatest-world-series-game-pitched/

[Roccus]

To see Marilyn.

[dfwgator]

Another record that won't be broken. Most balls bounced off a head for a home run.

[Roccus]

Not sure about during the streak, but lifetime he had 369 strike outs while hitting 361 home runs....not too shabby.

[Ransomed]

I looked it up, he struck out 5 TIMES DURING THE STREAK. That is astounding. The most times he ever struck out was 39 times in his rookie season. In 1941 he had 541 official at bats and struck out 13 times. Yeah, pretty damn amazing.

Freegards

[Roccus]

What you say about triples and stolen bases is true. Matter of fact, IMO “small ball” is a much more enjoyable and exciting game to watch...and play.
MLB has a problem right now with the age of its fan base. Somewhere in the late 50s IIRC. Kids find the game boring. If you wanna see more three baggers and stolen bases and if MLB truly wanted to make the game more exciting...shorten the base paths 3-5 feet.

[Alberta's Child]

If you want to see some amazing low strikeout totals for a hitter, check out Joe Sewell of the Indians in the 1920s. He put up some of these ridiculous figures:

1925: 699 plate appearances, 4 strikeouts
1926: 672 plate appearances, 6 strikeouts
1927: 652 plate appearances, 7 strikeouts
1928: 678 plate appearances, 9 strikeouts

Those figures have to rank up there among the most unlikely baseball records to be broken. For his career, Sewell had 8,333 plate appearances and only 114 strikeouts. Some guys today have 114 Ks in one season -- by the All-Star break. He once played 115 straight games without striking out.

Legend has it that Sewell was such a consistently good contact hitter that he used the same bat for his entire career.

[Alberta's Child]

I think the development of sabermetrics and modern baseball analytics has done more to diminish "small ball" than anything else. The risk/reward balance for stolen base attempts has been shown to be pretty poor, and "small ball" has really been relegated to National League games between dominant pitchers where opportunities to score runs are few and far between.

I don't know if there's any way to make a game more exciting when it isn't played with a clock and the ball doesn't spend a lot of time in play.

[Alberta's Child]

Here's one of my favorite wacky baseball statistical lines of all time. It's from the 1974 season:

92 games, 0 starts, 0 plate appearances, 29 runs, 29 stolen bases.

It belongs to Herb Washington, a collegiate sprinter who was signed to play for Charlie Finley's A's in the 1970s as a pinch-running specialist. He was listed as a "designated hitter" in their roster because they had no other position that fit him.

29 runs, 29 stolen bases, and 0 plate appearances has to rank up there among the most bizarre statistical seasons of all time.

[Alberta's Child]

Jack Morris is a borderline Hall of Fame candidate at best, and he'd really only deserve induction because a number of other comparable pitchers made it.

I've never been a fan of using a single game as even a minor factor in someone's Hall of Fame consideration. In his post-season career, Jack Morris had a 7-4 record in 13 starts, with a 3.80 ERA, 32 walks and 64 strikeouts. If he had one great game then he was pretty unspectacular in his other 12 post-season starts.

[Ransomed]

Pretty wild. The game is so different now, despite it being closer through the decades than any other pro-sport. 1925 is pretty damn different than 2015. But four strike outs? It’s like he was using pizza peel. He was maybe an alien or something.

Freegards

[MUDDOG]

That is wacky.

My favorite stat is that the only team in a full season since 1920 to use only five starting pitchers is the 1966 LA Dodgers (as far as I could tell from going through The Sports Encyclopedia of Baseball year by year).

Koufax, Drysdale, Osteen, and Sutton were the main guys, with Joe Moeller rounding it out with 8 starts.