12/21/24
June 24, 2002
DiMaggio's streak a fraud?: Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak is said to be the mountain nobody can climb, the river nobody can swim, the door forever locked. And now come sad words for those who believe what DiMaggio did in 1941 is baseball's Holy Grail. C. David Stephan says the record is a fraud.
posted by srboisvert to baseball at 01:31 PM - 3 comments
No one should really care about hitting streaks anyway. Hitting streaks are essentially random; for most of Luis Castillo's streak, teammate Derek Lee actually had a higher batting average over the same span. A streak of any length certainly isn't comparable to the really amazing feats, like Williams hitting .400 in 1941. So what's a few calls one way or another?
posted by oddovid at 01:01 AM on June 25, 2002
While it is true that Daniel was DiMaggio's friend and that both hits could have gone either way, had DiMaggio not run his streak to the eventual 56 games, Daniel's calls would never have been questioned Well- duh. That's like saying a ball that may or may not have hit the yellow line denoting the home run line on the left field fence isn't that big a deal to worry about. Unless, that is, that same player hit 73 other homeruns that same season. I don't think people get too worked up about whether a hit during a 10-game hit streak was really an error or not... unless that hit streak reaches the 40's. Isn't the whole point of a hitting streak- as opposed to counting stat records like HR or RBI in a season- that you can't miss it for even one game, or it's all gone? Isn't the reason we're supposed to be all agog over "Mafia" Joe's 56-game hitting streak because if he'd ever not gotten a hit during that period, the whole thing would have gone up in smoke, and he'd have to start from scratch (not to mention that 56 was mostly a coasting figure- once he passed the previous record of 44, there was no pressure left, nothing like what Castillo was starting to face when he got a little past 30)? Indeed, aren't we often reminded how, if he'd gotten a hit in that 57th game, he'd have connected it to another hit streak that would have made about 72 games in a row? Yet no one credits ol' "Money Launderer" DiMaggio with a 72 game hit streak. If DiMaggio didn't "really" get a hit in games 30 and 31, that means that he had a 29 game hit streak and a 25 game hit streak separated by two hitless games. This is still impressive- but not insanely so. For example, last year, rookie Ichiro Suzuki started off his major league career with a 23 and a 15 game hit streaks, separated by a single game; had he gotten a hit, he would have been at 39 and the media would have been going apeshit; if he is given two free passes like DiMaggio is alleged to have gotten, his hit streak would have been 45- one more than the pre-DiMaggio record and still second longest. Besides, as oddovid notes, a hitting streak is a fluke, by definition- the greatest hitting seasons in history still have a player failing 6 times out of 10. The odds of that player getting a hit in 56 straight games is extraordinarily unlikely. If it were purely skill based, Luis Castillo would have been a 4-time MVP.
posted by hincandenza at 01:29 AM on June 25, 2002
From DiMaggio: An Illustrated Life, by Dick Johnson and Glenn Stout Daniel's role in extending the streak in games 30 and 31 has since been the subject of much criticism. While it is true that Daniel was DiMaggio's friend and that both hits could have gone either way, had DiMaggio not run his streak to the eventual 56 games, Daniel's calls would never have been questioned. Only DiMaggio's later accomplishments brought the calls under scrutiny