o/t news today Dimaggio Streak

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Posted By: steve

Today, Internet news article on Joe Dimaggio's 56 consecutive game hitting streak.

Incredible, I agree, but I also believe a lot of plain old luck was on Joe's side.

Dimaggio was a great hitter and is very deserving of the mark, but I contend that others, with the same amount of luck, could have done the same.

Carew flirted with .400 so did Brett. And Gwynn is easily in this class. How about Hornsby, Cobb, Williams or Sisler?

Mathematics, with all the probability and randomness, happened to land in Joltin Joes lap - over a hundred years, someone had to be the recipient, glad it was Joe.

steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Did I miss something? Why is Joe D's hit streak in the news today?

And for the record I don't believe it was just luck. Joe DiMaggio also hit in 61 straight games in the PCL in 1933 which is the second longest minor league hitting streak behind Joe Wilhoit who hit in 69 straight games in 1919.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

FWIW, i also believe after the streak was snapped, he then went on another tear for about 17 more games...

very impressive.

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Posted By: Matt

I don't know how you could look it up, but a telling stat in the "luck" debate would be does Joe hold the highest batting average over a 70 game span?

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Posted By: barrysloate

You are correct Michael.

And on the topic of streaks, the Houston Rockets have won 20 straight games, and had they not lost to Utah by 2 points, it would be a 25 game streak. Where did all that come from? A .500 team going nowhere at the halfway point.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

All streaks involve some degree of lucky chance. Cal Ripken could have sprained his ankle tripping on the rug. The 2007 New England Patriots won some games that could have gone either way. The last game went the other way. If you're saying a famous streak involved some chance, I don't doubt your claim.

Actually, sports streaks, or perception of streaks, are the product of cognitive biases-- but that's another topic.

Say, over a season, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams have the same number of games with hits and the same number of season hits. However, DiMaggio's hit-games involves a record 56 game streak and Williams has no such streak-- Ted's hit-games are more evenly spaced out over the year. Fans and baseball historians will irrationally focus on DiMaggio's season because of the streak. However, there is no rational reason to say Ted's season was any lesser. It's just that fans have a psychological and aesthetic bias towards hit-games strung together and towards streaks in general. Ted had the same 56 hit games as Joe, but they weren't in a row. In the light that the two players had identical season totals, there's no rational reason to say Ted's 56 hit-games were any lesser. It's just that Ted's scattered 56 games don't align with fan's aesthetic views.

In fact, with the same overall seasons, it could be reasonably argued that you'd rather have a player scatter his hit-games over the season, rather than hit them in a tight bunch followed by a lengthy layoff. In this light and looking back over the entire season, a streak might not be considered as a positive. It looks flashy and sensational for the fans (again, a matter of aesthetics), but you'd pick the less streaky player.

Half-joking, I would say Ted Williams had the same 56 game hit streak as Joe DiMaggio, except Ted's 56 games weren't in a row.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

There has to be a little luck, but I believe it is mostly just being a good consistent hitter which Joe was. The guy rarely went into a slump...61 games in a row in the PCL and then 56 games in a row in the majors is more than just luck.

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Posted By: DD

I'm not a Dimaggio fan by any means but, it was not luck. He was a great hitter, on an incredible hot streak, and everything just came together. Mathematically, I'm sure Tom Tango, or someone else could analyze every at bat, in every situation, during the streak, to come up with some kind of luck factor. You still have to hit it where they ain't.

Bottom line is that if you look at the top 7 (at least) all time hitting streaks, all were by great hitters. The distance between Dimaggio and Rose is the most impressive thing to me. In the 60+ years since, no one has come closer than about 3/4's of the way to tieing him.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

"In the light that the two players had identical season totals, there's no rational reason to say Ted's 56 hit-games were any lesser. It's just that Ted's scattered 56 games don't align with fan's aesthetic views."

davidcycle- what?

if ted williams had 56 games with hits scattered thru the season, it CANNOT be compared to Joe D's 56 CONSECUTIVE game hit streak...

consistency, day in and day out...the stress and difficulty of hitting in that many consecutive games must have been grueling...

no comparison, IMO

***edited to say that you edit WAY TOO much davidcycle, it's impossible to quote you...

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

It's even more stressful when someone steals your bat and you have to borrow Henrich's bat!

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Posted By: steve

The article on Dimaggio is on today's MSN internet news page - left side toward bottom is section titled, "Also on MSN" - There you find the "Cadillac-Dimaggio Record" article by Kara Yorio.

I just wanted to hear some views from you folks, whom I generally consider more knowledgeable than most fans.

To what degree is it luck when you hit 50+ HRS in year?
To what degree is it luck when you hurl 350 strikeout in year? To what degree is it luck when you hit safely in 56 games?

steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

None of them require luck...all of them require skill and consistency. In a philosophical sense there really is no such thing as "luck" IMO. If luck was involved then any joe schmoe could get lucky and hit in 56 straight games....does that mean that the thousands of major league players that have come along since 1941 were just "unlucky" because they haven't equaled or bettered Joe's streak?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Duly note that my post was specifically premised on the two players having the same number of total hit games and total hits at the end of the season. It's a matter of how the hits and hit-game are clustered over the season, and whether a tight, bright cluster (streak) is objectively superior or merely aesthetically more pleasing to fans. As mentioned, it's not objectively clear that the streaky player is superior to player who spreads the same feats out over the entire season. In fact, many managers would prefer the latter player.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

davidcycle- i'm quoting you, so DON'T edit your post...

"It's a matter of how the hits and hit-game are clustered over the season, and whether a tight, bright cluster (streak) is objectively superior or merely aesthetically more pleasing to fans."

it's neither...

what it is...is simply extremely difficult, thus making it an amazing accomplishment.

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Posted By: Matt

There is some luck involved - the pitchers had to give him something to hit - had he gotten the Barry Bonds treatment - he never would have made it to 56.

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Posted By: howard

"Does Joe hold the highest BA over a 70 game span?"

Very doubtful. Joe's BA for the fifty-six game streak was "only" .408. To bring that up to even .424 (the post 1900 record for an entire season) in another fourteen games Joe would have had to have an epic hot streak. Besides that we can assume that any of the players that batted over .400 in a season had seventy game spans that were far above .400 if not .450.

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Posted By: steve

With all the great points of view, it seems Joe's 56 game streak may not be the greatest record of them all.

Statistically speaking, what MLB record has the lowest probability of ever being broken?

My vote: No pitcher will ever break Nolan Ryan's 7 no-hitters. To tally up 8 no-hitters - never!

steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I think the three major league records held by Sam Crawford will never be broken....Career Triples (309), Inside the park homers in one season (12) and career Inside the park homers (51). All of them have to do with park factor and that's the main reason I think they will not be broken.

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Posted By: steve

Maybe draw a line between deadball era and post dead ball era. Kinda keeps apples to apples.

steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Barry's .863 slugging percentage.

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Posted By: DD

Number of wins in a season. I doubt we will ever see 30 again, and even 26 or more is a stretch. This is especially true if the 6 man rotation, or some semblance thereof, ever becomes the norm.

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Posted By: dennis

"the streak" has plenty of controversy.i guess he did get the calls
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WhosCounting/story?id=3694104&page=1

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Posted By: Eric B

By definition, a 56 game hitting streak means you hit in 56 out of 58 games if you include the game before and after the streak.

Is that better than someone who went on a 29 and 28 game streak during the same span?

No!

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Posted By: davidcycleback

That's an example was what I was saying, Eric. In your example, the 56 game streak would be popularly singled out as the astounding feat, while the 57 games with hits during the same span might go relatively unnoticed. The perception that the 56 games with hits is better than the 57 games with hits is, of course, irrational. If you mentioned it that way (56 versus 57), without mentioning the streak, about all fans and sports writers would pick the 57 games with hits as being superior.

I'm not trying to diminish DiMaggio's feat, but the question was is chance involve in popular records. My response is that there's chance involved, along with other things. What are popularly defined as feats and records reflects the psychology, tastes, aesthetic views, habits, predilections, biases and customs of the populace.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Sixty-six years prior....and, 66 years since....and, no one has come even close to such an amazing streak.
For some idiot (67 years later, who claims to be a sports reporter) to raise doubts about Joe D's great feat
in 1941, smacks of "sour grapes", or some other kind of journalistic "incredulity". Joe's streak excited an en-
tire BB nation in 1941, as fans from coast to coast followed it closely, day in and day out. This attempt to
diminish this great record by some Canadian magazine (no less), and to accuse Dan Daniel's bias in scoring
Joe's hits, is just the latest "b--s" by the "anti-hero", revisionist types in the media. Who aren't old enough
to actually witness what occurred; but, engage in their "fiction" in order to tell us what "virtually occurred".

Joe DiMaggio actually ran a 57-game streak that season....he hit a Double in the intervening All-Star game.

Joe, and Ted Williams, are probably the last great BB hitters that had the discipline, batting eye, and confi-
dence to "work the count" on a pitcher. The 1941 season was certainly a great example of this for both Joe
and Ted. These factors are the main reasons why their 1941 season performances have been unparalleled
to this day. Luck has nothing to do with Joe's 56-game streak or Ted's .406 batting average in 1941.

The other factor that mentally carried Joe through this streak (despite all the pressure he was subjected to)
was that he had been there before. Back in his PCL days in the early 1930's he ran a 61-game hitting streak
with the San Fran Seals.

Joe's numbers during the 56-game streak are......

AB....223, BA....408, Hits....91, 2B....16, 3B....4, HR....15, Runs....56, RBI....55, 2 or more hits....22 times

Note....
That Joe's Runs Production averaged 1.7 Runs per game during the 56-game streak. His streak was not just
an accomplishment for the record books. Joe was consistently leading his team to victories, as the Yankees
won 101 games in 1941.

TED Z

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Posted By: MVSNYC

"By definition, a 56 game hitting streak means you hit in 56 out of 58 games if you include the game before and after the streak.

Is that better than someone who went on a 29 and 28 game streak during the same span?

No!"


...first of all, i still do not see davidcycle & eric's logic, but respect their opinions...


second, as impressive as the 56 game hit streak is to me...

even more impressive is ted williams hitting .406 that year...(last person to hit .400 in a season).

given the choice, however, i'd take .406 on my resume any day over the hit streak.

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Posted By: howard

The logic is simply that hitting in 57 of 58 games is as valuable as hitting in 56 of 58 games.

A couple of points about the silly article that just came out. One, bad hops are routinely scored as base hits so the hit in game thirty was probably a legit single. That the hit in the next game went off the glove doesn't really tell us anything. Did Appling dive or was the ball right to him? If there isn't better evidence it should have been included in the article and if not the issue is dead.

Anyway, it is no secret that scorers have always favored the hometown players. If this kind of scrutiny is given to Dimaggio sixty-five years later then it should be given to every player who ever broke a record or reached a significant milestone.

The most obvious case of hometown scoring I have seen was in 1993 when John Olerud was hitting over .400 well into the season. He was three for three and in his fourth at bat he hit a one hop medium height bouncer to Pat Kelly's left. This is probably the most elementary play for an infielder but Kelly muffed it and it was called a hit. Of course Olerud did not hit .400 but he did wind up with exactly 200 hits.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I hate to disagree with your.....

"second, as impressive as the 56 game hit streak is to me...

even more impressive is ted williams hitting .406 that year...(last person to hit .400 in a season).

given the choice, however, i'd take .406 on my resume any day over the hit streak."


I loved to watch Ted Williams play as much as I did Joe DiMaggio, when I was a kid. But, if we just
consider the 1941 season, Joe D. is my preference.

The subtle secret to batting .400 for any good hitter is to wait out the count and be willing to take
100+ Walks. Ted Williams (with his great batting eyes) had 145 Walks in 1941.

Theoretically, to qualify for .400 in the Official record book.....all you need is 160 Hits for 400 AB's.
It's tougher to get over 200 Hits; however, the subtle trick to batting .400 is to keep your AB's as
low as possible. You achieve this by getting a lot of Walks (which is usually easier). When George
Brett fell short of .400 (in 1980), he said that if he had more Walks, he would have batted .400 (he
had approx. 50 Walks that season).

TED Z

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Posted By: MVSNYC

Ted- interesting point about hitting .400, BUT the fact remains that it's still tuff enough, that no one else has done it in the last 66 years...

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Posted By: barrysloate

Ted is absolutely correct about keeping one's at bats low, and to get as many walks as possible. Williams was incredibly disciplined and if he didn't have a good pitch to hit, he took the walk.

A free swinger who gets 600 at bats can never hit .400. One would need to get closer to 450 at bats, almost exactly what Williams got.

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

In 1938, Johnny Vander Meer of the Cincinnati Reds pitched two consecutive no-hitters. In order to break this record, a pitcher would have to pitch three consecutive no-hitters — not bloody likely.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

bruce, very true...but i would regard that as a "feat" not a record (if that makes sense?)

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Thanks for backing me up on this......at times I have had difficulty convincing others of this.
And you are correct, the last guy to hit over .400 with 600+ AB's was George Sisler in 1920....
with 631 AB's he needed a record setting 257 Hits to barely make it with a .407 BA.

In 1929, Lefty O'Doul got 254 Hits (638 AB's) and fell short of .400....he batted .398. All he
needed was one more Hit, or one more Walk.

The ole saying "a Walk is as good as a Hit" certainly applies if you are hitting for an Average.
But, it doesn't apply when there is a guy on 2nd base that you want to drive in to score.

TED Z