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$Unique_ID{BAS00052}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Streaks and Feats: Part 1}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Kavanagh, Jack}
$Subject{Streaks Feats Hitting DiMaggio Ty Cobb Sisler Johnson Daniel Pete
Rose Keeler Hornsby Consecutive Games Lou Gehrig}
$Log{
Keeler, Willie*0031401.scf
DiMaggio, Joe*0018001.scf
Cobb, Ty*0014101.scf
Sisler, George*0053401.scf
Gehrig, Lou*0023301.scf
Johnson, Walter*0030701.scf}
Total Baseball: The Highlights of the Game
Streaks and Feats: Part 1
Jack Kavanagh
The past of baseball is accented by feats of accomplishment. The heroics
of individual players or collective efforts of teams are listed in record
books as bare statistics. It is the purpose of this section to clothe these
with accounts of how such records were made.
These are the achievements of mortals whom we have made into heroes by
giving great value to things they have done. Deeds of baseball players are
valued more highly than scholarship, skills in creative crafts, or sustaining
a precarious balance of world peace. We can name more Cy Young Award winners
than we can list those given the Nobel Peace Prize; we can rattle off batting
champions but not name holders of the Pulitzer Prize.
It is axiomatic that all records are made to be broken, yet it is
wasteful to throw away old records which have been cherished by generations of
fans and only replace them with a newly minted line of agate type. Those who
have been on the top of the list, or came close to the peak, have been
recognized by relying on lists which sustain enough depth to single out the
most noteworthy performances in the many categories which are represented.
As the former mayor of New York City, the dapper, perceptive Jimmy
Walker, once admonished Babe Ruth when he had fallen from grace in the eyes of
fans, "The cheers of yesterday have a short echo."
The Streaks
Most records are, eventually, displaced by new ones. Some survive
because the conditions under which they were made have been altered by
changing circumstances in baseball. Some, such as the accumulation of sheer
totals, are pushed higher. This is not so much a matter of accomplishment as
it is of perseverance and lengthened seasons.
Longest Hitting Streaks
Joe DiMaggio's feat of hitting safely in 56 consecutive games is the type
of record which is in jeopardy of being broken when each new baseball season
begins. It is in jeopardy because every player has the same chance as
DiMaggio to hit safely in every game he plays. Stringing enough of these
games together to reach the level DiMaggio did in 1941 tests both a player's
skill and his nerve.
The way baseball is played has not altered significantly since 1941.
That year DiMaggio batted .357. In 1987 Wade Boggs was a threat to
topple DiMaggio's record, batting .363. He even temporarily moved into
DiMaggio's class as a home run hitter, with 24. In 1941 DiMaggio had hit 30.
Boggs was also dropped from batting first or second to hitting third. Players
with power have a different approach to collecting base hits than did Willie
Keeler, whose nineteenth-century record of 44 consecutive games in which he
hit safely was broken by Joe DiMaggio. Those with extra-base power are
expected to sacrifice the string-extending single for a game-winning home run
when the occasion rises. In setting his record, DiMaggio never once bunted
for a base hit.
DiMaggio's streak is mind-boggling in its length, yet temptingly
attainable by batters capable of hitting for high averages. And any player
might get on a hot streak and sustain it long enough to challenge DiMaggio's
total. However, those who have set extended streaks did it while
accomplishing a high season's average. The trick is to string those games
with base hits together. The more games in which a batter has hit safely, the
greater the possibility these will come in succession for long stretches.
Until the New York press, wire services, and broadcast industry made Joe
DiMaggio's consecutive-game hitting streak a matter of national awareness and
interest, this kind of feat was not noted with a daily fanaticism. Streaks
drew comment, but this was mostly reserved to be relished during the winter's
Hot Stove League sessions among sport-starved fans.
Although Willie Keeler's consecutive-game string became the target for
future attempts to exceed it, it might have been only one of the records made
under special circumstances. Keeler's 44 consecutive games might only be
unusual in retrospect because the string began on Opening Day, 1897. Had Bad
Bill Dahlen not had a most peculiar bad day on August 7, 1894, even Joe
DiMaggio's 56-game streak would only be a "modern record" set after 1900. As
it is, Bill Dahlen appears high on the list with the 42 games in which he hit
safely.
DiMaggio was stopped by stellar infield play. Bill Dahlen was stopped by
his own inability to fatten his record in a game in which almost everyone else
did. Dahlen's team, the Chicago Colts, had 17 hits, winning a ten-inning game
from Cincinnati 13-11. Dahlen's blanking was more evident because it was
sandwiched between the feats that day of his teammates, Jimmy Ryan and Walter
Wilmot. Ryan, the leadoff batter, had five hits, three of them doubles, and
Walter Wilmot, who followed Dahlen in the batting order, also had five hits,
two of them triples.
Dahlen was at bat a half dozen times, but the Reds' pitchers, Chauncey
Fisher and Tom Parrott, found him, uniquely that day, an easy out. Dahlen's
feat was obscured when Willie Keeler, a star of greater national awareness,
hit safely in 44 games three years later. The eclipsed record was simply noted
but not recounted in the detail which was later paid to the strings which
exceeded it. Although appearing in 121 games and batting .362, Dahlen was not
a regular shortstop at that time, dividing his games between short and third.
It was Keeler's feat which caught the public fancy, particularly as it
began on Opening Day, April 22, 1897, and continued for 44 games into the
season. He was eventually stopped on June 18. Until then, it seemed he had
found an unending series of opportunities to "hit 'em where they ain't"--his
simplistic explanation for his base-hit totals. Keeler's record not only
stood the test of time until Joe DiMaggio broke it in 1941, it still stands as
the National League record, tied only by Pete Rose in 1978.
It wasn't until 1922 that the feat of hitting successfully in successive
games became a real target for seekers of new records. Keeler's streak had
been regarded more as evidence of his great ability to rap out base hits than
as a model of daily consistency. He was a widely admired player, the leadoff
batter for the Baltimore Orioles, three times pennant winners prior to the
1897 season.
When Ty Cobb came along, the fact that he nearly equaled Keeler's mark in
1911, when he set an American League record with 40 successive games in which
he got at least one hit, was also taken as a sign of his superiority, not
necessarily observed as a model event.
But in 1922 the public and press were ready for new records, and they had
popular heroes to set them. In 1922 both George Sisler and Rogers Hornsby
created new marks in hitting safely in consecutive games. Sisler broke Cobb's
American League record and Hornsby notched 33 games in a row in which he had a
base hit. This was hailed as a new record for righthanded batters, at least
since 1900. Dahlen's 42 had been made before the turn of the century. While
such a demarcation might be a dubious distinction, it serves to create new
records. (Eventually those who are insatiable for "new records" will draw a
line across some point in the twentieth century and begin proclaiming new
records by ignoring those which, like DiMaggio's 56-game streak, seem
unbreakable.)
Consider, too, that Ty Cobb, the American League record holder, whose
1911 mark was Sisler's target, was still quite capable of breaking his own
record in 1922. Although the hit which raised his final average that year to
.401 was argued about, he was still a high-average batter and needed only to
string enough games together to set a new mark. Hitting safely in consecutive
games was a trademark for Cobb. He hit in 20 or more games in a row seven
times during his career.
George Sisler was a very popular player. A college product when the
campus was not a direct line to the major leagues, with superlative skills and
a gentlemanly manner, he was widely admired. In addition, his team, the St.
Louis Browns, was engaged in a hot pennant battle with the New York Yankees.
Sisler began his string on July 27 and continued through August and past
Labor Day, getting his base hit in game after game. Then, with his targets in
sight--Cobb's American League record and Keeler's major league record, set in
the National League--Sisler injured his right shoulder. It was thought at
first that not only might he not be able to keep his consecutive string going,
but he might not be able to finish the season.
Ironically Sisler found himself at the threshold of Cobb's record while
playing against the Detroit Tigers, managed by Cobb, who patrolled center
field. Sisler notched games 37 and 38 when the Tigers came to Sportsman's
Park in St. Louis. On September 11, struggling to keep his streak alive,
Sisler tried for game 39, one short of Cobb's record.
Sisler had been granted a streak-extending single by a generous scorer on
a fly ball which Bobby Veach had reached but couldn't hold, but in 1922 there
were no message boards or public address systems to inform fans of scorer's
decisions. So Cobb, playing center field, was too far away from the press box
to see the scorer hold up one finger, the traditional sign of a safe hit. He
didn't know Veach's muff had been ruled a hit. As far as he knew, Sisler,
coming to bat in the bottom of the ninth, with two out, a runner on first, and
the score 4-3 in favor of Detroit, was hitless.
Manager Cobb had a choice. He could order Sisler, the Browns' most
dangerous hitter, walked. This would move the tying run into scoring position
and put the winning run on base. It would have been bad baseball and worse
sportsmanship to order an intentional walk. Cobb might have been tempted to
deny his rival what he thought was a last chance, but he didn't. He did take
the precaution of removing Bob "Fatty" Fothergill, a slow-footed fielder, and
replacing him in right with a better defensive player, Ira Flagstead. Then he
signaled Howard Ehmke to pitch. He did, and Sisler lined a triple between
Cobb and Flagstead. He scored the game-winning run a moment later on a Marty
McManus single. Cobb had lost a game he might have won by passing Sisler, and
George had moved to within one game of tying Ty's record.
At this point Sisler's shoulder ached so much he couldn't play the next
four games, a series against the last-place Boston Red Sox. It was one of
those "might have been" situations. He might have set a new American League
record then against the Red Sox. However, it was much more dramatically
attained when the Yankees, a half game ahead of the Browns in a torrid pennant
race's final stages, came to St. Louis for a crucial three-game series.
Sisler played. His shoulder and right arm were bandaged, and he could
only swing his bat with one hand. But, he played and, in a 2-1 loss, he
managed a lone hit off Bob Shawkey to tie Cobb's record. The next day,
September 17, the Browns evened the series as Babe Ruth's nemesis, Hub Pruett,
stopped the Yankees. Ruth did get a home run, but more importantly Sisler
managed another one-handed base hit to break Cobb's record.
The final game of the series was won by the Yankees as Joe Bush gained
his twenty-fifth victory and Sisler went hitless in four plate appearances,
never making solid contact. The Yankees left town with an increased lead they
nursed to a pennant by a one-game margin. With his team still in contention,
Sisler was unable to play. He pinch-hit unsuccessfully the next day, as
Walter Johnson defeated the Browns, then sat out games until he returned to
action with a hit against the Athletics on September 23. He hit safely the
next day, and then, in a peculiarity of the 1922 season, the whole league was
idle for four days.
When the league resumed for the final Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the
Browns were unable to catch the Yankees, although George Sisler hit safely in
the three final games. Leave out the pinch-hit effort against Walter Johnson,
a desperate attempt by a player who, if he had been swinging with two hands,
would have played the full game. Without an injured shoulder, Sisler arguably
might have kept his string alive against Joe Bush. He might not have missed
those four games against the pitching-poor Red Sox or the two final games
against the Senators. He might have hit safely in all of those games as well
as the three he added at the season's end. If he had, he would have finished
the season, with no more games to play to extend his streak, with 52 games in
which he hit consecutively. Think what a target that would have been for Joe
DiMaggio in 1941.
The DiMaggio Streak
Joe DiMaggio was playing poorly when his epochal feat began. He wasn't
thinking about hitting in 56 straight games; he was worrying about getting a
hit in the game of May 15. In spring training DiMaggio hit safely in every
exhibition game, a forecast of the record-setting year ahead. His momentum
carried through the first eight games of the 1941 season. Then he was thrown
into a slump by a junk-ball pitcher, Lester McCrabbe of the Philadelphia
Athletics.
By mid-May DiMaggio was still floundering, hitting below .300 and without
his usual authority. On May 15 he managed a scratch single. It was an
unimpressive handle hit off Cotton Ed Smith of the Chicago White Sox.
However, it began a streak that wouldn't end until another pitcher named
Smith, Al Smith, paired with Jim Bagby, Jr., held Joe hitless in a game
against the Cleveland Indians.
The well-known DiMaggio batting eye that had produced batting
championships the two preceding seasons, grew sharper, although in most games
he made only a single hit. There were to be 34 games in which the string was
kept alive with a lone hit. Not only was this a precarious way to sustain a
batting streak, it did not, in its opening stages, draw attention to the feat
that was under way. Fans followed Joe's rising batting average but not his
successive daily contributions to it. He was thought to be in a contest with
Ted Williams, not with the ghosts of record holders whose feats had been both
unchallenged and unnoticed since the 1920s. He never caught Williams, who was
enjoying the last season a champion would bat over .400.
As DiMaggio's string lengthened, the days of another Yankee immortal, Lou
Gehrig, grew fewer. The Iron Horse, who had set another sort of consecutive
streak by appearing in 2,130 games, died on June 2, as DiMaggio's skein
reached 19.
As the string stretched into the twenties, reporters began digging into
record books. The last time this arcane event excited interest had been in
1922, when George Sisler broke Ty Cobb's American League record but was
stopped short of Willie Keeler's total. In 1938 another St. Louis Browns
first baseman, George McQuinn, had run off a string of 34 games in which he
had hit safely. Since McQuinn was playing in the anonymity of the second
division, little attention was paid to his challenge.
Because there are two major leagues, record setters have two targets.
DiMaggio was required first to set a league mark at 42 and then proceed to
reach 45 and set an all-time mark by breaking Keeler's total set in the past
century.
By regarding DiMaggio first as a righthanded batter, he could challenge
the closer record of Rogers Hornsby, who had hit in 33 straight games in 1922.
No mention was made of Bill Dahlen's record of 1894. Perhaps the reporters
assumed it had been made under different playing conditions and shouldn't
count. They were wrong; the pitching distance had been established at sixty
feet, six inches in 1893, and bunts fouled off counted as strikes from 1894.
In any case, Dahlen's 42 games was less than Keeler's total, which became the
ultimate target.
When DiMaggio passed Rogers Hornsby's total, the public's attention was
heightened. Sisler's American League record was only a week's play away. The
hype went into full swing. Les Brown's orchestra hurried a phonograph record
onto the market, "Jolting Joe DiMaggio." As banal a tune as ever came from
Tin Pan Alley, the song became a pep rally number as the band chanted, "Joe,
Joe, DiMaggio, we want you on our side."
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who had tap-danced in movies with little
Shirley Temple, did routines atop the Yankees dugout while he sprinkled what
he called "goofer dust" to enhance DiMaggio's luck.
Despite the distractions of people pressing their attention on the
reserved, unemotional DiMaggio, he continued his consistent, game-after-game
pursuit of the next milestone, Sisler's league record. At the same time, he
was carrying the Yankees toward a pennant. They had lost the title in 1940
after four successive world championships under manager Joe McCarthy. They
were out to recapture their league's title.
Interest in Joe DiMaggio's quest went beyond the readers of the sports
pages. The wire services carried stories assuring newspaper readers that Joe
had extended his string before they gave the account of the game in which he
did it. Radio newscasts began with bulletins about Joe's progress.
Cynics and debunkers, who concentrated their suspicions on anything
coming out of New York, particularly if it gave credit to the Yankees, watched
closely for scoring decisions which would give DiMaggio a favored ruling.
Rival managers juggled pitching rotations to bring their best to the
mound when DiMaggio and the Yankees came to town.
Dan Daniel, a prolific and conscientious sportswriter and editor, was the
official scorer for games at Yankee Stadium in 1941, and he covered the team
on the road for his paper. He has written extensively about DiMaggio's
56-game hitting streak. He saw every game.
The scorer's circumstances at Yankee Stadium, as described by Daniel,
placed him in view of rabid Yankee supporters who gathered behind him to
demand a base hit no matter how glaring the error which allowed DiMaggio to
reach base.
Daniel wrote afterward that he had to have his home phone number changed.
He also insisted both he and the other scorers around the league became
hyperattentive every time DiMaggio came to bat once his string had become
established as a potential record breaker.
Daniel also explained that players on the opposing teams were keyed up
when DiMaggio batted, none wanting to contribute to extending the string by
loafing on a ball and turning it into a hit. DiMaggio's streak lifted the
quality of play, umpiring, and press coverage. Everyone, including DiMaggio,
wanted him to earn a new record.
Years afterward, DiMaggio looked back on the 56 games and could only find
one where he wished the play had not been as judgmental as it was. It came in
the thirtieth game, when he was still short of Hornsby's record. The White
Sox came to the Stadium, and Johnny Rigney was the pitcher. He had twice been
DiMaggio's victim in earlier games in the streak but on this day had stopped
the Yankee Clipper until the seventh inning.
Then DiMaggio hit a routine grounder to Luke Appling. The future Hall of
Fame shortstop moved for the ball, but it took a bad bounce, hitting him in
the shoulder. In his rush to recover, Appling grabbed at the ball, dropped
it, then threw too late. A bad-hop single? Butterfingered retrieval? The
official scorer, Dan Daniel, ruled it a hit. Lucky for Joe and fortunate for
legend, too, because on his last time up, in the ninth, Taft Wright made a
leaping catch to snatch a home run out of the right field stands. Joe would
have been blanked.
The next day DiMaggio got another streak-extending break, almost the same
way. This time the ball was hard hit and Appling could only knock it down.
He couldn't make a throw. Too hard to handle? Scorer Daniel ruled so and the
fans relaxed. A few days later Hornsby's record for righthanded batters would
be broken and DiMaggio would be headed for Sisler's mark. However, it took
another break for DiMaggio to get there.
Eldon Auker, a St. Louis submarine-ball pitcher, held Joe hitless until
the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium. Unless one of the first three batters
kept the inning alive, Joe, due up fourth, would not bat again. The Yankees
were ahead by two runs, and it did not appear as though there would be a
bottom of the ninth.
Johnny Sturm popped up, but Red Rolfe drew a walk. Tommy Henrich, the
next batter, had a dilemma. He could still deprive Joe of a chance to bat if
he hit into a double play. With manager McCarthy's consent, Henrich bunted
and moved Rolfe to second base. Now, with first base open, it was Auker who
had a dilemma. He could walk DiMaggio, hit him with a pitch (a strategy as
underhanded as his delivery), or pitch to him.
DiMaggio stood at the plate, unruffled. Coolly he smashed the first
pitch into left field for a double. It was a close call, but now Sisler's
record was in reach.
In a Sunday doubleheader with Washington at Griffith Stadium, on June 29,
DiMaggio tied Sisler's record in the first game and broke it in the nightcap.
The record-tying hit came off knuckleballer Dutch Leonard and was broken with
a last-chance single off the unknown Arnold Anderson. DiMaggio was one game
short of tying Willie Keeler's 1897 record.
The only mark left for DiMaggio to eclipse was tied in the second game of
a July 1 doubleheader with the Boston Red Sox and broken the next day.
The day DiMaggio claimed the American League record was marked by two
extremes of luck. It was fortunate his record-tying hit came early in the
game because a downpour deluged Yankee Stadium and the game was called after
five innings. It was unfortunate that during the rain delay no one kept an
eye on the bat rack. A souvenir hunter reached over the dugout and pulled out
a bat. He grabbed DiMaggio's favorite club.
Although he was upset, the man who rarely showed emotion quietly borrowed
a bat from teammate Tommy Henrich the next day. It was an identical
thirty-six-inch, thirty-six-ounce bat, and Joe used it to break Keeler's
record. His record-smashing hit was a prodigeous home run off Dick Newsome, a
19-game winner for the Red Sox. It carried high over the head of his rival,
Ted Williams, into the left field stands. Joe DiMaggio did not rest on his
laurels. Actually, with the pressure to produce at least one base hit each
game lifted, he began pounding out hits in clusters. He passed the 50-game
mark and his luck still held. In the fifty-fourth game, he again came up
against Johnny Rigney of the White Sox. This time he would have been stopped
except for a topped roller. A typical lusty swing sent a dribbler slowly
toward third base where Bob Kennedy was playing fearfully deep, a precaution
normally taken by rival third baseman against DiMaggio. It worked to Joe's
advantage that day as he beat out the slowly hit ball for his only hit.
However, it would work to his disadvantage a few days later in Cleveland.
Although Joe DiMaggio said after his streak had ended, "I wish it could
have gone on forever," like all good things it had to come to an end. Joe had
reached 56 games when the kind of luck which occasionally had sustained him,
such as the topped roller against Chicago, turned around. The Yankees came
into Cleveland and crowds came, divided between fans' wishes to witness the
streak extended and hometeam rooters' hopes that their team could bring the
mighty DiMaggio to a halt.
What could only be a matter of time happened. As a minor league star in
his native San Francisco, a nineteen-year-old Joe DiMaggio had been stopped
after hitting in 61 consecutive games. After the 1941 streak ended, the San
Francisco Chronicle, which had made daily reports of DiMaggio's
record-breaking games, observed that the Pacific Coast League string had been
ended by the son of a former major league pitching star, Bob Walsh, whose
father, Big Ed Walsh, would be elected to the Hall of Fame. It was pointed
out that DiMaggio's major league string was ended, in part, by Jim Bagby, Jr.,
another son of a successful major leaguer, a 31-game winner for the 1920 world
champion Cleveland Indians.
It wasn't so much the pitching of starter Al Smith or reliever Bagby that
halted DiMaggio as the glove work on the right side of the Indians' infield.
Twice Ken Keltner, playing a very deep third base, took drives down the
baseline and turned them into outs. And Joe's last chance found him deserted
by luck on a bad bounce. A ball headed up the middle took an erratic hop, and
shortstop Lou Boudreau grabbed it and flipped to second to start a double play
that closed off DiMaggio's chance to keep safely intact the stretch of games
in which he had hit.
Although the DiMaggio streak had been stopped, he was still a hot hitter,
and even his favorite bat was back. An embarrassed fan from Newark admitted
the theft and returned the bat, and Joe used it to continue his torrid
hitting. He kept pounding out hits on a daily basis until he had hit safely
in 16 more consecutive games. This meant he would have reached an incredible
73 games had not Keltner and Boudreau pulled off outstanding defensive plays
after game 56.
As it is, hitting safely in 72 of 73 games is almost unimaginable.
Historians had to go back to the overlooked Bad Bill Dahlen to find a
comparable feat for DiMaggio to eclipse almost half a century later. Back in
1894, after he had run up a string of 42 games, Dahlen ran off another stretch
of 28 games in which he hit safely. He had left a neglected legacy of hitting
in 70 of 71 games for DiMaggio to top with 72 in 73.
During his 56-game streak, Joe DiMaggio batted .408. Although he
finished the 1941 season with a .357 average, he was second to Ted Williams'
league-leading .406. However, DiMaggio had led his team to a championship and
this, with the incredible feat of hitting in 56 straight games, earned him the
Most Valuable Player Award by a close margin.
Those whose interest in statistics match, if not exceed, a curiosity
about the drama of making them, will want to know that, in hitting .408 during
the 56 games, DiMaggio scored 56 runs and batted in 55. He hit 15 home runs,
half his season's total, and had 35 extra-base hits among the 91 hits he
collected in 223 at-bats. He walked 21 times, was hit by a pitch twice, and
struck out only 7 times.
The Yankees went on to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series
and, as the Japanese went on to bomb Pearl Harbor and involve the United
States in World War Two, Joe was asked to take a $2,500 cut in salary for
1942. He managed to get a $5,000 raise and play the 1942 season before
entering military service in possession of a unique feat which still attracts
its new challengers.
Joe DiMaggio's 1941 Hitting Streak
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game
No. Date Club and Pitcher AB R H
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 5-15 White Sox, Smith 4 0 1
2 5-16 White Sox, Lee 4 2 2
3 5-17 White Sox, Rigney 3 1 1
4 5-18 Browns, Harris, Niggeling 3 3 3
5 5-19 Browns, Galehouse 3 0 1
6 5-20 Browns, Auker 5 1 1
7 5-21 Tigers, Rowe, Benton 5 0 2
8 5-22 Tigers, McKain 4 0 1
9 5-23 Red Sox, Newsome 5 0 1
10 5-24 Red Sox, Johnson 4 2 1
11 5-25 Red Sox, Grove 4 0 1
12 5-27 Senators, Chase, Anderson, Carrasquel 5 3 4
13 5-28 Senators, Hudson 4 1 1
14 5-29 Senators, Sundra 3 1 1
15 5-30 Red Sox, Johnson 2 1 1
16 5-30 Red Sox, Harris 3 0 1
17 6-1 Indians, Milnar 4 1 1
18 6-1 Indians, Harder 4 0 1
19 6-2 Indians, Feller 4 2 2
20 6-3 Tigers, Trout 4 1 1
21 6-5 Tigers, Newhouser 5 1 1
22 6-7 Browns, Muncrief, Allen, Caster 5 2 3
23 6-8 Browns, Auker 4 3 2
24 6-8 Browns, Caster, Kramer 4 1 2
25 6-10 White Sox, Rigney 5 1 1
26 6-12 White Sox, Lee 4 1 2
27 6-14 Indians, Feller 2 0 1
28 6-15 Indians, Bagby 3 1 1
29 6-16 Indians, Milnar 5 0 1
30 6-17 White Sox, Rigney 4 1 1
31 6-18 White Sox, Lee 3 0 1
32 6-19 White Sox, Smith, Ross 3 2 3
33 6-20 Tigers, Newsom, McKain 5 3 4
34 6-21 Tigers, Trout 4 0 1
35 6-22 Tigers, Newhouser, Newsom 5 1 2
36 6-24 Browns, Muncrief 4 1 1
37 6-25 Browns, Galehouse 4 1 1
38 6-26 Browns, Auker 4 0 1
39 6-27 Athletics, Dean 3 1 2
40 6-28 Athletics, Babich, Harris 5 1 2
41 6-29 Senators, Leonard 4 1 1
42 6-29 Senators, Anderson 5 1 1
43 7-1 Red Sox, Harris, Ryba 4 0 2
44 7-1 Red Sox, Wilson 3 1 1
45 7-2 Red Sox, Newsome 5 1 1
46 7-5 Athletics, Marchildon 4 2 1
47 7-6 Athletics, Babich, Hadley 5 2 4
48 7-6 Athletics, Knott 4 0 2
49 7-10 Browns, Niggling 2 0 1
50 7-11 Browns, Harris, Kramer 5 1 4
51 7-12 Browns, Auker, Muncrief 5 1 2
52 7-13 White Sox, Lyons, Hallett 4 2 3
53 7-13 White Sox, Lee 4 0 1
54 7-14 White Sox, Rigney 3 0 1
55 7-15 White Sox, Smith 4 1 2
56 7-16 Indians, Milnar, Krakauskas 4 3 3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals 223 56 91
The Pete Rose Challenge
The year 1978 was a tremendous one for Pete Rose, whose career with the
Cincinnati Reds qualified him as a potential challenger for Joe DiMaggio's
record of hitting safely in 56 consecutive games. Although he did not hit for
the high averages of the other streakers who had held records--Keeler, Sisler,
Hornsby, and DiMaggio--Rose batted leadoff and had amassed 10 seasons with 200
or more hits. Even more, he was the kind of player who would rise to any
occasion. He loved a challenge.
Longest Hitting Streaks, NL
-------------------------------------------
Player Team Year G
-------------------------------------------
Willie Keeler BAL 1897 44
Pete Rose CIN 1978 44
Bill Dahlen CHI 1894 42
Tommy Holmes BOS 1945 37
Billy Hamilton PHI 1894 36
Fred Clarke LOU 1895 35
Benito Santiago SD 1987 34
George Davis NY 1893 33
Rogers Hornsby STL 1922 32
Ed Delahanty PHI 1899 31
Willie Davis LA 1969 31
Rico Carty ATL 1970 31
Elmer Smith CIN 1898 30
Stan Musial STL 1950 30
-------------------------------------------
Longest Hitting Streaks, AL
-------------------------------------------
Player Team Year G
-------------------------------------------
Joe DiMaggio NY 1941 56
George Sisler STL 1922 41
Ty Cobb DET 1911 40
Paul Molitor MIL 1987 39
Ty Cobb DET 1917 35
George Sisler STL 1925 34
George McQuinn STL 1938 34
Dom DiMaggio BOS 1949 34
Hal Chase NY 1907 33
Heinie Manush WAS 1933 33
Nap Lajoie CLE 1906 31
Sam Rice WAS 1924 31
Ken Landreaux MIN 1980 31
Tris Speaker BOS 1912 30
Goose Goslin DET 1934 30
Ron LeFlore DET 1976 30
George Brett KC 1980 30
-------------------------------------------
Before he got around to taking a swing at DiMaggio's record, Rose had, as
his first order of business, the matter of making his 3,000th career base hit.
He opened the 1978 season needing 34 hits to reach a plateau only twelve
others had gained. On May 5 Rose reached 3,000 with a single off Montreal
pitcher Steve Rogers, before a hometown crowd at Riverfront Stadium.
"Charlie Hustle" was having an epoch-making season and, with one landmark
reached, he soon found himself en route to another. Consecutive-game hitting
streaks begin without signaling their advent. It is only as they grow that
they attract attention.
Pete Rose was only batting .267 when he got a pair of hits against the
Cubs on June 14. He kept adding hits in the games he played and, eventually,
it was decided he had enough in a row to start looking for a record to be
broken.
DiMaggio's 56-game streak in 1941 loomed far beyond expectation.
However, the record keepers had gerrymandered Willie Keeler, holder of the
National League record at 44, out of the books. There was a modern mark of
37, set during the wartime year of 1945, by Tommy Holmes of the Boston Braves.
Pete Rose hustled onward and, as luck would have it, came into Shea
Stadium for a series with the Mets on the verge of knocking Holmes out of the
record book. The patron saint of hype was on the ball, and a now
sixty-one-year-old Tommy Holmes was on hand to root for Rose. He was
there in a dual capacity. Tommy Holmes was also the Mets' community relations
director.
There was another reward in having Pete Rose break Holmes' record in
front of the Mets' fans. In 1973 Pete had been persona non grata when he had
wrestled on the ground with skinny shortstop Bud Harrelson in a League
Championship Game after a takeout slide by Rose at second base. The Mets fans
remembered Rose calling them "animals" as they threatened to avenge the honor
of the team by challenging the wives and children of the Reds' players in
field boxes behind the Cincinnati dugout. However, hype places a statute of
limitations on vengeance in New York. Whipped to a frenzy of impartiality by
the Mets' announcers and a record-hungry press, people filled Shea Stadium
ready to cheer Rose on while trusting he'd not be so unappreciative as to make
his record-extending safety a game-winning hit.
On July 24 Pete Rose equaled the record of Tommy Holmes and to chants of
"Go, Pete, Go!" broke it the next night against Craig Swan. An appreciative
Holmes, pleased to have been a short-term celebrity, came onto the field to
shake the hand of the man who had erased him from the record books. Pete now
held the "modern" National League record for hitting safely in consecutive
games. In fairness, he would now try to reach Willie Keeler's mark of 44, a
feat turned before the century began.
Pete continued his quest. He had the skill, the competitive instincts,
and the attitude to do it. He was unruffled by press attention, accustomed to
it as the consequence of being the game's most colorful player of his time.
Would he break DiMaggio's seemingly unreachable mark? If anyone could, Pete
Rose could do it. But first he had to lay the ghost of Willie Keeler and his
81-year-old record.
Willie Keeler's 1897 Hitting Streak
---------------------------------------------
Game
No. Date AB R H
---------------------------------------------
1 April 22 5 2 2
2 April 23 4 1 2
3 April 24 4 1 2
4 April 26 4 0 1
5 April 27 5 2 2
6 April 28 5 1 3
7 April 29 4 1 2
8 April 20 4 3 3
9 May 3 4 0 1
10 May 4 4 0 2
11 May 5 4 0 1
12 May 6 5 0 3
13 May 7 6 2 1
14 May 8 3 1 1
15 May 10 4 0 1
16 May 11 5 1 2
17 May 12 5 0 3
18 May 14 6 2 2
19 May 15 6 2 2
20 May 16 6 3 3
21 May 17 4 1 2
22 May 18 6 1 1
23 May 19 4 1 1
24 May 20 4 1 3
25 May 21 3 1 2
26 May 22 4 2 2
27 May 25 5 0 1
28 May 26 5 1 2
29 May 27 5 1 3
30 May 29 6 2 2
31 May 30 4 0 1
32 May 31 4 1 1
33 May 31 5 2 1
34 June 2 5 1 4
35 June 5 5 1 1
36 June 7 4 1 1
37 June 9 5 2 2
38 June 10 4 0 2
39 June 11 4 0 2
40 June 12 5 2 2
41 June 14 5 1 2
42 June 15 3 0 1
43 June 16 5 2 1
44 June 18 4 3 3
---------------------------------------------
Totals 201 49 82
It was a struggle, as the whole streak had been, but Rose reached
Keeler's mark on July 31 in Atlanta. His record-equaling hit came off the
knuckleball pitching of Phil Niekro, a man whose own feats as a middle-aged
ballplayer also merited recognition.
Keeler had been caught. Would he be passed? No. The next night a rookie
lefthander, Larry McWilliams, held Pete Rose hitless through most of the game,
and reliever Gene Garber provided the final denial. He struck Rose out.
Pete Rose is joined with Willie Keeler, linked now, regardless of the era
when the feat was accomplished, as coholders of the National League record for
hitting safely in consecutive games.
Pete Rose's 1978 Hitting Streak
----------------------------------------------------------------
Game
No. Date Club and Pitcher AB R H
----------------------------------------------------------------
1 6-14 Cubs, Roberts 4 1 2
2 6-16 Cardinals, Denny 4 1 2
3 6-17 Cardinals, Yuckovich, Schultz 4 2 2
4 6-18 Cardinals, Martinez 4 1 1
5 6-20 Giants, Montefusco 5 2 2
6 6-21 Giants, Halicki 4 0 1
7 6-22 Giants, Knepper 4 0 1
8 6-23 Dodgers, Hooton 4 0 1
9 6-24 Dodgers, Welch 5 1 4
10 6-25 Dodgers, John 3 1 2
11 6-26 Astros, Lemongello 5 1 1
12 6-27 Astros, Niekro 4 1 1
13 6-28 Astros, Dixon 4 0 1
14 6-29 Astros, Bannister 3 0 1
15 6-30 Dodgers, Rautzhan 4 1 1
16 6-30 Dodgers, Welch, Forster, Hough 5 1 3
17 7-1 Dodgers, Rhoden 5 0 1
18 7-2 Dodgers, Rau 4 1 1
19 7-3 Astros, Bannister, McLaughlin 5 1 3
20 7-4 Astros, Richard 4 1 1
21 7-5 Astros, Niekro 4 0 1
22 7-6 Giants, Blue, Curtis 5 1 3
23 7-7 Giants, Barr 4 0 1
24 7-8 Giants, Montefusco 4 1 1
25 7-9 Giants, Halicki, Knepper 4 1 3
26 7-13 Mets, Koosman, Lockwood 5 0 2
27 7-14 Mets, Zachry 5 0 2
28 7-15 Mets, Swan 2 2 1
29 7-16 Mets, Siebert 5 1 1
30 7-17 Expos, Bahnsen 4 0 1
31 7-18 Expos, Dues 4 0 2
32 7-19 Phillies, Reed 4 1 1
33 7-20 Phillies, Kaat 5 1 1
34 7-21 Expos, Grimsley 3 1 1
35 7-22 Expos, Schatzeder 3 0 1
36 7-23 Expos, Rogers, Knowles 6 0 2
37 7-24 Mets, Zachry, Lockwood 5 2 2
38 7-25 Mets, Swan 4 1 3
39 7-26 Mets, Espinosa 3 0 1
40 7-28 Phillies, Lerch 2 1 1
41 7-28 Phillies, Carlton 4 0 1
42 7-29 Phillies, Lonborg, Kaat 4 1 3
43 7-30 Phillies, Christenson 5 0 2
44 7-31 Braves, Niekro 4 0 1
----------------------------------------------------------------
Totals 182 30 70
Consecutive Games Played
On May 31, 1925, no one thought the young substitute pinch-hitting for
the New York Yankees was launching the most extraordinary streak of durability
the game would ever see. The next day Lou Gehrig took the place of the team's
star first baseman, Wally Pipp, and continued his uncertain start toward a
goal so distant it was unimaginable.
Gehrig had played for Hartford in the Eastern League after the Yankees
signed him off the campus of Columbia University. It was thought he would
make the major league grade, but he had not been handed a starting job. Only
when Pipp complained of a headache and was given the day off by manager Miller
Huggins did Gehrig get a chance to start a game. So uncertain of the rookie's
skills was management that two days later Aaron Ward pinch-hit for Gehrig and
Pipp finished the game in the field.
Before June ended, Gehrig had been taken out of games three times for
pinch hitters, although he continued to start games. On July 5 he wasn't even
the starting first baseman. Fred Merkle, who in 1908, as a rookie himself,
had failed to run to second on what appeared to be a game-winning single,
started the game. Merkle, whose gaffe eventually cost the New York Giants a
pennant to the Chicago Cubs, had been forever more labeled Bonehead by
unforgiving fans. Gehrig was destined for adulation. This day he made a
ninth-inning appearance, an unsuspected extension of a fledgling feat.
Of course at the time there was no suspicion that young Lou Gehrig had
launched a string of consecutive-game appearances which wouldn't end until
fourteen years later. He began it as a young giant in the prime of his life
and ended it a dying man, forced out of the lineup with a rare disease. From
start to finish it became a matter of drama as the survival of the string
became a compelling goal which Gehrig sustained despite injury, sickness,
accident, and managed to avoid ending inadvertently.
Gehrig is remembered, or known to people who never saw him play, as the
gentle giant who was portrayed by actor Gary Cooper in the movie The Pride of
the Yankees. In reality, particularly in his early years, Gehrig was a
hard-nosed, competitive player who would readily leap into argument with
umpires and enemy players. He was ejected from a major league game a half
dozen times without drawing a suspension which would have ended his string of
games.
Durable, yes. Gehrig was well dubbed "the Iron Horse" for his rawboned
toughness. However, he never spared himself. A statistic which astonishes
fans is that he stole home 15 times, risking crashing into a plate-blocking
catcher. He ran the bases with surprising speed and fearless abandon. Babe
Ruth and Lou Gehrig are remembered for the home runs they hit; yet they were
also daring base runners.
Once Gehrig's penchant for never missing a game was established, just
being in the boxscore was the goal. He could have simultaneously set records
for consecutive games played at first base, while extending his string of
boxscore appearances. However, while in the sixth year of his developing
string, in a late-season game, the Yankees promoted a game in which Babe Ruth
would pitch while Lou Gehrig took his place in the outfield. Harry Rice, an
outfielder who sometimes spelled Gehrig late in one-sided games, played first
base.
Gehrig's 2,130-game skein, stretched over fourteen seasons, was not
simply a matter of having him go out to first base day after day. For one
thing, there were times when he could hardly play. When the Iron Horse was no
longer a frisky colt, he developed lumbago, and it hobbled him from time to
time. In midseason of 1934, Lou was seized by an attack and, immobilized, had
to be helped off the field.
There was a conscious awareness on the part of the Yankees of the
consecutive games Gehrig played, and this was kept alive by the sportswriters
who covered the team. Everett Scott had astonished baseball with his
consecutive-game appearances at shortstop, ending a string of 1,307 in 1925,
the season Gehrig, his rookie roommate, began his string. Scott had started
his run of games with the Boston Red Sox, and when he was bought by the
Yankees in 1923, he carried on the string without interruption. He slowed
down drastically early in 1925 and was first benched, then sold to the
Senators. Unlike Scott, Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse, would never be put out to
pasture. However, Scott had left a legend behind, and it served to lead
Gehrig toward new standards of durability.
The day after Gehrig had been helped off the field, with his string at
1,426, and Scott's record broken, he made a contrived appearance in the
lineup. Hardly able to stand, he was in the lineup of the visiting Yankees in
Detroit as the leadoff batter, penciled in to play shortstop. Despite his
pain, he lined out a single and, with his appearance established in the
boxscore, gave way to pinch runner Red Rolfe, who finished the game at short
while Gehrig took his aching back to the hotel. Jack Saltzgaver, a utility
infielder who, over the years, replaced Gehrig at first base more often than
any other player, filled in at first that day.
Gehrig was back in the regular lineup the next day, collecting four hits,
three of them doubles. He was on his way to the only batting title he ever
won and the Triple Crown for 1934. But it wasn't a pain-free future ahead for
Lou. Lumbago continued to be a problem. He left games early because he was
feeling ill, and he had a thumb injury in 1938 which he ignored to keep his
string going.
It was during 1938 that the perpetual machine began to show signs of
wearing out. For the first time he batted below .300; his stats--a .295
average, 29 home runs, and 107 runs batted in--would have pleased most
players. But they were substandard for Lou, and so was his general play.
Just age catching up, it was thought, just the way it had slowed Everett Scott
in 1925 when Gehrig was starting out.
In spring training the next season, it was evident that something was
amiss, but manager Joe McCarthy left it to Gehrig to decide when to call it
quits. It was on May 2, 1939, after eight feebly played games had brought his
string to 2,130, that Gehrig advised McCarthy to replace him.
The longest streak of its kind, seemingly impossible to ever exceed
despite the longer seasons, ended. For fourteen years Gehrig had played
despite a broken thumb, a broken toe, back spasms, frequent colds, and
recurring attacks of lumbago. He had been forced from the lineup by something
no one could foresee and almost no one had ever heard about. When the tests
at Mayo Clinic proved that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, it was so
singular an affliction that it was renamed Lou Gehrig's Disease. It was
incurable then and still is. Gehrig was a doomed man. He knew it, as did his
wife, Eleanor. They bravely pretended to each other that Lou would regain his
strength.
He continued to carry the lineup card to home plate during the 1939
pennant-winning season, as the team captain, but soon he had to surrender even
that role. On July 4, 1939, a Lou Gehrig Day was arranged at Yankee Stadium.
The scene was repeated in the Gary Cooper movie and is seen often in filmed
highlights of baseball history.
Babe Ruth, who had broken relationships with Gehrig during a 1934
postseason tour to the Pacific and Japan, embraced his former teammate, and
the occasion came to a climax as Gehrig, a man who knew his life was nearly
over, stood at a microphone, surrounded by the Yankees who had been his fellow
players. He told a choked-up audience, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest
man on the face of the earth." He died on June 2, 1941.
Far in the Distance--But Closing In
Lou Gehrig's legacy of stamina and determination reached such a length
that once historians couldonly measure the sturdiest of subsequent
players to see who might become a runner-up. However, at the end of the
1993 season the durable Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles loomed as
a legitimate, if still distant, challenger. In 1991 he moved into second
place ahead of Everett Scott. Barring an accident or illness which would
sideline him, he will overtake Lou Gehrig midway through the 1995 season.
Scott, whose record Gehrig had eclipsed, now is third on the list, just
ahead of Steve Garvey's 1,207 games. For many years, Joe Sewell ranked
third behind Scott. Sewell is best remembered for his avoidance of
strikeouts. Twice he fanned only 4 times in a whole season. Once he went 115
games without striking out in 437 times at bat. He set his consecutive-game
string with Cleveland, later moving to the Yankees where he played for three
years as Lou Gehrig's teammate. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1977.
During the 1930s, Gus Suhr, a fine-fielding first baseman for the
Pittsburgh Pirates, reached 822 consecutive games played. It was dwarfed,
even as he made it, by Gehrig's still intact string, but he far exceeded
earlier National League marks.
Gus Suhr's National League record was broken by Stan Musial, who played
in 895 straight games, ending in 1957 at age thirty-six. This provided a
target for Billy Williams when his career with the Cubs got under way in 1963
and daily appearances were part of his routine. He sailed past Musial to
claim the National League record at 1,117. He stopped in 1970, and the
occasional rest did him good. He led the National League in batting in 1972
and his career ended with Oakland in 1975. He has been elected to the Hall
of Fame.
Williams' new National League record provided an attainable goal for
Steve Garvey, who exuded the stamina and will power required to catch Gehrig.
He just didn't get started soon enough. Gehrig was twenty-two when his streak
began; Garvey was twenty-six.
Also, Garvey did not become an everyday regular with the Los Angeles
Dodgers until 1975, his sixth season with the team. He had been regarded as
erratic at third base but, once moved across the diamond in 1974, he delivered
with consistency in the field, at the bat, with power, and refused to budge
from the lineup.
He left the Dodgers with his string intact after the 1982 season and took
his Iron Man act to San Diego. A hand injury took him out of the lineup on
July 29, 1983. He had broken Billy Williams' record the previous season, and
all told he played in 1,207 consecutive games.
A special recognition is due to Pete Rose. Had he not paused to catch
his breath during the 1978 season, when he was thirty-seven years old, he
would hold the National League record. In 1978 Rose had more realistic aims
than Gehrig's too distant goal. During that season he reached the 3,000-hit
mark and set aim on Ty Cobb's all-time total. He also captured the headlines
with his assault on Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.
The year 1978 was also Rose's last season with the Cincinnati Reds and,
in a celebrated case of free agency, he moved to Philadelphia. There he not
only resumed his climb toward Cobb's hit totals, but played again on a daily
basis. When he sat down for two games in 1978 with the Reds, he snapped a
somewhat modest run of 678 games. When he finally left the daily lineup in
Philadelphia, in 1983, he had run off an even longer string of 745 games. Add
them together and Rose's total is 1,423 games, longer than anyone's stretch
except Gehrig's and now Ripken's.
Most Consecutive Games Played
-----------------------------------
2,130 Lou Gehrig
1,897 Cal Ripken (through 1993)
1,307 Everett Scott
1,207 Steve Garvey
1,117 Billy Williams
1,103 Joe Sewell
895 Stan Musial
829 Eddie Yost
822 Gus Suhr
798 Nellie Fox
-----------------------------------
