Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak from 1941 stands still today, 80 years later, and is certainly sure to stand this season, what with the game’s overall batting average around 240, a 50-year low. Pete Rose reached 44 games in 1978, but fell to Atlanta’s Phil Niekro and Gene Garber, who Rose said pitched like it was game seven of the World Series, despite the Red’s 16-4 lead. In the Modern Era of baseball, no one has come close.
In what qualifies as old news to perhaps every fan but me, The New York Times published an article today about MLB’s now 20-year old game, Beat the Streak:
The contest (with a 5.6 Million Dollar prize), let’s you pick any two hitters each day, but no one has beaten DiMaggio’s streak, though three have reached 51. Of course, DiMaggio was hitting 408 at the time, an average no one has come close to in those 20 years, so….
DiMaggio’s streak ended on July 17 against Cleveland. His last at bat that day came with the bases loaded. Cleveland’s shortstop, Lou Boudreau, fielded a short hop and turned a double play to end The Streak.
A few years ago, I wrote a poem of sorts upon the death of Joe DiMaggio. It seems fitting to share today:
