New York Yankees Baseball

56* - Does Joe D’s Streak Deserve an Asterisk?

October 8th, 2007

After watching Derek Jeter throw the ball away in the first inning last night, only to somehow avoid the E6 on a rather questionable "homer" call, I happened upon this rather fitting article over on ABC.com.

Here is an article that discusses whether or not Joe Dimaggio’s 56 game hitting streak is truly legitimate, and poses the rhetorical question that is also the title of this post - does "the streak" deserve an asterisk? The article discusses the relationship and questions the impartiality of the official scorer for some of the games - Dan Daniel.

Specifically, Robbeson cites two games in the middle of the streak, the 30th and 31st, when DiMaggio managed just one hit. In each of these games, the hit was suspect and could well have, and perhaps should have, been deemed an error.

The first involved a bad bounce that hit off the shoulder of shortstop Luke Appling after he reached for it. Hits and errors were not immediately recorded on the scoreboard so, Robbeson writes, some spectators believed the streak had come to an end. Daniel, however, called it a hit.

The 31st game of the streak involved a fielding play that was also arguably an error on the part of Appling, who got his glove on the ball, but dropped it. Again Daniel scored it a hit.

So, does Joe D deserve an asterisk? Of course not, although you would have a better chance convincing me (with video) that this record is tainted due to the outside influence of a third party than you could for Barry Bond’s 756 and counting.

As a matter of fact, for all the Barry haters, I have a proposition - for each and every one of Barry Bond’s homeruns - anyone who can prove that Barry was on a performance enhancing drug that was banned by baseball at that time and can prove that the pitcher he faced was not on any PEDs, we can lobby to have that homerun erased.

Plus anyway, all you Barry Haters, he isn’t even the all-time homerun champ - that belongs to Sadaharu Oh, or do we still hold the view that the Japanese League is well beneath the MLB (even though their players come over and play just fine in the "bigs" and Ichiro is the best player in the world, not A-Rod)?

Records are nothing more than statistical anomalies, important only in terms of lore and legend, but fun to argue about for sure.

Entry Filed under: Joe Dimaggio, Asterisk, The Streak