Baseball Streaks
i've never quite understood the fascination that baseball has with individual streaks.
- cal ripken showed up to work for a bunch of days in a row... big f'ing deal. many of those days, he was hurting the team just to keep "the streak" alive.
- joe dimaggio got a hit in 56 straight games. why is this a bigger deal than ted williams hitting .406 in the same season? dimaggio won the mvp for a season where he hit .357 with an ops of 1.083 (obp .440 slugging .643) and 152 runs created. in the same season, williams hit .406 with an ops of 1.288 (obp .553 slugging .735) and 184 runs created. during the streak, dimaggio hit .408 (only .002 higher than williams hit for the whole frigging season). it's not even close, williams' 1941 season is a much more impressive feat.
team win streaks i can get excited about. individual streaks? yawn.
- cal ripken showed up to work for a bunch of days in a row... big f'ing deal. many of those days, he was hurting the team just to keep "the streak" alive.
- joe dimaggio got a hit in 56 straight games. why is this a bigger deal than ted williams hitting .406 in the same season? dimaggio won the mvp for a season where he hit .357 with an ops of 1.083 (obp .440 slugging .643) and 152 runs created. in the same season, williams hit .406 with an ops of 1.288 (obp .553 slugging .735) and 184 runs created. during the streak, dimaggio hit .408 (only .002 higher than williams hit for the whole frigging season). it's not even close, williams' 1941 season is a much more impressive feat.
team win streaks i can get excited about. individual streaks? yawn.
Labels: baseball
posted by The Mean Guy at 9:44 AM
2 Comments:
On the topic of individual streaks, I’m with you 100%, although I admit that I enjoyed watching Rollins’ run last year and earlier this year (although not nearly so much as Jimmy did). You’re completely correct in my opinion to point out that Teddy Ballgame got jobbed in favor of Mr. Coffee. Of course, the media really never did take a shine to the game’s second best hitter of all time.
I’ll run with the bait with Ripken, but you already know how I feel about him. Cal was never a team player, and it didn’t bother him a bit that he hurt the team. He was far more concerned with his own image, enabled by a sycophantic media that doted on him and built him up to be much better than he ever was. How else do you explain blowing off the team to travel exclusively with his private pet, Brady Anderson?
Ripken has always occupied a special place in my heart right along side of his separated-at-birth media-darling twin, Brett Favre. If only ESPN boys Joe Morgan and Jon Miller had as much unexplainable clout as John Madden, Barry Bonds would be right there with them and complete the triumvirate.
With respect to team streaks, I’m also ambivalent. I’ll settle for winning series all season long. With the new look Mets up in the saddle, 2 out of three would be just fine with me.
Ben
Before anyone asks, while I think Barry Bonds is a jackass like Favre and Ripken, I do NOT think he is overrated. In fact, I think he is the best ballplayer since Willie Mays (or maybe even earlier).
Ben
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