BASEBALL
1. DiMaggio's streak
On May 15, 1941, Joe DiMaggio had one single in four at-bats during the New York Yankees' 13-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox. More than two months would pass before DiMaggio would go an entire game without at least one hit.
His 56-game hitting streak is one of the most sacred records in sports -- and one of the most unapproachable. In the 62 years since, Pete Rose's 44-game hitting streak in 1978 is the closest any player has come to matching DiMaggio. Few athletes in any sport have ever come close to matching the excitement and grip that DiMaggio's streak had on the country in 1941.
It was a daily watch, by radio, newspaper or telegraph. Congressmen had pages rush in and interrupt the nation's business to tell them what DiMaggio had done that day.
There was the night in Chicago when the mob sent a limousine to pick up DiMaggio and a teammate, whisking them off to a nightclub and a night to remember.
The Yankees played in front of sellout crowds everywhere, and teammate Charlie Keller cracked, "It looks as if we've landed with the fat women and the wild animals."
George Sisler held the modern-day record of 41 straight, and DiMaggio broke that during a doubleheader against the Washington Senators at the apex moment of suspense during the streak.
In the first game he was 0-for-2 against knuckleballer Dutch Leonard. Then Leonard threw a fastball in the sixth inning that DiMaggio lined to left for a single, tying the record.
Between games, somebody stole his favorite bat out of the bat rack. DiMaggio was hitless in his first three at-bats with a new bat. Then DiMaggio used one of his old bats, one he had lent teammate Tommy Heinrich. This time he ripped a single to left, drawing a standing ovation from Senators own fans.
The streak ended July 17, when DiMaggio was hitless in three at-bats in a 4-3 Yankees win at Cleveland. He started a 16-game hitting streak the next day.
Less than three weeks after the streak ended, Les Brown and His Orchestra recorded Joltin' Joe DiMaggio, which climbed to No. 12 on the charts.
"Joe ... Joe ... DiMaggio, we want you on our side," the nation sang.
2. Aaron passes Ruth
715
If Babe Ruth wasn't the greatest baseball player in history, he was certainly the most colorful and the most revered. His biggest home run exploits, accomplished amid the backdrop of the Roarin' Twenties, changed baseball forever and made him a national icon.
Roger Maris found out how difficult it could be to challenge one of Ruth's records when he hit 61 home runs in 1961, a feat many people resented because it eclipsed the one and only Sultan of Swat.
Hank Aaron had it worse. Ruth was white. Aaron is black, although his enemies used much worse terms as he approached baseball's all-time home run record at the end of his career.
He had far more admirers than enemies. But the enemies were there, more than enough to add extra fear and pressure to an already monumental accomplishment. Aaron received so much hate mail that the FBI had to open every letter. His life was threatened. His parents were told they would never see their son again if he broke the record. There was even a plot to kidnap his daughter.
"Babe Ruth never had to contend with anything like that when he was establishing his record," Aaron said.
Perhaps nobody else ever did, but Aaron did not let it stand in his way. On April 8, 1974, in front of a sellout crowd in Atlanta and in front of a national television audience, Aaron smashed his 715th home run off of Dodgers pitcher Al Downing.
Afterward, Aaron said: "The average person can't realize what a nightmare this has been. The last 10 days of the [1973] season, all winter, spring training, right up until today. Now, I'm just tired. Not let down -- just tired. I'm beat."
Aaron finished his career with 755 home runs, a record that Barry Bonds might break in the next few years.
3. Williams, at .406, eclipses magical mark
.400
From 1901 to 1940, 12 players had hit at least .400 or better for a season. Going into the last day of the 1941 season, Ted Williams was trying to be the 13th player in modern major league history to hit .400. His batting average going into the final doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics was .3996.
Legend says that Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offered to let Williams sit out the final two games and keep his .400 average. Legend also has it that Williams refused, determined to finish out like "a .400 hitter"
It's a great story and, of course, not quite true. The offer was more of a suggestion by Cronin earlier in the week of what might happen on the final weekend. But Williams was officially at .399 according to the statistics printed in the papers on that final day. If he sat both games, he would not be a .400 hitter.
There was no doubt he would play. There is also no doubt that he finished spectacularly. In his first at-bat of the afternoon, he hit a line drive single to right field.
Williams later told writer Ed Linn, "I was so nervous when I came to the plate that my hands were shaking."
That first hit took some pressure off, and he hit a home run his second time up. When the afternoon was over, he had gone 6-for-8 and had finished at .406.
Baseball has not had a .400 hitter since.
4. Ryan is King of Ks
383
56
Nolan Ryan holds the career record with 5,714 strikeouts. He also set the single-season record when he struck out 383 batters for the California Angels in 1973.
Ryan had already thrown two no-hitters and won 20 games that season before he took the mound for his final start against the Minnesota Twins. He needed 15 strikeouts to tie the record of 382, set by Sandy Koufax with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1965.
The Twins scored three runs in the first inning before Ryan retired anybody. He struck out the side to get out of the inning, and the Angels scored three in the bottom of the first to tie the game.
The score was tied 4-4 after nine innings. Ryan had 15 strikeouts at that point, striking out Steve Brye to end the eighth to tie the record. He failed to strike anybody out in the ninth, and the game continued into extra innings.
Ryan had developed leg cramps in the ninth, and the trainers were massaging both calf muscles fiercely on the bench. He would face a total of 49 batters in the game and, with seven walks, probably threw over 200 pitches. He went back out for the 10th. Neither team scored, but Ryan again failed to strike anybody out.
In the 11th, Brye grounded out. Rod Carew drew the seventh walk off of Ryan, and Tony Oliva flied out to center for the second out. With Rich Reese at the plate, Carew broke for second and catcher Jeff Torborg made a strong throw. But Carew slid in safely, much to Torborg's relief because he wanted Ryan to get the record.
Ryan did, striking out Reese to end the inning. The Angels then scored in the bottom of the inning to win the game.
Whitey Herzog once estimated that if the American League had not adopted the designated hitter rule that year, which prevented pitchers from batting, Ryan would have struck out more than 400.
5. Ripken's iron legacy
2,632
For many years, few people thought Lou Gehrig's record of playing 2,130 consecutive games would be broken. But Cal Ripken did just that Sept. 6, 1995, at Baltimore's Camden Yards when he pushed past Gehrig by playing in his 2,131st consecutive game. The streak finally ended at 2,632.
He closed in on the record against the backdrop of the 1994-95 players strike, the worst work stoppage in the game's history. The 1994 World Series had been canceled because of the strike, and baseball had taken a serious and well-deserved public relations beating.
Ripken's record-tying and record-breaking nights were baseball's biggest events since the strike had ended. The Orioles handed out 750 media credentials for the two days.
The record was tied Sept. 5 in the Orioles' 8-0 victory over the Anaheim Angels. After officially tying the record in the fifth inning, Ripken made the night extra special with a home run off Angels reliever Mark Holzemer. Ripken received many gifts afterward, but the one that touched him the most was from former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Jim Gott.
Gott earned his first major league victory May 30, 1982, the first game of Ripken's streak. Gott had saved the game ball and presented it to Ripken after the record-tying game.
"It was pretty incredible to me that he wanted to do this," Ripken said.
The big moment came the following night. Ripken, after hitting a home run in the fourth inning, broke the record when the game became official in the fifth and received an extended standing ovation from the sellout crowd.
In the dugout, teammate Rafael Palmeiro said, "You're going to have to take a lap."
Ripken resisted, thinking it would show up the Angels. Ten minutes later, with the crowd still standing and clapping, Ripken gave in. Palmeiro and Bobby Bonilla pushed him out of the dugout, and he ran around the warning track at Camden Yards, shaking hands with as many fans as possible as the crowd, which included President Clinton, continued to roar.
It is one of the magical moments in baseball history.
6. Rose's greed leads to record
4,256
No player has polarized baseball as much as Pete Rose because of his indefinite suspension for gambling. But even before Rose was banished from the game, he could invite controversy.
Such was the case with his pusuit of the all-time record for hits, held by Ty Cobb with 4,191.
On Aug. 16, 1984, the Cincinnati Reds called a news conference to announce that Rose had been re-acquired from the Montreal Expos for the purpose of making him their player-manager. At the time, Rose was 43 and hitting a weak .259 for the Expos.
The Reds, suffering on the field and at the gate, wanted him strictly as a manager. Rose, with 4,062 hits at the time, seemed all but finished as a player. But he insisted on continuing to play, and the Reds accepted that, hoping his playing time would be limited.
They had promising first baseman Nick Esasky. But Rose continued to put himself in the lineup the next season in his unabashed pursuit of Cobb's record. Esasky's playing time was sacrificed.
While most of baseball was thrilled with Rose's assault on the record, former Reds teammate Johnny Bench told the Cincinnati Post: "Pete's got luck on his side. If the Reds hadn't needed a manager, he wouldn't even be close."
Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post wrote: "There's something ugly in Rose's passion to hang on and creep past Cobb. At least Hank Aaron was still a credible slugger when he broke Babe Ruth's career home run record."
Yet, on Sept. 11, 1985, Rose blooped a single to left off of San Diego's Eric Show for the 4,192nd hit of his career.
Rose, playing 110 games at first base, hit .264 that year with two home runs and 46 RBI in 405 at-bats. Esasky, forced to shuttle between first, third and the outfield, hit .262 with 21 home runs and 62 RBI in 413 at-bats.
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1. DiMaggio's streak
On May 15, 1941, Joe DiMaggio had one single in four at-bats during the New York Yankees' 13-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox. More than two months would pass before DiMaggio would go an entire game without at least one hit.
His 56-game hitting streak is one of the most sacred records in sports -- and one of the most unapproachable. In the 62 years since, Pete Rose's 44-game hitting streak in 1978 is the closest any player has come to matching DiMaggio. Few athletes in any sport have ever come close to matching the excitement and grip that DiMaggio's streak had on the country in 1941.
It was a daily watch, by radio, newspaper or telegraph. Congressmen had pages rush in and interrupt the nation's business to tell them what DiMaggio had done that day.
There was the night in Chicago when the mob sent a limousine to pick up DiMaggio and a teammate, whisking them off to a nightclub and a night to remember.
The Yankees played in front of sellout crowds everywhere, and teammate Charlie Keller cracked, "It looks as if we've landed with the fat women and the wild animals."
George Sisler held the modern-day record of 41 straight, and DiMaggio broke that during a doubleheader against the Washington Senators at the apex moment of suspense during the streak.
In the first game he was 0-for-2 against knuckleballer Dutch Leonard. Then Leonard threw a fastball in the sixth inning that DiMaggio lined to left for a single, tying the record.
Between games, somebody stole his favorite bat out of the bat rack. DiMaggio was hitless in his first three at-bats with a new bat. Then DiMaggio used one of his old bats, one he had lent teammate Tommy Heinrich. This time he ripped a single to left, drawing a standing ovation from Senators own fans.
The streak ended July 17, when DiMaggio was hitless in three at-bats in a 4-3 Yankees win at Cleveland. He started a 16-game hitting streak the next day.
Less than three weeks after the streak ended, Les Brown and His Orchestra recorded Joltin' Joe DiMaggio, which climbed to No. 12 on the charts.
"Joe ... Joe ... DiMaggio, we want you on our side," the nation sang.
2. Aaron passes Ruth
715
If Babe Ruth wasn't the greatest baseball player in history, he was certainly the most colorful and the most revered. His biggest home run exploits, accomplished amid the backdrop of the Roarin' Twenties, changed baseball forever and made him a national icon.
Roger Maris found out how difficult it could be to challenge one of Ruth's records when he hit 61 home runs in 1961, a feat many people resented because it eclipsed the one and only Sultan of Swat.
Hank Aaron had it worse. Ruth was white. Aaron is black, although his enemies used much worse terms as he approached baseball's all-time home run record at the end of his career.
He had far more admirers than enemies. But the enemies were there, more than enough to add extra fear and pressure to an already monumental accomplishment. Aaron received so much hate mail that the FBI had to open every letter. His life was threatened. His parents were told they would never see their son again if he broke the record. There was even a plot to kidnap his daughter.
"Babe Ruth never had to contend with anything like that when he was establishing his record," Aaron said.
Perhaps nobody else ever did, but Aaron did not let it stand in his way. On April 8, 1974, in front of a sellout crowd in Atlanta and in front of a national television audience, Aaron smashed his 715th home run off of Dodgers pitcher Al Downing.
Afterward, Aaron said: "The average person can't realize what a nightmare this has been. The last 10 days of the [1973] season, all winter, spring training, right up until today. Now, I'm just tired. Not let down -- just tired. I'm beat."
Aaron finished his career with 755 home runs, a record that Barry Bonds might break in the next few years.
3. Williams, at .406, eclipses magical mark
.400
From 1901 to 1940, 12 players had hit at least .400 or better for a season. Going into the last day of the 1941 season, Ted Williams was trying to be the 13th player in modern major league history to hit .400. His batting average going into the final doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics was .3996.
Legend says that Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offered to let Williams sit out the final two games and keep his .400 average. Legend also has it that Williams refused, determined to finish out like "a .400 hitter"
It's a great story and, of course, not quite true. The offer was more of a suggestion by Cronin earlier in the week of what might happen on the final weekend. But Williams was officially at .399 according to the statistics printed in the papers on that final day. If he sat both games, he would not be a .400 hitter.
There was no doubt he would play. There is also no doubt that he finished spectacularly. In his first at-bat of the afternoon, he hit a line drive single to right field.
Williams later told writer Ed Linn, "I was so nervous when I came to the plate that my hands were shaking."
That first hit took some pressure off, and he hit a home run his second time up. When the afternoon was over, he had gone 6-for-8 and had finished at .406.
Baseball has not had a .400 hitter since.
4. Ryan is King of Ks
383
56
Nolan Ryan holds the career record with 5,714 strikeouts. He also set the single-season record when he struck out 383 batters for the California Angels in 1973.
Ryan had already thrown two no-hitters and won 20 games that season before he took the mound for his final start against the Minnesota Twins. He needed 15 strikeouts to tie the record of 382, set by Sandy Koufax with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1965.
The Twins scored three runs in the first inning before Ryan retired anybody. He struck out the side to get out of the inning, and the Angels scored three in the bottom of the first to tie the game.
The score was tied 4-4 after nine innings. Ryan had 15 strikeouts at that point, striking out Steve Brye to end the eighth to tie the record. He failed to strike anybody out in the ninth, and the game continued into extra innings.
Ryan had developed leg cramps in the ninth, and the trainers were massaging both calf muscles fiercely on the bench. He would face a total of 49 batters in the game and, with seven walks, probably threw over 200 pitches. He went back out for the 10th. Neither team scored, but Ryan again failed to strike anybody out.
In the 11th, Brye grounded out. Rod Carew drew the seventh walk off of Ryan, and Tony Oliva flied out to center for the second out. With Rich Reese at the plate, Carew broke for second and catcher Jeff Torborg made a strong throw. But Carew slid in safely, much to Torborg's relief because he wanted Ryan to get the record.
Ryan did, striking out Reese to end the inning. The Angels then scored in the bottom of the inning to win the game.
Whitey Herzog once estimated that if the American League had not adopted the designated hitter rule that year, which prevented pitchers from batting, Ryan would have struck out more than 400.
5. Ripken's iron legacy
2,632
For many years, few people thought Lou Gehrig's record of playing 2,130 consecutive games would be broken. But Cal Ripken did just that Sept. 6, 1995, at Baltimore's Camden Yards when he pushed past Gehrig by playing in his 2,131st consecutive game. The streak finally ended at 2,632.
He closed in on the record against the backdrop of the 1994-95 players strike, the worst work stoppage in the game's history. The 1994 World Series had been canceled because of the strike, and baseball had taken a serious and well-deserved public relations beating.
Ripken's record-tying and record-breaking nights were baseball's biggest events since the strike had ended. The Orioles handed out 750 media credentials for the two days.
The record was tied Sept. 5 in the Orioles' 8-0 victory over the Anaheim Angels. After officially tying the record in the fifth inning, Ripken made the night extra special with a home run off Angels reliever Mark Holzemer. Ripken received many gifts afterward, but the one that touched him the most was from former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Jim Gott.
Gott earned his first major league victory May 30, 1982, the first game of Ripken's streak. Gott had saved the game ball and presented it to Ripken after the record-tying game.
"It was pretty incredible to me that he wanted to do this," Ripken said.
The big moment came the following night. Ripken, after hitting a home run in the fourth inning, broke the record when the game became official in the fifth and received an extended standing ovation from the sellout crowd.
In the dugout, teammate Rafael Palmeiro said, "You're going to have to take a lap."
Ripken resisted, thinking it would show up the Angels. Ten minutes later, with the crowd still standing and clapping, Ripken gave in. Palmeiro and Bobby Bonilla pushed him out of the dugout, and he ran around the warning track at Camden Yards, shaking hands with as many fans as possible as the crowd, which included President Clinton, continued to roar.
It is one of the magical moments in baseball history.
6. Rose's greed leads to record
4,256
No player has polarized baseball as much as Pete Rose because of his indefinite suspension for gambling. But even before Rose was banished from the game, he could invite controversy.
Such was the case with his pusuit of the all-time record for hits, held by Ty Cobb with 4,191.
On Aug. 16, 1984, the Cincinnati Reds called a news conference to announce that Rose had been re-acquired from the Montreal Expos for the purpose of making him their player-manager. At the time, Rose was 43 and hitting a weak .259 for the Expos.
The Reds, suffering on the field and at the gate, wanted him strictly as a manager. Rose, with 4,062 hits at the time, seemed all but finished as a player. But he insisted on continuing to play, and the Reds accepted that, hoping his playing time would be limited.
They had promising first baseman Nick Esasky. But Rose continued to put himself in the lineup the next season in his unabashed pursuit of Cobb's record. Esasky's playing time was sacrificed.
While most of baseball was thrilled with Rose's assault on the record, former Reds teammate Johnny Bench told the Cincinnati Post: "Pete's got luck on his side. If the Reds hadn't needed a manager, he wouldn't even be close."
Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post wrote: "There's something ugly in Rose's passion to hang on and creep past Cobb. At least Hank Aaron was still a credible slugger when he broke Babe Ruth's career home run record."
Yet, on Sept. 11, 1985, Rose blooped a single to left off of San Diego's Eric Show for the 4,192nd hit of his career.
Rose, playing 110 games at first base, hit .264 that year with two home runs and 46 RBI in 405 at-bats. Esasky, forced to shuttle between first, third and the outfield, hit .262 with 21 home runs and 62 RBI in 413 at-bats.
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