Baseball history quick hitters

Wednesday 9/17/25

I don't think DiMaggio's fifty-six game hit streak is an unbreakable record as everyone else does. You need to be someone who doesn't walk that much for one thing. Which means your offensive game is flawed in this regard. DiMaggio was better suited to do it than Ted Williams because Williams was a more dynamic offensive force. You could theoretically hit .250 while hitting in however many straight games. Just go 1-for-4 every day.

Obviously you wouldn't, but the point that you needn't have some preternatural batting average holds. Williams' average over the same fifty-six game period was higher than DiMaggio's. But to DiMaggio goes the glory--because Williams walked more. (This isn't to downplay what a marvelous player DiMaggio was, which he managed to be in both a literal and figurative--as in sport-transcendent--way.)

And yet, many people will cite this record as the one most likely never to be broken. The real answer to the question of "What is the baseball record least likely to never be broken?" is Cy Young's 749 complete games. But how about a "sneaky" "I don't know how someone is going to break this record" record?

We have one from this very year: Cal Raleigh's single season home run mark for catchers. Catchers seem to play less than ever and catcher production is meager. How many great hitting catchers are there now? It's always been hard to create offense when you're playing that position--the hardest position in all of sports--but there are fewer catchers than ever who swing it well.

Things in our world tend to get worse, including in sports. They don't check themselves--or get checked--and start moving again in the opposite direction. They keep tailing off or devolving. Which is why I wouldn't expect there to be some future crop of great catchers like we had in the 1970s and even in the 1980s. Or catchers who catch 145 games per season. You'll see 65-45 quasi-platoons.

Also: Lance Parrish should be in the Hall of Fame. I am firmly of this belief now, as I have been for a long time about Detroit catcher Bill Freehan before him. Parrish was a fixture of a star during his time. Rock behind the dish, cannon arm which combated what teams wanted to do on the base paths, the big fly power guy of the lineups he was in.

Alan Trammell and Carlton Fisk are similar in that they were both great players who could be inconsistent from year to year. With Fisk, I think that has to do with the catcher position itself. With Trammell, well, lets call it the vicissitudes of baseball. Let's do some snappy summaries of a bunch of seasons from Trammell's career.

1981: Ho hum.

1982: Better.

1983: Nice.

1984: Well done.

1985: What happened?

1986: Rebounding.

1987: Wow, man.

1988: That's how you do it!

1989: Yikes.

1990: Elite again.

1991: Getting bad again.

1992: Okay, but toothless.

1993: Where did this come from?

I don't have hard data in front of me--so I suppose I'm speaking anecdotally--but my sense is that RBI totals in recent years are lower than in the past. The numbers on the RBI leader boards are lower. You'll see someone with 45 homers and 90 RBI. And yes, that kind of thing has happened in baseball's past--Mickey Mantle in 1957, Darrell Evans in 1987--but it seems more predominant now. A result of fewer hits, lower batting averages, less runners on base, more solo shots.

An addendum to that last entry about great managers, here's an underrated one: Charlie Grimm. Won three pennants with the Cubs (1932, 1935, 1945), and compiled a strong 1287-1067 record. Also had a cool name, and a cool nickname (Cholly) to boot. Excellent player, too: Had 1077 RBI and batted .290 with 2299 hits for his career.

How much influence do managers wield? Billy Martin was someone who appeared adept at giving a young club a kick in the ass and getting them going and making the most of their not-quite-there-yet potential. But then again, he comes off looking incompetent at times in Sparky Lyle's The Bronx Zoo, and I don't think Lyle had some agenda or anything against Martin personally. He felt like he was being even-handed to me.

Casey Stengel got the job as the Yankees manager in 1949, at the age of fifty-eight. This was a surprising hire, because Stengel hadn't had any managerial success and it wasn't like he was some former Yankee and his time had come to don the managerial robes. He then wins five straight World Series, adds two more later, and two additional pennants. So: Seven World Series titles and two World Series losses in twelve years.

Stengel managed thirteen additional seasons, first with the Dodgers, then the Braves (who were the Bees for a spell), then with the expansion Mets following his ouster with the Yankees after losing to the Pirates in the 1960 World Series, which was seen as this damning transgression, Stengel's "Now he has to go!" moment.

In those thirteen seasons, Stengel finished above .500 just once, when the stingin' Bees of '38 went 77-75 under Stengel's lead. His Mets teams, as any baseball history buff knows, are among the worst--but fun, like an Ed Wood film--in baseball history.

Draw what conclusions you may!