Category: July

July 5 in baseball history -100 RBI before All-Star break

JULY 5, 1998 | ARLINGTON, TEXAS – Juan Gonzalez of the Texas Rangers drove in four runs on this date in 1998. It gave him 101 RBI by the All-Star break. Only Hank Greenberg had ever reached the century mark in RBI at the midway point of the season. Greenberg had 103 by the 1935 mid-summer classic.

Gonzalez had a crack at the all-time record for RBI in a season. It was held by Hack Wilson of the Chicago Cubs who drove in 191 in 1930.

Gonzalez ended up with 156 RBI in the 1998 season, 35 short of Wilson’s record. Hack Wilson never had 100 RBI at the mid-way point of the season, but his record for most RBI in a season stands to this day.

The top ten RBI in a season:

  1.        Hack Wilson 191 (1930)
  2.        Lou Gehrig 184 (1931)
  3.        Hank Greenberg 184 (1937)
  4.        Jimmie Foxx 175 (1938)
  5.        Lou Gehrig 175 (1927)
  6.        Lou Gehrig 174 (1930)
  7.        Chuck Klein 170 (1930)
  8.        Jimmie Foxx 169 (1932)
  9.        Babe Ruth 168 (1921)
  10.        Hank Greenberg 168 (1935)

Notice anything interesting about the list?

Eight of the top ten RBI leaders are from the 1930’s. The other two are from the 1920’s. Not a single top ten RBI year came after World War II. The first to show is #14 Manny Ramirez, who had 165 RBI in 1999. Why is that?

Contributing Sources:
Hack Wilson
Chuck klein
Retrosheet

 

July 4th in baseball history – The luckiest man

JULY 4, 1939 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A tired, frail, shadow of his former self told 61,808 people in Yankee stadium on the Fourth of July in 1939, “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” New York Yankee first-baseman Lou Gehrig was very sick.

He stopped playing baseball. He was getting weaker by the day and would be gone in less than two years.

The suddenness of Gehrig’s decline was shocking. He was known as the “Iron Horse.” He played every single game for 14 years. When Babe Ruth set the single season home run record in 1927 with 60 home runs, Gehrig hit 47 – more than anyone, other than Ruth, had ever hit up to that time.

Gehrig had 29 home runs, 114 runs batted in and 115 runs scored in his last full season – 1938. It was not his best year, but still quite good. The only stat that appeared to show decline was batting average. He hit .295. He hadn’t hit under .300 in twelve seasons and hit .351 in 1937, .354 the year before that.

Clearly, Gehrig had lost a step, he was 35 years old, so slowing down a bit was not unexpected. But Gehrig’s decline was clear in spring training 1939. His power had faded. He was hitting just .143 with no extra base hits when he took himself out of the lineup after eight games of the regular season. He never got back in.

A few weeks after asking out of the lineup Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with a rare, crippling, fatal disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The sickness would become known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Contributing sources:
Lou Gehrig web site
Baseball-Almanac (Gehrig)

July 2 in baseball history – DiMaggio breaks unbreakable

JULY 2, 1941 | NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Joe DiMaggio hit a 3-run homer on this date in 1941 to break the record for the most consecutive games with at least one hit. ‘Joltin Joe’s’ streak reached 45 games, breaking the 44-game hit streak of Wee Willie Keeler set in 1897.n at least hitting in the most consecutive games within a season.

DiMaggio’s streak captivated the nation once it reached 30 games. It was an exciting and positive distraction to the daily headlines of the Nazi’s overrunning Europe that summer. DiMaggio would eventually hit in what many believed was an insurmountable 56 straight games. No one since has even surpassed Keeler’s mark of 44 games, though Pete Rose tied it in 1978, let alone come close to challenging DiMaggio’s.

DiMaggio’s streak wasn’t without controversy. The official scorer for more than twenty of those games was New York World Telegram sportswriter Dan Daniels, who some believe gave DiMaggio favorable rulings on balls that may have been errors when a streak wasn’t on the line.

Consecutive game hit leaders:
Joe DiMaggio 56
Wee Willie Keeler 44
Pete Rose 44
Bill Dahlen 42
George Sisler 41
Ty Cobb 40
Paul Molitor 39
Jimmy Rollins 38
Tommy Holmes 37
Fred Clarke 35
Ty Cobb 35
Luis Castillo 35
Chase Utley 35

• Joe’s brother Dom DiMaggio had a 34 game hitting streak of his own for the Boston Red Sox in 1949.

Contributing sources:
Fun facts about Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak

July 28: Some no-hitters ugly

JULY 28, 1976 | OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – Chicago White Sox pitchers Blue Moon Odom and Francisco Barrios combined to no-hit the Oakland A’s on this date in 1976. Odom started the game against his old team. Barrios relieved him in the 6th. It was the kind of performance that demonstrated that combined no-hitters are not always masterpieces.

So why would a pitcher throwing a no-hitter be lifted? Let me count the ways; 1) because he walked 9 batters in 5 innings, 2) it was a 2-1 game, 3) it was a key divisional rivalry (the White Sox and A’s were both in the American League West in 1976). The Sox ended up winning the contest 2-1.

The Odom-Barrios no-hitter was the fourth combined no-no in major league baseball history at the time. The first was by pitcher Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore. Ruth started the game in 1917. He walked the first batter, but protested the call so vehemently he was kicked out without retiring a batter. His replacement, Ernie Shore proceeded to retire the next 27 hitters for a no-hitter.

There have been seven more combined no-hitters as of this writing. Two of them required six pitchers; when the Astros no-hit the Yankees on June 11th 2003, and when Seattle beat the Dodgers on June 8th, 2012.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Combined no-hitters

JULY 27: The Little Giant

JULY 27, 1927 | CHICAGO, ILLINOIS • 18-year old Mel Ott hit his first major league home run on this date in 1927. Being that he was just 5’9” and would hit 510 more home runs in his 22-year career, Ott was referred to as “The Little Giant.”

The Little Giant arrived on the scene at age 17. It wasn’t because a lot of stars were off to war. It was 1926, the First World War had been over for several years and World War II wouldn’t start for another 15.

The Gretna, Louisiana native had many great years, but his greatest may have been at the ripe old age of 20. Here are some of his 1929 stats – before he was old enough to vote:

Batting average         .328
Home runs                       42
RBI                                   151
Runs scored                 138     

Mel Ott played his entire career with the New York Giants (today’s San Francisco Giants). He was named to 9 All-Star games. Tragically, his life came to an end at age 49 when his car was hit head-on in foggy conditions.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Mel Ott Stats