Posted By:
howardThe logic is simply that hitting in 57 of 58 games is as valuable as hitting in 56 of 58 games.
A couple of points about the silly article that just came out. One, bad hops are routinely scored as base hits so the hit in game thirty was probably a legit single. That the hit in the next game went off the glove doesn't really tell us anything. Did Appling dive or was the ball right to him? If there isn't better evidence it should have been included in the article and if not the issue is dead.
Anyway, it is no secret that scorers have always favored the hometown players. If this kind of scrutiny is given to Dimaggio sixty-five years later then it should be given to every player who ever broke a record or reached a significant milestone.
The most obvious case of hometown scoring I have seen was in 1993 when John Olerud was hitting over .400 well into the season. He was three for three and in his fourth at bat he hit a one hop medium height bouncer to Pat Kelly's left. This is probably the most elementary play for an infielder but Kelly muffed it and it was called a hit. Of course Olerud did not hit .400 but he did wind up with exactly 200 hits.