Quote:
Originally Posted by tedzan
The way the game is played nowadays, I do not think Joe D's exciting 56-game streak will be broken. Furthermore, I will venture to say that it will not
even be approached.
Another single-season record that may never be broken is one that was achieved the same year Joe did his streak, 1941......Ted Williams batting .406
Most good-hitting ballplayers don't WALK much any more. To hit for a .400 BA you have to do a lot of Walking. In fact Ted had 147 WALKS in 1941.....
which reduced his official AB's to only 456.
|
Another thing that will make both these hitting records really tough to match/exceed are the difference in fielding gloves. Today's gloves give infielders, and to a degree outfielders much more effective range than they had back then. I've shagged flies many times with an old Mel Ott model glove and know it limits the type/range of catches that can be made. I obviously can't watch full games from the pre-war era, but I suspect there were far fewer clean diving stops, or back handed stab and throws from the hole at short or behind 2nd, or outfielders leaping to rob homeruns at the wall. These things still happened back then, but much less often, and those few hits make all the difference when chasing .400... however if both Brett and Gwynn can hit .390 plus post 1980, I've got to think it can be done again.
Still vote Cy's as most unbreakable though.