July 17, 2016 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the end of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.  DiMaggio came to the plate four times in the 57^th game, played in Cleveland.  He sent two shots down the third base line that could easily have been hits.  Twice, the Cleveland third baseman made dramatic back-handed stabs at the ball, followed each time by a heroic throw to first to record two outs instead of two doubles.

The streak began on May 15, 1941.  During the course of the 56 games, DiMaggio hit .408, with 15 home runs and 55 runs batted in.

The record for consecutive games with a base hit that DiMaggio broke was set in 1897 by William Keeler, known to baseball history by the micro-aggressive nickname “Wee” – he stood five foot four.  Wee Willie Keeler hit safely in the first 44 games of the 1897 season.  He had hit safely in the last game of the 1896 season.  Because organized baseball allows consecutive game records to carry over from one season to the next, Keeler can be said to have held two records:  44 consecutive games with a hit in one season and 45 consecutive games over two.

Whichever record you care to assign to Wee Willie, it had stood for 44 years when the 1941 season started.  A measure of the magnitude of DiMaggio’s achievement is the fact that in the intervening three-quarters of a century, no one has come close to his 56 game mark.  Wee Willie broke a record that had been set in 1894.  Two players threatened his record in the early decades of the twentieth century.  Ty Cobb had a streak of 40 games in 1911.  George Sisler hit safely in 41 consecutive games in 1922.  When Wee Willie died in 1923, he may have felt that his record was going to be safe for a good long while.  And 44 years is an impressive lifespan for a baseball record.

Pete Rose is the only player to come within sight of the record.  He got to 44 in 1978.  Paul Molitor got to 39 in 1987.  Once a player gets into the 30s, every further game increases the notoriety and the pressure.  But Rose was two weeks away from reaching the record when even he, the all-time leader in career Major League hits (sorry, Ichiro), failed to get a hit in the 45^th game.

DiMaggio got a hit in what would have been the 58^th game had the streak continued.  That proved to be the first in a new 16 game streak.  So, the Yankee Clipper hit safely in 72 out of 73 games.

Baseball records and statistics are often front-loaded with qualifiers.  A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a few innings of Mariner baseball on the radio when Robinson Canó hit a home run.  The announcer told us that this was his 761^st career extra-base hit, which tied him for seventh place among Major League second basemen.  Prior to a World Series game a few years ago, I learned that one of the pitchers holds a record for World Series games in which a starting pitcher has gone at least eight innings and struck out ten or more batters without giving up a walk.  Sorry, I don’t remember who it was.

That’s part of the charm of DiMaggio’s record.  There are no qualifiers.  There is no wind-up.  He hit safely in 56 consecutive games, full stop.  No one else has come close.  It’s a record that will likely still be standing 75 years from today.