Posted on 05/02/2018 1:30:13 PM PDT by fugazi
1939: New York Yankee ironman Lou Gehrig tells manager Joe McCarthy that he is taking himself out of the starting lineup.
Gehrig will never play again.
His record of 2,130 straight games played will stand until Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken tops the streak in 1995.
1949: Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe gets his first career start, shutting out the Cincinnati Reds 3-0. He goes on to lead the Dodgers’ pitching rotation with 17 wins on their way to a National League pennant. Newcombe will lose two seasons to the Army during the Korean War.
1954: The St. Louis Cardinals’ Stan “The Man” Musial, who served in the Navy during World War II, hits five home runs in a double header against the New York Giants.
Musial’s victims that day are pitchers Johnny Antonelli (who served in Korea), Jim Hearn (an Army artilleryman during World War II), Ray Jablonski (an Army military policeman in France during World War II), and Hall of Fame knuckleballer Hoyt “Old Sarge” Wilhelm (fought and was wounded in...
(Excerpt) Read more at victoryinstitute.net ...
Newcombe would most likely be in the Hall of Fame.
Had he stayed in one more inning In Oct of 1951 we may never have heard of Bobby Thomson
An unbreakable record (his plaque at Yankee Stadium says so), which Cal Ripken broke.
Yep I’ve got to refresh my memory of that playoff game. I recall Ralph Branca was pitching to Thomson.
Goes to show, turning the game over to the bullpen doesn’t always pay off.
Well 2130 consecutive games was considered unbreakable until Cal Ripken came along.
Perhaps no record is truly unbreakable.
Could Cal had done it if he played only 154 games a year?
https://www.amazon.com/Streak-John-Eisenberg/dp/1543644554
a bit off topic- link to a photo of a newspaper i found in an abandoned building right before they tore it down- discussing Hank Aaron
https://www.redbubble.com/people/nazareth/works/12724081-hank-aaron?asc=u
Not sure what year it is- but note the price of the tire in the add- $9 lol
Click on the photo to enlarge it to read it better- wish i had included more of the article-
If that’s today, I’d probably invest in defense industry stocks and cancel that September vacation in Poland ...
“An unbreakable record (his plaque at Yankee Stadium says so), which Cal Ripken broke.”
Cal Ripken’s limo driver should share in that record. Without the special chauffeur treatment Ripken couldn’t have done it.
Care to elaborate fully on that statement? I'm sure nobody here knows what the heck you're talking about..........I sure don't.
As a post script, you appear to be the guy who enjoys pissing in the pudding.............
Mookie Betts hit three home runs today, again.
Fernando Tatis, 2 grand slams in the same inning off the same pitcher, the only double slam inning in MLB history. You might come up with the bases loaded again in the same inning, but I seriously doubt they’ll let the same guy pitch to you again if you slammed the last time.
Yep that’s got to be an impossible record to break.
Also, Johnny Vander Meer and two consecutive no hitters is never going to be beaten.
Wow there are so many to think of. Such as , the 1971 Baltimore Orioles had four 20 game winners that season. How likely is that to ever be equalled?
The Yankees winning five consecutive World Series is another tough one. With more teams and more layers of playoffs for a team to survive nowadays, we may never see such a dynasty again.
Cal broke it by making token starts in games he didn’t actually play in while injured. Gerhig wasn’t chasing anyones record when he set the “real” record
Gehrig traveled with his fellow team mates via train, bus, stayed in the same hotels - nothing different.
In the latter years of breaking the record, Ripken Jr. was allowed to travel separately, even being chauffeured to and from games.
I think is limo driver should share in setting the new record.
” ... the 1971 Baltimore Orioles had four 20 game winners that season. How likely is that to ever be equalled?”
With the current practice of a five-man pitching rotation, not at all likely.
Token starts??? Really? Never heard that before.
Interesting.
Makes good info for debate about baseball records.
I’ve been in discussions about comparing records such as home run records.
For example, some minimize Babe Ruth’s 714 homers, because he played all day games, and starting pitchers had far more complete games in his day. Babe didn’t face the parade of relievers batters today face. Babe didn’t have to cope with fatigue of coast to coast travel .
Others talk of how Barry Bonds alleged use of steroids gave him an advantage, while others say steroids won’t help you hit a baseball, won’t help with the hand eye coordination needed to hit.
Others argue that Koufax in his prime was the greatest pitcher ever, while others argue that his lifetime stats aren’t very good because his career was far shorter than most. He retired at age 30.
Some say Ted Williams would have been the all time home run champ, if he hadn’t lost a number of years to military service. And they wonder what his numbers would have been if he played in Yankee stadium rather than having to cope with the deep right field in Fenway Park.
These discussions are part of the fun of baseball.
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