I mean, if I don’t have my facts straight, please let me know. But, Yankees fans or aggressively anti-Yankee, that’s a big deal, isn’t it? Why isn’t it lauded as much as 755, 56, .406 or Cal Ripken? Has much changed that makes it seem less of a big deal?
Because it’s overshadowed by his hitting streak–56 consecutive games–which happened the same season.
In 1948 Lou Boudreau only struck out 9 times over 560 ABs and in 1947 he had only struck out 10 times. Between 1923 and 1933, 13 was the most strikeouts Joe Sewell had (fewest was 4 in 1925).
Anyway, it’s impressive but it’s not a record by any means.
You better recognize, foo-.
It was never the record - thus, no big deal.
Significant accomplishments that get noticed tend to be
A) Positive, and
B) Records.
DiMaggio’s 13-strikeout season isn’t the record, wasn’t at the time, and in fact isn’t really THAT unusual; a number of players have gone a whole year striking out 13 or fewer times. Joe Sewell’s accomplishments, obviously, dwarf DiMaggio’s in this regard.
The other thing is that “Fewest strikeouts” is not really a positive accomplishment; it’s the avoidance of a negative, if you see what I mean. IT’s positive, obviously, but it’s NOT doing something, as opposed to doing something. It’s not like, say, chasing a home run record where you can count as the player gets closer and closer.
For instance, just last year a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, Carlos Silva, pitched an entire season, pitching enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, and walked only nine men. (And two of the walks were intentional.) This is a truly amazing accomplishment, which as far as I can tell is without precedent in major league history. And yet nobody noticed it. Until I looked at his 2005 stats when he pitched against my favourite team last week, I had no idea Silva had achieved such an amazing feat. Like not striking out, not walking guys isn’t really something you notice.
It was less unusual at the time, though. These days, few hitters with power like DiMaggio’s will strike out so rarely.
I didn’t really think of it that way. Everyone could tell you who has the MOST strikeouts in a season (Bobby Bonds) or over their career (Reggie Jackson), but didn’t really know the record for these.
Another reason that stats like these are difficult is because you have to have a "minimum # of " something like AB or IP. If some pinch-hitter has 10 AB in a season and 2 strikeouts, or a young pitcher up from AAA for September has 1 walk and a 0.20 ERA after 15 IP?? I’d think nobody would say that’s a legitimate claim at any similar record. But what if we have a cutoff of 300 AB, and there happens to be someone at 280 AB with only 3 strikeouts in the season, but the record is 9 with 400 AB? I know the record is what technically stands, but isn’t the 3 in 280 a more impressive batting achievment?
You mean Adam Dunn.
Feh. While DiMaggio’s number is a good one it’s correct that with Joe Sewell around Joe D should be remembered for the streak, the average and everything else.
Get this:
Joe Sewell played 14 seasons in the bigs.
Joe Sewell had over 700 AB and hit .312
Joe Sewell drew 842 BB.
Joe Sewell struck out only 114 times in his career.
Get a feel for that.
He struck out once every 62.5 AB.
He walked 7.38 times for every strike out.
He averaged 8 strike outs per season for his career.
For every strike out he had 19.5 hits
He had more than twice as many sacrifice flies than strike outs.
He’s the absolutely epitome of bat control. That bat WOULD be on the ball when he wanted it to.
All good stuff; thanks. And Jonathan Chance - that’s amazing stuff on Joe Sewell; wow. Same thing with Carlos Silva, RickJay - fascinating.
The Amazing thing about Joltin’ Joe’s Strikeouts is the Career Strikes to HR ratio.
I believe no one has a better one.
Thanks to Google I can even provide a cite:
Model of Consistency (3-14-99)— http://www.nydailynews.com/1999-03-14/Metro_Sports/Baseball/a-22461.asp
He had 361 career Home runs and only 369 Strikeouts. Until his final season, he actually had more Homers than K’s.
This puts him in another league than Joe Sewell
BTW: here comes the weird part, his Team mate and friends Yogi Berra is towards the top of this list of players if there was a list.
Yogi had 358 Homers and only 414 K’s.
Jim
DiMaggio’s career numbers are also somewhat depressed by the fact that he lost three years to World War II, which would have pumped up his totals and also probably improved all his percentages (since those would have been prime years.)
Another guy who could hit homers without striking out was Ted Kluszewski, who one year hit 49 homers and struck out only 35 times.