Thanks to my good friend Angry Ward, I have joined in on an MLB.com contest called Beat The Streak. The basis for the contest is to pick a player or two per day that gets at least one hit. If you can beat Joe DiMaggio’s streak of 56 consecutive games then you win $5.6 million. This is the second year of the contest and nobody has won yet. The best streak this year has been 32 games. Hell, Luis Castillo (lower c) had a 35-game hitting streak back in ’02, so anything can happen. I dare you to head over to MLB.com and join me and Angry Ward in trying to beat Mr. Coffee’s streak.
I have decided to look at some of the other streaks in baseball and have found some amazing ones. These are streaks that could be played like the MLB.com game and would be a hell of a lot of fun to follow.
8 Consecutive Games Hitting A HR – Ken Griffey Jr. (’93 Mariners), Dale Long (’56 Pirates), Don Mattingly (’87 Yankees) – Now that MLB has gotten tough with steroids, the days of the Luis Gonzalezes and Brady Andersons hitting 50 homers a year are over. I remember Mattingly’s streak going down to the last at bat in Texas to get to 8. Poor Donnie Baseball might not make it to 9 consecutive more games as Dodgers manager.
84 Consecutive Games Reaching Base Safely – Ted Williams (’49 Red Sox) – Talk about a ridiculous streak. Williams reached base for more than half the season straight. If you are able to beat this streak you actually win Ted’s frozen head.
14 Consecutive Games With an Extra Base Hit – Paul Waner (’27 Pirates), Chipper Jones (’06 Braves) – Chipper was a pretty damn good player, wasn’t he? I’ve seen Mets teams go a fortnight without an extra base hit so for these guys to get one everyday for two weeks is wild. If you beat this streak you win Jason Bay’s head.
17 Consecutive Games With an RBI – Ray Grimes (’22 Cubs) – What can I say about old Grimesy? He had 27 of his 263 career RBI’s during this seventeen game span. Bud Harrelson had two seasons in his 15 year career with more RBI’s than Grimes had in his 17 game streak. If you beat this streak you win Woody Harrelson’s head shop.
12 Consecutive Games With a Stolen Base – Bert Campaneris, (’69 Athletics) – This might be the toughest streak to break because you have to get on base 12 games in a row to even have a chance to steal a base. In 2002, Ruben Rivera went twelve consecutive games stealing items from Yankee teammate’s lockers until he was caught stealing Derek Jeter’s glove. Alfonso Soriano didn’t realize his glove was missing because he had no idea what a glove was.
6 Consecutive Games With a Shutout – Don Drysdale (’68 Dodgers) – The only consecutive game streak for a pitcher that merits being on here. There were only 52 shutouts in all of baseball last season so it would be nearly impossible to pick 7 shutouts throughout the course of the year.
Come back tomorrow to see if Angry Ward’s MeetTheMatts.com streak of 243 consecutive weekly columns continues… Right now, it doesn’t look good.
