CHAPTER 1 MOUND MASTERY Cy Young wouldn’t have been a great fit in modern baseball These days pitchers rarely throw complete games But when Young played pitchers were expected to throw all nine innings or more if necessary And they often pitched on one or two days rest That led to some amazing statistics that likely will never be topped For example from 1890 to 1911 Young started a record 815 games He finished 749 of them No one has come within 100 of that remarkable complete-game total And Young’s 7,356 career innings pitched put him more than 1,300 ahead of Pud Galvin who was second Young’s 511 victories put him 94 ahead of the next-closest pitcher Walter Johnson Young won at least 30 games in five different seasons He also lost 316 games another record though that is only six more losses than Galvin’s total even though Young pitched for seven more seasons Cy Young set the bar high for future pitchers
CHAPTER 2 THE STREAK Joe DiMaggio was known as one of the most consistent players in Major League Baseball MLB history Hitting fielding base running anything a ballplayer could do DiMaggio was among the best But even fans of the New York Yankees center fielder had to be amazed when he got a hit in 56 consecutive games It’s widely considered one of the greatest streaks in sports history The streak began with a humble 1-for-4 effort against the Chicago White Sox on May 15 1941 Then every game for the next two months he put at least one hit into the scorebook Four times during the streak DiMaggio had four hits in a game But there also were some close calls he had one hit in 34 of the games In Game 36 DiMaggio was hitless through six innings St Louis Browns manager Luke Sewell ordered Bob Muncrief to walk DiMaggio in his next at-bat A walk doesn’t count as a hit and the Joe DiMaggio lashes a base hit to extend his hitting streak to 42 games on June 29 1941
