"One cannot extract the essence of DiMaggio's special excellence from the heartless figures of his statistical accomplishments. He did not play long enough to amass leading numbers in any category - only thirteen full seasons from 1936 to 1951, with prime years lost to war, and a fierce pride that led him to retire the moment his skills began to erode.
"DiMaggio sacrificed other records to the customs of his time. He hit a career high .381 in 1939, but would probably have finished will over .400 if manager Joe McCarthy hadn't insisted he play every day in the season's meaningless last few weeks, long after the Yanks had clinched the pennant, while DiMaggio (batting .408 on September 8) then developed such serious sinus problems that he lost sight in one eye, could not visualize in three dimensions, and consequently slipped nearly 30
in batting average.
"DiMaggio's one transcendent numerical record - his fifty-six game hitting streak in 1941 - deserves the usual accolade of most remarkable sporting episode of the century. Several years ago, I performed a fancy statistical analysis on the data of slumps and streaks, and found that only DiMaggio's shouldn't have happened. All other streaks fall within the expectations for great events that should occur once as a consequence of probabilities, just as an honest coin will come up heads ten times in a row once in a very rare while. But no one should ever have hit in fifty-six straight games. Second place stands at a distant forty-four, a figure reached by Pete Rose and Wee Willie Keeler."
- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Glory of His Time and Ours"
Joe Dimaggio
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