Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

On this day back in 1941 - Joe DiMaggio gets a hit in his 56th straight game. Joe would go 0-3 on July 17th against Cleveland to end the streak but then get a hit in another 16 straight games. Nobody has really come close to matching the hit streak in the years since... Today is also Shoeless Joe Jackson's birthday. Shoeless was born on this day in 1889 and I assume he came into this world without anything on his feet... Is Todd Helton a Hall of Famer? He's only got 294 career HR even though he's played all those years at Coors Field. He's the all-time leader in almost every hitting category for the Rockies (except average where Larry Walker's .334 has his .332 edged out). However, I don't think his hits, HR or RBI totals when it is all said and done will be high enough to sway enough voters. So I guess I'm saying Todd Helton is not a Hall of Fame player... John Buck leads the Royals with 15 HR but has just 29 RBI. That's a pretty lousy ratio of HR to RBI but those 15 HR are just one less than Carlos Beltran who was the centerpiece of the three-team trade that brought Buck to Kansas City (along with Mark Teahen and Mike Wood)... Something has got to give. Houston has the worst road record in baseball (15-31) and today they open a series against Washington - the team with the worst home record in baseball (19-27)... This was an interesting post. I did not realize that the feat was so rare.