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Show J 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Iff , I Speaking aj si?iasi 1 By ROBERT McSHANE Rtltaitd kf W,tom Nwipapw UniO illiillllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllrs Big League Hitters Crown New King JOE DI MAGGIO'S successful as- sault on the all-time consecutive game hitting record has established him even more definitely as one of the greatest hitters In baseball annals. an-nals. When Joe connected In his forty Bfth straight contest to surpass Willie Wil-lie Keeler'a 1897 mark he reached goal he'd been aiming- at ever since be entered the majors. He had passed George Sister's modern mark of 41 straight games three days before. be-fore. Sislor, one of baseball's all-time groats, expressed an almost unanimous unani-mous opinion when he telegraphed the New York Yankee slugger: "Congratulations. I'm glad a real hitter broke it. Keep going." From May 15, when he started his streak, until June 29, when SIs-ler's SIs-ler's record fell, Joe was at bat 167 timpa H made 63 hits for a total times. He made 63 hits for a total jf 117 bases. His batting average or the big streak was .377. Included in the hits were 12 home runs, 12 doubles and three triples. He knocked across 39 runs to help the Yankees climb into leadership Df the American league. . 420 Still Good Staler established his record while playing first base with the St. Louis Browns. Ills hitting streak lasted rrom July 27 to September 17, 1922, during which time he also batted .420. This latter record never has been equalled in the circuit and was the motivating force behind the Browns' pennant chase. In 1922 the Browns missed first place by exactly exact-ly one game. The ovation given Joe was ample proof of his ability to please fans. The record-breaking hits were made in Washington, D. C, where hundreds hun-dreds of spectators were lined up outside the park when Joe arrived before the game. As soon as he stepped on the field, the fans swarmed from the stands, howling for his autographs. Biggest days in the DIMaggio string were May 27 against Washington Wash-ington and June 20 against Detroit. In each of those games he tallied four hits. Novihoff Seeks Vindication LOU NOVIKOFF, the Mad Russian, Rus-sian, whose highly publicized batting prowess, failed to overawe National league pitchers, has a lot of baseball fans cheering for him in his new spot with the Milwaukee Brewers. Lou didn't set the world afire during dur-ing his short major league stay with the Chicago Cubs. He was considerably consid-erably less than sensational. But he doesn't deserve being labeled the rookie flop of the year. After all, when he went to the Milwaukee club he was tenth In hitting among the 25 Cubs with an average of .237. The slick-paper magazines gave Lou a sendofT last winter that was no less than terrific. His capabilities capabili-ties seemed limited only by the author's imagination. He was a superman of the diamonds, a veritable veri-table tower of strength to the tottering totter-ing Cubs. A lot of folks in the Texas league, the Coast league and the Three-Eye league swore by Lou. They knew what he could do with a baseball bat And they weren't hesitant abou telling what they knew. Faith and Hope When Lou failed to connect with big league pitching those people were disappointed. So were National Na-tional league fans in Chicago. But none of them has given Lou up as a failure. Jimmy Wilson, Novikoff's manager while he was with the Cubs, still believes the chunky Russian Rus-sian will find his batting eye. Wilson Wil-son explains that Lou got off to a bad start that he was over-eager 1 and way off form. Pitchers, he I says, were giving him a lot of half-I half-I speed stuff he couldn't solve. Now that the pressure is relieved, the currently Sad Russian will perform up to previous standards. The former toast of the Coast wasn't at all brokenhearted over his compulsory change. "I'll like working work-ing for Manager Charlie Grimm," he said. T know I can hit and I'm going to prove it up there at Milwaukee. Mil-waukee. My legs are in better shape than they ever have been I'm in shape to go now and I am going to go. Wait and see." A few hundred thousand fans couldn't see anything that would please them more, Lou. So Just conjure up visions of past glories and put everything you've got behind be-hind that big bat. SPORT SHORTS C, If you've forgotten, the speed of a golf ball will be limited to 250 feet per second after January 1, 1942. C.Ty Cobb places "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and Buck Weaver of the old Black Sox on his all-time team, fl. Manager Jimmy Dykes of the Chicago White Sox claims that this year's American league pennant battle will be as close as in 1922, when the Yanks nosed, out the Browns. |