Salt Lake Telegram | 1939-12-18 | Page 17 | Joe Improves Batting Mark

Joelmproves Batting Mark 7 vi 5e. 1 Aw -w h By GEORGE KIRKSEY NEW YORK, Dec. 18 (UP) That Joe DIMaggio la one of the greatest right-handed hitters of the baseball era is no longer a suspicion. suspi-cion. It's a positive fact. In a year in which batting slumped off all along the line, the dark-eyed Italian who patrols center field for the Yankees with the speed and grace of a gazelle added 57 points to his 1938 average and captured the American league batting championship with a mark of .381 for 120 games, the official figures showed today. The league batting average was off .002 points, from .281 to .279. The lecgue home run totals slumped from 864 to 796. All the extra-base hitters showed a decline. de-cline. Yet DiMaggio, despite an early season Injury to his leg which laid him up for a month, finished 21 points ahead of Jimmy Foxx, Red Sox, the defending champion. Like DiMaggio, Foxx was hampered by ailments sinus trouble and an appendectomybut ap-pendectomybut finished 12 points ahead of his 1938 average with .360 for 124 games. In annexing the batting title DiMaggio turned the jeers of 1938 Into the cheers of 1939. The 25-year-old Yankee outfielder was given giv-en the Bronx cheer all around the circuit in 1938 a strange quirk In mob psychology growing out of DiMaggio long holdout siege. But the San Francisco Italian boy refused to sulk under the taunts of the customers and finally final-ly won them over with his big bat and his day-by-day devotion to duty on the diamond. The other offensive titles were distributed as follows Home runs, Foxx, Red Sox, 35; triples. Buddy Lewis, Washington, 16; doubles. Red Rolfe, Yankees, 46; hits, Rolfe, 213; stolen base. George Case, Senators, Sen-ators, 51: sacrifices, Mike Kreevlch, White Sox, 22; total bases, Ted Williams, Red So. 344. An all-offensive American league 1 JOE DIMAGGIO team, based on hitting alone, would line up as follows lb Foxx, Red Sox, 360. 2b Gehringer, Tigers, .325. 3b Rolfe, Yankees, .329. ss Appling, White Sox. .314. If Johnson, Athletics, .338. cf DiMaggio, Yankees. .38L rf Keller. Yankees. .334. e York, Tigers, .307. p Dean, Athletics. 351. The Red Sox held their team batting championship with .291, a decline of eight points from their 1938 figure. The Yanks rose to second place with .287, after finishing fin-ishing sixth in 1938 with .274. The Yanks won the home run crown with 166 round-trippers, a drop pf eight from their 1938 total. The 10 leading hitters who played in 100 or more games follow: Player. Club. O. AB. R- H. Pet Diy sgio. New York ....120 4S2 10 ITS . 3S1 Fou. Boston ...124 487 1M 16S .360 Johnson. Pnllldelphlm . ISO 44 1H 1M .SM Troeky. Clev. ...122 44 89 l.V) .335 Keller. New Tc-rk 111 S7 133 3 14 Rolfe. New Tork .112 S4H l.'lS 213 .329 Wllllami. Boston .1M ShS 131 1R.1 .327 Krllner. Clrv. -- . 1M ST - 4 191 -.325 Gehrliiner, Detroit lis 4nS SS 1:12 McNelr. Chkmo .1M 479 2 155 .324