Revisiting the depths of cold hitting in baseball -- the record for non-pitchers' consecutive official at-bats without a hit -- we had Milwaukee's Craig Counsell registering a 0-for-45 slump earlier this season. There was debate at the time over whether Bill Bergen in 1909 had gone hitless in 45 or 46 straight at-bats and thus whether or not Counsell had earned a share of the record.
Upon further review, it turned out that Bergen's streak length was indeed 45 hitless at-bats. The confusion appeared to stem from whether Bergen's number of at-bats in a particular game was 2 or 3, with the number being fuzzy in a photocopied box score. Additional sources of data made it "pretty certain" to a historical analyst that the number was really 2 and thus the overall hitless streak was 45 AB.
Well, as I learned from a SABR electronic newsletter the other day, the Dodgers' Eugenio Velez just finished the 2011 season on a 0-for-46 slump, breaking the prior record. And he can still extend the streak next year!
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