They Tried to Beat DiMaggio. Like Everyone Else, They Failed.

In M.L.B.’s Beat the Streak game, fans build virtual lineups in hopes of topping Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. After 20 years, the game is still looking for its first winner.

Roberto Aguirre-Hunn Jr., a chef in East Lansing, Mich. was just six picks away from assembling a virtual hitting streak that would have netted him $5.6 million in 2019. But he chose D.J. LeMahieu to extend his streak to 52, and LeMahieu went 0 for 4, leaving Aguirre-Hunn in tears. In 2008, Bob Paradise, a retired carpenter in Massachusetts, built a streak to 48 games and hoped to extend it with Ichiro Suzuki against Detroit. But in Suzuki’s final plate appearance after going hitless in three at-bats, he took a fastball in his back, and Paradise felt like he took a punch in the gut. Michael Karatzia, a FedEx operations manager from Red Bank, N.J., crafted a streak of 49 games in 2007, but then he picked Placido Polanco against the Athletics. In a game with 23 combined hits, Polanco couldn’t produce even one, and Karatzia went down with him.