Jimmy Rollins's hitting streak is over at 39 games. What was the 7th-longest hitting streak in major league history was also among the least celebrated. I remember two of the longer ones: Pete Rose's 44-gamer and Paul Molitor's 39-game streak. I remember both getting a lot more attention than this one.
I think there are at least two reasons for this. First, the streak took place over two seasons rather than one. While I'm sure it must have rankled, I saw Rollins calmly discuss how he saw why some people might think that made the streak less interesting, he still believed that the record was the record. Rollins also pointed out ways in which it was harder to start up again in April, both with the weather and with the loss of momentum, but that's special pleading. It's hard either way. The one thing that Rollins had going against him, publicity-wise, was that at the beginning of the year, the teams are still sorting themselves out. Rose's and Molitor's streaks came when the seasons' story lines were already pretty well established.
The other reason is what was called, with regards to Roger Maris, "baseball stature." I think there's a sense that the big records, the ones with emotional attachment, should be broken as part of a great career, or in the case of career stats, as the culmination of one. The people rooting against Maris were entitled, of course, although there's a difference between rooting for a record you love and sending hate mail.
Rollins, according to Baseball Reference, is a fairly average player, with lots of speed, but a better reputation than his performance seems to warrant. He's below the league average most years on both OBP and Slugging, although his runs created is pretty solid these last two years. It's probably been aided by the freakishly large number of triples he hits. In other words, he seems to be a pre-Ripken-era shortstop. There's just no comparing him to DiMaggio at this point in their respective careers (DiMaggio's hit streak also came at age 26). There's also no comparing him to Rose at the point in Rose's career
There's a much closer comparison to Molitor in terms of prominence. Molitor had been an All-Star twice, but had one of the best years of his career in 1987, the year of his hit streak. Strange though this may sound, Milwaukee also was a national stage at that time. He led his team to the 1982 World Series, where he batted .355, an opportunity that Rollins hasn't had yet. And one year (1987?) the team started out something like 35-5, incredibly failing to win the division. He also was consistenly ahead of the league in average, OBP, and SLG. Molitor was already a star, but his best years were still in front of him.
These are probably Rollins's peak years. He's got little but speed, doesn't draw many walks, and doesn't hit for power. Ages 26 and 27 are the peak years for players, anyway, and players with only speed tend to decline quickly.
None of this is necessarily fair, but four or five more games would probably have gotten everyone's attention.
As a side note, while as a kid I remember trying to pick up KMOX (from DC!) to hear Molitor's hit streak, I was able to follow today's game on MLB. There was a time when these were free, on the streaming audio of the local stations. Then MLB apparently realized that they weren't squeezing every penny they could out of their fans, started claiming rights to the broadcasts, and centralized the streaming on their own site. Still, for $15, I can listed to three or four games a night, if I want, and tune in teams that actually have a shot at a winning record, and whose games don't take longer than Wagner's Ring cycle to perform. Not a bad deal.
