THE STREAK
DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak considered by many unreachable mark
It started on May 15, 1941, with a single against Eddie Smith of the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium. Seventy-five years later, Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak remains baseball’s most iconic record. The Yankee Clipper’s Summer of 56 captivated a nation still recovering from the Great Depression.
As the streak mounted, following DiMaggio became something of a national distraction for Americans fearful of the great World War going on in Europe.
“My mother who spoke only Italian and knew nothing of baseball knew about DiMaggio’s streak,” 88-year-old Tom Villante, a former New York Yankees bat boy, said last week. Villante would forge a friendship with DiMaggio years later as Villante became an executive with Major League Baseball.
DiMaggio became the ’40s version of a trending topic.
“We were absolutely mesmerized by the fact that a guy could go that long,” 97-year-old former St. Louis Browns first baseman Chuck Stevens said recently from Garden Grove, Calif. “You stop and think about it. You walk to the plate and in all of those ball games you didn’t go 0-for-anything. You got a hit.”
MAY 15, 1941: IN THE BEGINNING
Mired in a 14-for-72 slump, DiMaggio singles to left in the first inning, driving in Phil Rizzuto.
DiMaggio’s feat has endured three-quarters of a century with few challengers. Pete Rose equalled Wee Willie Keeler’s mark of a 44-game single-season streak in 1978. Rose ran interference 11 years earlier for DiMaggio when the two were part of a celebrity tour to entertain the U.S. soldiers in Vietnam.
“He was so nice to those soldiers,” Rose said, but DiMaggio recoiled when the subject turned to his former wife, Marilyn Monroe, the Hollywood starlet who died under mysterious circumstances in 1962. “I would take some of the pressure off,” Rose said.
“I kind of had the personality for a hitting streak,” Rose said. “It would have been great if I could have gotten to 50. I was paid to get hits and score runs and win games, and I just happened to do it 44 games in a row. But you need to be lucky. You need to miss (Clayton) Kershaw, or (Adam) Wainwright. You can’t be in a rainshortened game. And that’s not even counting the relievers.”
When Hall-of-Famer Paul Molitor, now manager of the Minnesota Twins, had a 39-game streak as a designated hitter in 1987, he never thought DiMaggio was in reach. “I was old enough and knew enough about it not to go there,” Molitor said. “I was 17 games short, so it wasn’t like I was knocking on the door.”
Jimmy Rollins had a 38-game streak that spanned the 2005 and ’06 seasons. “It was nice to be mentioned,” Rollins said, referring to DiMaggio, “but it would be like throwing three consecutive no-hitters.”
After his career, DiMaggio was not known to bring up his streak or other achievements, but he was keenly aware of them. He was a man conflicted with stardom and recognition. Villante became vicepresident of broadcasting and marketing for MLB and coined the phrase “Baseball fever, catch it.” He recalled mentioning the streak to DiMaggio near its 30th anniversary in 1971.
“He said, ‘Yeah, I know, but no one else does,’ ” Villante said. “He was very much aware of it.”
MAY 27, 1941: WRECKING D.C.
News of the day: British navy sinks German battleship Bismarck.
DiMaggio goes 4-for-5 with a home run at Washington.
MAY 30, 1941: FRIENDLY FENWAY
News of the day: Germans capture Crete; Floyd Davis and Mauri Rose combine to win Indy 500.
DiMaggio had no close calls over the streak’s first 15 games. In the 16th, his only hit was a fly to right that Boston’s Pete Fox lost in the sun.
JUNE 2, 1941: A SAD DAY
News of the day: Yankee immortal Lou Gehrig dies DiMaggio singled and doubled off future Hall of Famer Bob Feller in a 9-7 loss at Cleveland.
JUNE 17, 1941: THE BAD HOP
News of the day: German U-boat U-43 sinks British MV Cathrine, 24 crew lost
Game 30, at Yankee Stadium, produced the most controversial hit of the streak. After grounding out to White Sox shortstop Luke Appling in the second inning and lining to left in the fourth, DiMaggio again hit a grounder to short. There are conflicting reports about what transpired. Remember, no replay cameras in the ’40s. The ball either took a bad bounce over Appling’s shoulder or hit the future Hall of Famer in the arm. Official scorer Dan Daniel scored it a hit. Some believed Daniel had done a friend a favour.
Although some at that time said Daniel considered DiMaggio a friend, Villante said: “Daniel told DiMaggio: ‘You’re going to have to earn everything.’ I remember vividly Joe said, ‘That SOB (Daniel) gave me nothing.’ ”
JUNE 24, 1941: BALKING AT WALKING HIM
News of the day: President Franklin Roosevelt says U.S. will provide aid to Russia, which has been taking great losses.
In game 36 at Yankee Stadium, DiMaggio was hitless as he faced St. Louis Browns reliever Bob Muncrief in the seventh inning. Browns manager Luke Sewell reportedly went to the mound and told Muncrief to intentionally walk DiMaggio. Muncrief refused.
“Dad told the story many times,” said Muncrief ’s son, Bob, who lives in Cleveland. “Dad said, ‘Why?’ Sewell said, ‘I don’t want that SOB to get a hit.’ Dad said, ‘I want to pitch against DiMaggio’ and of course DiMaggio got the base hit.”
Surviving members of Sewell’s family said the manager never discussed the incident.
JULY 2, 1941: JOE PASSES WEE WILLIE
News of the day: Joe DiMaggio breaks Willie Keeler’s 44-game single-season hitting streak
Wee Willer Keeler of the Baltimore Orioles, then in the National League, had held the record of a 44-game single-season hitting streak since 1897. DiMaggio broke it with a fifth-inning home run off of Boston’s Dick Newsome at Yankee Stadium. Keeler actually is credited with a 45-game hitting streak because he had a hit in his final game in 1896.
JULY 17, 1941: IT’S OVER
News of the day: Streak ends as Joe DiMaggio goes hitless against Indians
More than 67,000 showed up at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, the city’s bigger, better ballpark. In the crowd was Russ Schneider, a 12-year-old dreaming of becoming a big-league ballplayer. Schneider would become a sports reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I remember the headline,” he said from his Ohio home: “56-game hitting streak stopped.”
DiMaggio would go hitless that night and the Clipper’s fans would cast Indians third baseman Ken Keltner as the villain.
DiMaggio’s first-inning smash down the line at third was backhanded by Keltner, who threw to first for the out. DiMaggio walked in the fourth. In the seventh, he again hit a hard grounder down the line that Keltner again backhanded and got DiMaggio by steps.
“Always played DiMaggio very deep,” Keltner told his son, Randy, who lives in Wisconsin. “‘If he wants to keep the streak going, let him bunt, but that wasn’t DiMaggio’s style.’ He said it was bangbang plays and attributed them to his strong arm.”
Engelberg said DiMaggio told him years later he “would have beaten both balls out if it didn’t rain that afternoon,” implying the baseline was slower.
In the eighth inning, Indians manager Roger Peckinpaugh, a former Yankee, brought in Jim Bagby Jr. to relieve starter Al Smith. DiMaggio homered off Bagby in Game 28 of the streak. DiMaggio hit a grounder toward future Hall-of-Fame shortstop Lou Boudreau. It took a bad hop, but Boudreau grabbed it and threw to second baseman Ray Mack for the force, and Mack completed a double play by throwing DiMaggio out at first.
As it turned out, Boudreau barely made the play. “Dad told me the only reason he really grabbed the ball or made the play is because he was protecting his face,” said Jim Boudreau, the player’s son, who lives outside Chicago in Romeoville, Ill. “It so happens the ball went right into his glove. I think it’s possible it would have been a hit.”
DiMaggio would not come to bat in the ninth and the streak was over.
“I can’t say that I’m glad it’s over,” DiMaggio told The Associated Press. “Of course, I wanted to go on as long as I could. Now that the streak is over, I just want to get out there and keep helping to win ball games.”