Joe DiMaggio's Streak and Chuck Modiano's Ignorance

From May 15 to July 16, 1941 -- 75 years ago this Summer -- Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees hit in 56 consecutive games.

No other player in the history of the game has topped 44. Willie Keeler did that in 1897, and Pete Rose did it in 1978. Since Rose, no player has even done 40: Paul Molitor did 39 in 1987. Jimmy Rollins did 38 in 2006, and his Philadelphia Phillies teammate Chase Utley did 35 that same year.

In today's New York Daily News, Chuck Modiano claims that the streak is bogus, because it was achieved in all-white baseball.

This is just plain stupid. It is every bit as ignorant as the racism that he says is responsible for the streak.

Let me cite his points, and demolish them:

1. Joe DiMaggio did not face the best pitchers in baseball in 1941. Modiano specifically cites Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith, both Negro League legends who are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with DiMaggio. DiMaggio called Paige the best pitcher he ever faced, and Modiano calls 1941 Smith's best season: 11-1 with an ERA of 0.92 in official league games.

Now, I realize that I can't cite Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez, Yankee teammates that Joe, obviously, wasn't going to face. But he did face Bob Feller and Ted Lyons, both Hall-of-Famers. They won 526 games between them -- despite both of them missing time due to World War II and pitching in front of non-contenders for much of their careers. (Lyons was near the end, but Feller missed maybe his peak years, nearly 4 full.) To say, as Modiano did, that, "Joe DiMaggio never had to face a player of Satchel Paige's caliber during his streak" is monumental ignorance.

And, by the way, it works the other way, too. True, DiMag didn't face Paige or Smith. And Feller and the other white pitchers didn't face Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and the other great Negro League hitters of the time. But Paige and Smith didn't face DiMag. Nor did they face Ted Williams. Nor did they face Jimmie Foxx. Nor did they face Hank Greenberg. Nor did they face Joe Medwick. Nor did they face Johnny Mize.

By the dawn of the 1950s, it was obvious that the best players in the Negro Leagues would also be among the best players in the previously all-white major leagues. But the average player in the Negro Leagues was not as good as the average player in the majors.

We saw evidence, if not proof, of this when players who had put up big numbers in the high minors reached the majors, and it just wasn't the same. Joe Hauser and Joe Bauman were both serious sluggers in what we would now call Class AAA ball. But Hauser was a flop in the majors, and Bauman never even got there.

Lots of players excel in the minors, but not in the majors. We Yankee Fans can cite Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens. Met fans can cite Gregg Jeffries. Satchel Paige proved that, at age 42, he could get major league hitters out. We have no such evidence for Hilton Smith.

Smith could have been another Bob Feller, had he been allowed to pitch in the majors. He also could have been another Daisuke Matsuzaka, thrilling but ultimately disappointing. He also could have been another Kerry Wood, showing promise but getting derailed by injury.

He also could have been another David Clyde, sabotaged by the way his manager, coaches and front office handled him. He also could have been another Denny McLain, whose bad attitude doomed him (although McLain was also plagued by injury). He also could have been another Sam McDowell or Dwight Gooden, a great young pitcher who ended up ruined by substance abuse (although there's no record of Smith being an alcoholic or a drug addict). He also could have been another Todd Van Poppel, a hyped prospect who simply didn't pan out.

Perhaps a more accurate, and certainly a more contemporary, parallel is to Clint Hartung. Being white, Hartung, a.k.a. the Hondo Hurricane, was eligible to appear in the major leagues before 1947, although that's the year he actually did make his major league debut. While serving in World War II, he played on various military baseball teams, and probably faced competition of a level similar to the Negro Leagues or the high minors: A few great players, mostly ordinary ones, including some that wouldn't have made the majors regardless of their race. On those teams, Hartung went 25-0 as a pitcher and batted .567.

But he only lasted 6 seasons for the New York Giants. He was average at best at both pitching and hitting. He was no Babe Ruth, as a hitter or as a pitcher, nor was he going to become one. (UPDATE: Nor was he ever going to become a Shohei Ohtani.) True, he was a member of their 1951 Pennant winners, the dubious "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff." But his biggest contribution was pinch-running for an injured Don Mueller right before Bobby Thomson hit the Shot Heard 'Round the World. A 2012 Bleacher Report article named Hartung baseball's all-time biggest bust (divided by hype, that is).

Hilton Smith didn't get the chance to even be as good as Clint Hartung was, but how do we know he would have been better? It would be nice to know, but we don't, and we can't. So citing his absence, and those of Satchel Paige and other black pitchers, as a reason that Joe DiMaggio was able to get a hit in 56 straight games is disingenuous.

There's something else to consider: There was no Interleague play in 1941. Even if Paige, Smith, Smokey Joe Williams or whichever other Negro League pitcher of that time was good enough to make the majors had been allowed to play, there's no guarantee that they would have ended up in the American League to face DiMaggio.

At least, until the World Series: DiMaggio faced the Giants' Carl Hubbell and Hal Schumacher in the 1936 and 1937 World Series; Dizzy Dean and Bill Lee (no relation to the later Red Sox pitcher of that name) of the Chicago Cubs in the 1938 Series; the Cincinnati Reds' talented staff of Bucky Walters, Paul Derringer and Johnny Vander Meer in the 1939 Series; and Whitlow Wyatt and Kirby Higbe of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1941 Series.

With teams playing intraleague opponents 22 times each in the regular season, that could mean 4 or 5 appearances against a good pitcher in your own League, but none against one in the other. Satchel Paige could have been every bit as lights-out for the Dodgers as he was for the Kansas City Monarchs, and, at least as far as DiMaggio was concerned, it wouldn't have mattered a damn from May 15 to July 16; not until October 2, when the World Series began, long after the streak ended.

2. How Chase Utley's Streak Ended. The last big streak in Major League Baseball was by Utley, in 2006: 35 games. The pitchers who ended the streak were Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez (a black Cuban), Darren Oliver (a black American) and Pedro Feliciano (a Puerto Rican who probably would have been considered too dark-skinned to play in 1946). It was another 10 games before Utley was held hitless by an all-white pitching combination.

Well, gee, it's been over 30 years since I've had a basic math course, but 35 + 10 = 45, and 45 < 56, dumbass.

Look at the Cleveland Indian pitchers who stopped DiMaggio's streak on July 17, 1941: Al Smith and Jim Bagby Jr. Smith was an All-Star once, in the wartime-depletion year of 1943. Bagby was also an All-Star that year, and in 1942. But neither of them was a great pitcher, even briefly.

It doesn't take a great pitcher to stop a streak. When Pete Rose tied the National League record with a 44-game streak in 1978, the Atlanta Braves pitchers that stopped him were Larry McWilliams and Gene Garber. (Dave Campbell also pitched for the Braves in that game, but did not face Rose.) Garber was a very good reliever, but McWilliams was a nobody.

3. One-Hit Wonder: Joe's Streak Was Very Vulnerable. Modiano mentions that Joe had multiple hits in only 22 of the 56 games.

All this stat means is that Joe still managed to get it done on days when he wasn't "in the zone." That makes the streak more remarkable, not less.

4. Joe Was Shielded from Afro-Latinos, Too. Now, Modiano is simply repeating himself. We've been over this. You might as well say that Satch was shielded from Italian-Americans.

Besides, it's not like DiMaggio said, "I won't play against (whatever word he would have used for black men at the time) or (whatever word he would have used for Latin men at the time)." He didn't have a choice. And if he had spoken up, and said, "Let them play in organized baseball," do you think it would have made a difference? Not as long as Kenesaw Mountain Landis was Commissioner, it wouldn't have.

5. How Bob Gibson Changed White Baseball History. Willie McCovey wasn't this much of a Stretch. Modiano cites St. Louis Cardinals ace Gibson shutting down Mickey Mantle of the Yankees in the 1964 World Series and Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox in the 1967 World Series.

Damn. This one is so easy, a caveman could do it. Hell, it's so easy, a Met fan could do it!

First of all, while the Yankees lost to Gibson in Games 5 and 7 of the '64 Series, they also beat him in Game 2 -- in St. Louis, no less. And Gibson lost Game 7 of the 1968 World Series, also in St. Louis, to the Detroit Tigers, who had some serious holes in their lineup, even taking "The Year of the Pitcher" into account.

Bob Gibson was great. But he was not unbeatable. No pitcher is.

Second of all, if Modiano wants us to discount DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak because he didn't face black or Latino pitchers, then what are we to make of Gibson's also mind-boggling 1.12 ERA in 1968?

Gibson faced batters of all races, right? White, black, Hispanic.

Wrong. Bob Gibson never faced an Asian batter. He never faced an Ichiro Suzuki or a Hideki Matsui. (UPDATE: Or a Shohei Ohtani.)

Sadaharu Oh was at the peak of his career with the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants. Suppose the Yankees' 1st baseman in 1964 was not the overrated Joe Pepitone, but Oh, who was named the Most Valuable Player in Japan's Central League that season.

Oh, who would hit 868 home runs over the course of his career in Japanese baseball. Oh, who was lefthanded, and would have been aiming at the 310-foot right field fence at St. Louis' Sportsman's Park in Games 1, 2, 6 and 7; and at the 296-foot right field fence at the pre-renovation old Yankee Stadium in Games 3, 4 and 5.

Even if Gibson did manage to shut Oh down, that doesn't mean the other Cardinal pitchers would have had any more luck against him in '64 than they had against the Mick, or in '67 than they did against Yaz. Which reminds me: Mantle did hit one out against Gibson in Game 7, for all the good it did. (The Cardinals won, 7-5.)

The hole in Modiano's Reason Number 5 is big enough to drive a truck though -- a truck built by Ford, or a truck built by Mitsubishi .

*

If you want to argue that DiMaggio had an advantage in not playing against black, Hispanic, or, to be fair, Asian pitchers, you also have to consider several other things:

* He did it playing mostly day games, in the heat of Summer afternoons, not in the cool of the evening. Along the same line:

* He did it in a less comfortable uniform than the ones players wear today. You ever wear a wool shirt in May, June or July? I don't recommend it. Joe was carrying several extra pounds of sweat by the time he made his last plate appearance every game.

* He did it while playing on rock-hard infields that didn't exactly let him utilize his speed to the best of his ability.

* He did it in harder ballparks. The pre-renovation Yankee Stadium was 461 feet to center field, 457 to left-center, 415 to straightaway left. Cleveland Municipal Stadium, where the streak ended, was 320 feet to the left field pole, but 380 feet to straightaway left. Sportsman's Park was 351 feet to the left field pole. Griffith Stadium in Washington was 402 feet to the left field pole.

Shibe Park in Philadelphia was, like Griffith Stadium, small in number of seats, but huge in outfield space. Comiskey Park in Chicago was no friend to hitters. Briggs Stadium (later renamed Tiger Stadium) in Detroit was much friendlier to lefthanded hitters than to righthanded ones. True, he got to play up to 11 games a season in Boston's Fenway Park, but those were the only 11 games, out of 154, that he got to play in a ballpark favorable to his swing.

* He did it while playing center field at that Yankee Stadium. Not easy on his legs. Legs are kind of important in hitting.

* He did it while riding on trains. You think 6 hours on a plane from New York to Los Angeles is rough? Try 24 hours on a train from New York to St. Louis.

* They changed the rules on him. Sort of. He was told the record was 41, by George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns in 1922. But someone checked, and, while Sisler did hold the AL record, the major league record was held by Willie Keeler of the old National League version of the Baltimore Orioles. He did 44 straight in 1897, a record already discounted because it was before "the modern era." (1941 - 1897 = 44. 2016 - 44 = 1972. Does 1972 sound "pre-modern" to you?)

* His favorite bat was stolen. Between games of a doubleheader in Washington that stood to be Games 41 and 42 of the streak, somebody swiped his bat. Probably for a souvenir, not to hurt his chances. Joe reclaimed a bat that Tommy Henrich had borrowed from him, and got to 42. He later got the preferred bat back.

* Finally, Joe carried the Yankees on his back with the streak. When it began, they were in 4th place, 6 1/2 games out, under .500, and seemed to be going nowhere. When it ended, they were in 1st place, and stayed there.

In short, he did it against conditions that would have made today's coddled players run in stark terror.

Every player is bound by the rules that he has at the time. (Except for the 21st Century Boston Red Sox, apparently. They can do whatever the hell they want, and won't be punished.) Joe DiMaggio in 1941 had to bat against the pitchers that were available to him, just as did Willie Keeler in 1897, George Sisler in 1922, Pete Rose in 1978, Paul Molitor in 1987, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley in 2006, and anybody who might manage a long streak this season.

Give me whatever reasons you want why DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak is dubious, and I can give you a reason why any other achievement, by an athlete that you admire, is dubious.

You want to say that Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith haven't gotten their just due as baseball heroes? Go ahead. You've got an excellent case.

You want to say that Joe DiMaggio, or any other white baseball player before the arrival of Jackie Robinson, gets more than his just due as a baseball hero? Go ahead -- but prepare for a rebuttal.

I don't know that Ty Cobb would have been able to get a hit off his black contemporary Rube Foster. Nor do I know that Christy Mathewson would have been able to shut down Oscar Charleston.

I do know that Cobb got a few hits off Walter Johnson. I do know that Mathewson was able to get Honus Wagner out much more often than not.

I do know that Joe DiMaggio did something that no one, with the same "advantages" that he had, including white privilege, ever did before. And that no one, with steroids or any other "advantage," has done since.

It's okay to ask what DiMaggio would have done against black pitchers.

But it is stupid to say that he got the streak because he didn't have to face them.

It is every bit as ignorant as the racism that made that excuse possible.

Joe DiMaggio: A 100th Birthday Appreciation

November 25, 1914, 100 years ago today: Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio Jr. is born in Martinez, California. With his name anglicized to Joseph Paul DiMaggio, he grew up in nearby San Francisco.

From 1936 to 1951 -- except from 1943 to 1945, when he was in the U.S. Army Air Force, serving in World War II -- he played center field for the New York Yankees. In his 13 seasons, he made the All-Star Game every year, won 10 Pennants and 9 World Championships. His older brother Vince and his younger brother Dom were also All-Star major league outfielders.

Since his death on March 8, 1999, Joe's reputation has taken a beating, for his rudeness, for his cheapness, for his treatment of his wives (actresses Dorothy Arnold and, later, Marilyn Monroe), for his apparent association with organized crime figures, and for his ego, which led to him insisting upon being introduced as what a 1969 poll chose him as: "Baseball's Greatest Living Player."

But for an entire generation of fans, the ones who grew up in the Great Depression of the 1930s (and thus did not see Babe Ruth, or see Lou Gehrig at his best), and went off to World War II in the 1940s, he was The Guy.

"Joe DiMaggio played his last game in 1951. I was born in 1952. And my father, and every guy I ever met in my father's generation, said the same thing: 'Willie Mays? Great. Mickey Mantle? Hit the ball out of sight. You never saw DiMaggio, kid. You never saw the real thing.'"
-- Bob Costas

In 1967, Paul Simon, also a native New Yorker (born in Newark in 1942, but grew up in Forest Hills, Queens) and similarly short, tried to address the turbulence of the times by thinking of someone who represented reliability, someone who could be counted on. He made his choice in the song "Mrs. Robinson":

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Woo woo woo.
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away.
Hey hey hey.
Hey hey hey.

My generation, the generation of the children of the one that produced Costas and Simon, knew DiMaggio as an old Yankee coming out of the dugout on Old-Timers' Day in a navy blue suit (or, if you're a little older, maybe an updated version of his old Number 5 Yankee uniform), or as the commercial spokesman for Mr. Coffee coffeemakers and The Bowery Savings Bank of New York. 

(Subsequent buyouts have The Bowery's assets under the ownership of Capital One Bank. I'm not sure whether Joe would have liked those ads with the Vikings -- or are they Visigoths? or Huns? -- but my mother says she can definitely see Joe asking the Capital One tagline: "What's in your wallet?")

And yet, in 1999, right after his death, The Sporting News ignored the fact that Joe played only 13 seasons (missing 3 due to The War and maybe 3 more because of his early retirement due to injury), and selected him at Number 11 on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players -- not first among the then-living, trailing Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron and Mays, who was Number 2 overall behind Ruth.

And, in fan balloting done by MasterCard, baseball fans of all generations -- including those who, like me, had never seen him play, this nearly half a century after his last game -- voted him to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He finished 5th among outfielders, behind Ruth, Aaron, Williams and Mays, and right ahead of Mantle, generally considered the most popular (if not necessarily the greatest) of the following era.

This is a repeat of a piece I did on the 75th Anniversary of his major league debut, on May 3, 1936, at the original Yankee Stadium. He started the season late due to injury. The Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns 14-5, and Joe went 3-for-6. Only 25,000 fans came out, despite Joe having already been about as hyped as a rookie could be in those radio and newsreel, pre-TV, pre-ESPN, pre-Internet days. If they only knew.

Top 10 Joe DiMaggio Moments

Honorable Mention. Date unknown, 1943, 1944 or 1945, and the story may be apocryphal, so I can't count it in the Top 10, but I do have to mention it. Joe served in the Army Air Force (forerunner of the U.S. Air Force) during World War II, although not in combat.

He also played for a USAAF baseball team, and supposedly it played a Marine Corps team that featured Chicago White Sox pitcher Ted Lyons, a fellow future Hall-of-Famer. Seeing Joe, Lyons allegedly said, "I enlisted to get away from DiMaggio, and now here he is!"

As I said, the story may be apocryphal, and, as a result, I have no record of what happened when they faced each other in this wartime game.

10. January 14, 1954. Joe marries Marilyn. It didn't last the year. But when the most popular living American athlete married one of the biggest (and still very much rising) actresses in the world, it sent the popularity, and indeed the legacy, of each soaring. Even though Joe's entire career was done before they met, and Marilyn's best work probably came after they divorced, it is now hard to think of either without the subject of the other coming up.

And unlike a lot of people who knew Marilyn (or say they knew her well), Joe never cashed in on her reputation. His own, sure: He made more money in a year on the memorabilia circuit than in his entire career (though he was the 2nd ballplayer, after Hank Greenberg, to get paid $100,000 a season). But if someone gave him a picture of Marilyn to sign, even if he was also in the picture, he would refuse, maybe even get up and leave.

Right after Joe died, comedian Bill Maher, who normally enjoys lasciviousness, said he wanted salute Joe, "for living to be 84 years old, and never writing a book about banging Marilyn Monroe."

9. October 8, 1939. Game 4 of the World Series. The Yankees were readying a sweep of the Cincinnati Reds. In the top of the 10th inning, Joe got a hit, and Reds outfielder Ival Goodman bobbled the ball. Charlie Keller came around to score, and he crashed into the Reds' future Hall of Fame catcher, Ernie Lombardi. Lombardi was stunned, and lost the ball for a few seconds. Seeing this, Bill Dickey, the on-deck hitter, yelled for Joe to try to come all the way around and score as well.

On the film -- which doesn't make the Keller-Lombardi collision look all that bad, but apparently Keller, not sliding, had kneed Lombardi in the groin -- Dickey can be seen gesturing for Joe to slide. Whatever he was yelling, it apparently "woke up" Lombardi, who finally grabbed the ball, and moved to tag Joe, who executed a perfect hook slide, throwing his entire body away from the plate, except his right foot, which just sort of brushed the plate. The run meant nothing, as Keller had already scored the go-ahead run. But it was still the best slide I've ever seen.

8. August 8, 1941. Following the streak, a song commemorating it, titled "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio" was written by Alan Courtney (words) and Ben Homer (music), and recorded on this date by Les Brown & His Band of Renown (one of the most popular of the "Big Bands"), with Betty Bonney singing lead. It's not a great song, but it's a great baseball song.

7. October 3, 1937. The Yankees beat the Red Sox, 6-1 at the old Yankee Stadium, and Joe completes perhaps the best season any righthanded hitter has ever had for the Yankees. He batted .346, had 215 hits, 35 doubles, 15 triples, 46 home runs (a record for Yankee righthanders until 2005), and 167 RBIs (a record for Yankee righthanders that still stands). His OPS+ was 166 -- and as amazing as that was, he didn't even lead the team: Lou Gehrig had a 176! And the Yanks went on to beat the Giants in the World Series.

And, by the way, he was still a few weeks away from turning 23 years old.

6. September 30, 1939. Again, the Yankees close the season with a game with the Red Sox, only this time, they lose, 4-2. It doesn't matter: In the season that concluded with the aforementioned incident with Ernie Lombardi, the Yankees lost 1st baseman and Captain Gehrig to a fatal illness, yet still won 106 games, the most they (or any of the New York teams) would win between 1927 and 1961.

This was because the leadership slack was picked up by catcher Bill Dickey (Gehrig's best friend on the team served as a kind of unofficial captain thereafter), and the hitting slack was picked up by DiMaggio, whose .381 batting average that season remains the 2nd-highest in Yankee history, behind Babe Ruth's .393 in 1923; no player for any New York team (Yankees, Dodgers, Giants or Mets) has topped it since. This was also the 1st of Joe's 2 batting titles and the 1st of his 3 Most Valuable Player awards. And he wasn't yet 25.

5. October 5, 1950. Game 2 of the World Series. Robin Roberts, exhausted from so much pitching down the stretch, has gone 9 innings for the Philadelphia Phillies. But, having thrown Roberts out for the regular-season finale just 3 days earlier, and having desperately started his usual reliever, Jim Konstanty, in Game 1 (it almost worked, the Yanks won, 1-0), Phils manager Eddie Sawyer sends Roberts out for the 10th inning.

DiMaggio takes advantage of the valiant Roberts' fatigue and sends a home run into the long bleachers that extended from left to center field at Shibe Park (later known as Connie Mack Stadium), to give the Yanks a 2-1 win and a 2-0 lead in the Series. The Yanks completed the sweep 2 days later.

4. July 2, 1941. When Joe started his hitting streak on May 15, the Yankees were .500, 14-14, and in 4th place, 5 1/2 games behind the League-leading Cleveland Indians. Having surpassed the American League record of 41 straight games set by George Sisler in 1922, and having tied the overall major league mark of 44 set by Willie Keeler in 1897, Joe walked onto the field at a broiling hot Yankee Stadium (95 degrees), and the Yanks were 45-26, .634, 3 games ahead of the Indians.

The Yanks' opponents that day were the Boston Red Sox, in 3rd place, 8 games back, and it didn't matter that the Sox' Ted Williams was batting .401 and Joe "only" .348: Anybody who thinks that Ted was "robbed" of the MVP that year is an idiot. Even if the award were for "Most Outstanding" rather than "Most Valuable," Ted might not have deserved it.

Joe hit a 3-run homer off Sox starter Dick Newsome, to give him the record of 45 straight, eventually reaching 56 straight. Lefty Gomez, the Yanks' Hall of Fame pitcher and Joe's best friend on the team, who not only started this game but also the last one in which Joe didn't get a hit, told him, "You not only broke Keeler's record, but you did it by following his advice: You hit 'em where they ain't!" Oh yeah, the Yanks won the game, 8-4.

3. June 28, 29 & 30, 1949. Joe missed the 1st 2 months of the season with bone spurs in his heel. Then, one day, he got out of bed, put his weight on his foot, and felt no pain. He played in an exhibition game against the cross-river New York Giants, and felt no pain. He traveled with the team to Boston to play the Red Sox.

In the 1st game of the series, he went 2-for-3 with a home run. In the 2nd game, he went 2-for-4, both hits being home runs, and 4 RBIs. In the 3rd game, a plane flew overhead, trailing a banner that read, "THE GREAT DIMAGGIO." Now, Joe's younger brother Dom was the center fielder for the Red Sox, but he was just a really good DiMaggio. The Great DiMaggio helped the Yankees complete the sweep of the Sox by going 1-for-3 with a 3-run homer.

Three games, 5-for-10, 4 homers, 8 RBIs. Remember, he hadn't played at all until that series started. He ended up playing in just 76 games, but batted .346 with 67 RBIs -- in what amounted to half a season.

2. October 1 & 2, 1949. In spite of Joe's return, the Yanks blew a 12-game lead over the Sox, and it came down to the last 2 days of the season, and the schedulemaker nailed it: Sox vs. Yanks at the original Yankee Stadium. The Sox led by 1 game: If they won either, they would win the Pennant. The Yanks had to take both to do it.

The Yankees had scheduled the opener as Joe DiMaggio Day. Joe wanted to cancel it, and not play, as he was sick with pneumonia. But he maintained the attitude he had when he was quoted as saying, "There might be somebody out there who's never seen me play before. He deserves my best."

He came out, accepted the cheers and the gifts, and thanked the team, his teammates, and the fans, and closed with, "I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee." He did play that day, and got 2 hits, and the Yanks came from 4-0 down to win, 5-4, on an 8th inning home run by Johnny Lindell.

The next day, the Yanks led 5-1 in the 9th, ready to clinch, but Joe, still sick, dropped an easy fly ball, to make it 5-3. He walked off the field, knowing he was now a liability. The Yankees got the last out and won the Pennant. (Funny, Red Sox fans never mention how Ted Williams got THAT year's MVP instead of a deserving Yankee.)

1. July 27, 1991. What's this, the Number 1 Yankee Clipper moment coming nearly 40 years after he played his last game? This will take some explaining.

It was Old-Timers' Day, and I was sitting at the back of Main Level Section 8 at the old (but post-renovation) Yankee Stadium. The subject of the day's ceremony was the 50th Anniversary of Joe's 56-game hitting streak.

Of his 1941 teammates, 7 were still alive, and 5 showed up: Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Henrich, pitcher Marius Russo, first baseman Johnny Sturm (who only played that one year in the majors, went off to war and never regained his batting eye), and Stanley "Frenchy" Bordagaray, who played for several teams and won Pennants with the '39 Reds and '41 Yankees. The 2 who did not return were the ailing Bill Dickey and Frank Crosetti, who had a policy of never returning for Old-Timers' Day. After Henrich's death in 2010, they're all gone now.

The ceremony closed with Joe doing something he rarely did: Public speaking. He may have spoken more in those 7 minutes than he did in the 13 years he played. He mentioned that, in Game 3 of the 1941 World Series, Russo pitched a complete game: "The reason I mention this is that, today, that's considered a great achievement." He mentioned that Henrich had loaned him a bat, after the bat Joe had used for the first 41 games of the streak had been stolen.

And of the Scooter, not yet having received his rightful election to Cooperstown, he said, "Nobody had a better view than I did of him playing shortstop... And, Phil, I just want to tell you that you're my Hall-of-Famer. And I mean that."

Biggest ovation of the day, even bigger than those for Joe, Mickey Mantle, and, in what turned out to be his first Old-Timers' Day back with the Yankees, Reggie Jackson.

I had also seen Joe on Old-Timers' Day in 1987, and would see him again on Old-Timers Day 1994, and I saw him throw out the first ball on Opening Day 1995. But this Old-Timers' Day 1991 was special. We got to see and hear Joe DiMaggio, not as a flickering image on black-and-white film, and not as a man telling us how good his bank or his coffeemaker was, but being what he was: The defining baseball player of his era... and a real, live human being.

Joe is gone now, and while he was alive, he wasn't the easiest person to get to know, and if you got on his bad side, you were out, permanently. It seems the only person he ever tried to reconcile with was Marilyn.

But when the old Yankee Stadium was closing in 2008, they asked the current Yankee players what item they would like to keep. Derek Jeter made his choice, and it was kept secret for a while. Eventually, it got out that he wanted, and got, a sign in the tunnel that led from the Yankee clubhouse to the dugout, the sign with Joe's quote, "I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee."

I hope Hank & Hal Steinbrenner had a new sign made up. Or, at least, one with another of Joe's quotes, either the one about the fan that's never seen you play before and he deserves your best effort, or the one where he said, "Just putting on the Yankee uniform was the highlight of my career."