Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991 TAG: 9104140101
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HAL BOCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As the shadows of war lengthened over Europe and the world, there were signs everywhere that the conflict inevitably would involve this country. There was a foreboding sense that this might be America's last summer of innocence.
The nation searched desperately for relief from the flames of a world on fire and baseball supplied the antidote with two remarkable individual accomplishments - the 56-game hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio and the .406 season of Ted Williams.
Half a century and several wars later, DiMaggio still owns the barometer for batting streaks and Williams remains baseball's last .400 hitter. In a sport where other records regularly fall, theirs stand alone, only rarely challenged, perhaps never to be broken, magical reminders of the summer of '41, a time of innocence and accomplishment.
A time for heroes.
\ "Joe, Joe, DiMaggio, We want you on our side." - Refrain of a popular song of the day
Joseph Paul DiMaggio was 26 years old in the summer of '41, winner of two straight American League batting championships, one of the game's burgeoning young sluggers.
On May 15 of that summer, he set out on an unparalleled batting odyssey. The 56-game hitting streak started modestly enough with a lonely first-inning, RBI single against Chicago's Edgar Smith. It hardly stood out, since the Yankees lost the game 13-1. For the next two months, however, day-in, day-out, through wins and losses, Joe DiMaggio got base hits.
The streak was marked by historical footnotes.
On May 3, two weeks before it began, Whirlaway won the Kentucky Derby. Before it ended, the colt captured the Preakness and Belmont as well, sweeping the Triple Crown. A week later, Rudolf Hess, deputy chancellor of Hitler's Third Reich, parachuted into Scotland on a mysterious mission.
On May 23, barely a week after DiMaggio's first streak hit, heavyweight champion Joe Louis knocked out Buddy Baer for his 17th defense of the title. That same day, King George II of Greece eluded the Nazis, fleeing from Crete to Egypt. Three weeks later, Louis would defend the title again, this time beating Billy Conn.
On June 2, three weeks into the streak, a pall was cast over DiMaggio and the Yankees when, at age 39, former teammate Lou Gehrig died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That same day, Justice Charles Evans Hughes retired from the Supreme Court.
On June 21, German troops drove into the Soviet Union on a wide front from the Arctic to the Black Sea. That day, DiMaggio blooped a first-inning single off Detroit's Dizzy Trout, extending the streak to 34 games.
Later that week, the streak was in danger. DiMaggio was hitless through seven innings of Game No. 38. He was scheduled to be the fourth batter in the bottom of the eighth and, with the Yankees leading, there probably wouldn't be a ninth. It was clearly a crisis.
With one out, Red Rolfe walked. Now, Tommy Henrich huddled with manager Joe McCarthy. Henrich feared a double play that would end the inning and the streak. He suggested a sacrifice. McCarthy agreed. The bunt worked and DiMaggio, his swing saved, followed with a double, keeping the streak alive.
When he reached 39 games, DiMaggio faced an obscure Philadelphia pitcher named Johnny Babich. Fifty years later, he still recalls the encounter vividly.
"My first time up, the count went to 3-0," he said. "I got the hit sign, but the fourth pitch was way outside."
In his second at-bat, it was the same story - four straight balls. It was clear that Babich was determined not to be any part of the DiMaggio streak if he could help it. Four walks in four trips would have ended the streak. The rules have been eased since then; but, at the time, DiMaggio's streak was in jeopardy and he knew it.
"The third at-bat was the same," DiMaggio said. "Three straight balls. They gave me the hit sign again. This time, Babich got the fourth pitch not quite as far outside."
DiMaggio jumped on it, ripping the ball up the middle, through the pitcher's legs and into center field, extending the streak to 40 games. "Babich went down flat on his back," DiMaggio said. "When he came up, he was ashen."
On July 1, DiMaggio tied Wee Willie Keeler's record of 44 straight games in a doubleheader sweep of Boston. The second game - No. 44 - was halted by rain after five innings and during the delay, a fan reached into the Yankees' dugout and swiped the streak bat. It could have provoked a crisis, but not for DiMaggio. He simply borrowed another bat from Henrich the next day and continued his assault with a home run.
Keeler was a milestone. Now DiMaggio was in uncharted territory. It hardly distracted him. He just kept peppering pitchers, extending the streak to 56.
It rained in Cleveland on July 16, 1941, a day DiMaggio ripped three hits. The ground was still damp the next night when the Indians played the Yankees with a crowd of more than 67,000 people crammed into Municipal Stadium.
In his first time at bat against Cleveland left-hander Al Smith, DiMaggio sent a shot down the third-base line. Ken Keltner lunged to his right, back-handed the ball, and barely had time to catch the hitter. After walking in his next at-bat, DiMaggio went against Smith again in the seventh inning and sent another shot down the line. It was a mirror of his first swing and, again, Keltner threw him out.
"They were unconscious stops," Keltner said. "Both were back-handed plays, down the line. Both times, I got Joe by an eyelash. He could run, too."
But not that night. In his first swing, DiMaggio, his legs set wide apart in his familiar stance, slipped slightly on the heavy footing getting out of the batter's box.
Keltner, who led American League third basemen in fielding three times and assists four times, had developed a style of looking at the ball before throwing it. "I grabbed the seams to make sure it didn't sail," he said. "On those plays, though, there was no time to do that."
The third baseman had been playing deep - "in left field," DiMaggio decided - partly because of the damp field, partly because DiMaggio was on baseball's greatest hitting tear. "He was hitting with authority," Keltner said. "I wanted to guard the line and stop the double. Ordinarily, I played him toward shortstop, but not that night. He wasn't bunting, I knew that."
Not once during the streak had DiMaggio bunted. There was no reason to expect him to change now. His last swing came in the eighth inning against reliever Jim Bagby. He came to the plate with the bases loaded and worked the count to 2-1, a good hitting situation. He sent a shot to shortstop, where Lou Boudreau turned it into an inning-ending double play.
The Yankees were leading 4-1 at the time. In the ninth inning, Cleveland rallied for two runs and had the tying run on third base with none out. If the Indians tied the game, DiMaggio would be up again in the 10th, with a chance to extend the streak. But relief ace Johnny Murphy escaped the jam, preserving the victory and depriving DiMaggio of any extra swings.
The streak was over.
DiMaggio called Keltner "the culprit" for his two brilliant fielding plays. "My wife and I needed a police escort out of the stadium that night," the third baseman said. "Joe had a lot of friends in Cleveland."
For two months, DiMaggio had been on a tear - 91 hits in 223 at-bats. He hit 15 home runs among 35 extra-base hits and drove in 55 runs. He had four games with four hits, five games with three and 13 games with two.
From May 15 through July 16, 1941, Joe DiMaggio batted .408.
Over the same stretch, Ted Williams hit .412.
\ "He could do everything. He had more style than any player I ever knew." - Ted Williams on Joe DiMaggio.
From the security of Williamsport, Pa., where he was toiling in the minor leagues, pitcher Roger Wolff followed the continuing saga of DiMaggio's batting streak. "I wanted to face him," Wolff said. "I figured I could stop him."
Wolff's secret weapon was a nasty knuckleball that danced its way up to home plate, dipping this way, darting that way and frustrating hitters at every turn. Later in his career, Wolff would pitch in Washington with Johnny Niggeling, Dutch Leonard and Mickey Haeffner, a staff of four knuckleballers handled by Rick Ferrell. It was a test of endurance that may well have accounted for the catcher's eventual election to the Hall of Fame.
In September 1941, Philadelphia called up Wolff. The 30-year-old rookie's second major-league start would be on the next-to-last day of the season, a Saturday afternoon in Shibe Park against Boston and Ted Williams.
Williams arrived in town batting .4009, rounded off to .401. Wolff, however, was hardly overwhelmed. "I felt good about pitching to him," he said. "I felt I could get him out. I threw him all knuckleballs. I had a good one, too. I felt sorry for him. If the catchers couldn't catch it, how could the hitters hit it?"
One time, the Red Sox and A's were riding the train together from Boston to Philadelphia when Williams decided to discuss knuckleballers with Wolff. "He plopped down next to me," the pitcher recalled, "and he said, `You know I can hit Leonard and Niggeling. But I can't hit you.' "
Wolff had other pitches in his repertoire: a fastball, a curve, a slider. Williams saw none of them. "He got all knuckleballs to hit," Wolff said. "He stood there and took his medicine."
Williams managed one single in four at-bats against Wolff that day and his batting average slipped to .3996. Rounded off, it was still .400.
Now, manager Joe Cronin came to Williams with a suggestion. The Sunday doubleheader would mean nothing to either team - the Red Sox were locked into a second-place finish behind DiMaggio's Yankees and the A's were last. Sit out the doubleheader, Cronin said, and let the statisticians turn the fraction into that magic number - .400.
Williams was having nothing of that. He insisted on playing and, when he stepped to the plate in the first inning of the opener, home plate umpire Bill McGowan offered a little unsolicited advice. McGowan called time to brush off home plate and without looking up from his housekeeping, he said, "To hit .400, a batter has got to be loose."
Williams got the message and put on a show that is recalled with awe by those who saw it. Pete Suder was Philadelphia's rookie shortstop that day as Williams went 6-for-8 to finish the season at a leave-no-doubt .406.
"He killed the ball, just killed it," Suder said. "He hit one into the loudspeaker horns. He hit another one over the fence. He was 4-for-5 in the first game. We were winning 11-0 and wound up losing 12-11. In the second game, he was 2-for-3.
"He was so smart at the plate. He could really hit. Here I am a rookie and I see one guy hit in 56 straight games and another guy hit .406. I'm batting .245 and I think I'm in the wrong league."
\ "He was the best pure hitter I ever saw. He was feared." - Joe DiMaggio on Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel Williams was 22 years old in the summer of '41, starting his third season in the major leagues. He had led the American League with 145 runs batted in as a rookie and hit .327 and .344 his first two seasons, positive evidence that he was a legitimate hitter. In 1941, he would become a legendary one.
The season started badly for the slender Red Sox outfielder. In spring training, he chipped a bone in his ankle sliding into second base, an injury that limited him to part-time duty for the first two weeks of the season. On Opening Day in Boston, Williams delivered a pinch single in the Red Sox's 7-6 victory over Washington. A day earlier, the Senators lost the presidential opener at home to the Yankees 3-0 as DiMaggio had a triple and single. It was the start of a summer-long batting chase for two of the game's finer hitters.
Williams never wasted time on the sidelines. He constantly asked teammates about what pitchers were throwing and would be angered when they couldn't answer his probing questions. "In order to hit a baseball properly," he once explained, "a man has got to devote every ounce of his concentration to it."
One time, while sitting in the dugout in Boston, Williams watched an opposing player taking batting practice, clearly distracted by the Green Monster, the left-field wall that sits an appealing 315 feet from home plate at Fenway Park. He sauntered up to the cage and offered some advice. "Follow the ball when it hits the bat," he advised the player. "You're watching the wall."
Williams was a perfectionist. He ordered postal scales for the Boston clubhouse so he could be sure of the weight of his bats. In the on-deck circle, he would massage the handle of his bat with olive oil and resin, producing a disconcerting squeal that served as his personal introduction to the pitcher.
When Williams returned to the lineup a couple of weeks into the 1941 season, he went on a tear. During the month of May, he had five games with three hits and two games with four, finishing the month with 44 hits in 101 at-bats, a .436 pace. That boosted his average for the season to .429.
A week later, on June 6, with DiMaggio's streak at 21 games, Williams had his season's average up to the May pace - .436. That's the kind of number you'd expect early in the year, when averages are routinely inflated. But Williams was there one-third of the way into the season.
Williams went into July batting .404 as baseball paused for the All-Star Game. DiMaggio arrived at the break with his hitting streak at 48 games after punishing Philadelphia pitching for six hits in nine at-bats in a doubleheader sweep. Williams was at .405 after going 4-for-8 in a doubleheader against Washington. Both bats were blazing.
The All-Star Game was still in its infancy in 1941 and the National League, which later would dominate the series, was trying to win two straight for the first time. Two home runs by Arky Vaughan had helped the Nationals to a 5-3 lead going to the bottom of the ninth inning at Detroit's Briggs Stadium.
The AL loaded the bases with one out and DiMaggio, who had doubled earlier, coming up against Claude Passeau. This time, DiMaggio hit what looked like a game-ending double-play ball, but beat the relay to first. Remember what Keltner said about his speed? One run scored to make it 5-4 and bring Williams to the plate.
Two men on, two men out. The game hanging in the balance. A dramatic moment, tailor-made for a man with Williams' sense of the dramatic.
The Red Sox slugger responded, hitting Passeau's 2-1 pitch off the facing of the third deck for a three-run homer. He all but flew around the bases, celebrating the moment.
The AL players carried him off the field and, years later, Williams still called the All-Star homer "one of the great thrills of my life."
Two days after the All-Star Game, Williams reinjured his ankle against the Tigers in a most bizarre way. He was trotting to first base with his third straight walk when his spikes caught in some dirt softened by a light rain. The injury limited him to four pinch-hitting appearances over the next 10 days. His batting average dipped to .393.
When Williams came back, he went on a tear again, similar to the one after the first ankle injury. Over nine games from July 23 through Aug. 2, he went 17-for-32, a .531 pace that pushed his average for the season to .412.
The dog days of August did not disturb Williams, either. He hit .402 for the month, taking a season's average of .407 into September. He lost just one percentage point the rest of the way - thanks in part to the 6-for-8 final day that left him at 185-for-456, a .406 season.
\ "I would hate to be placed in the predicament of deciding to give up one for the other." Ty Cobb on Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams.
Later in their careers, the Yankees and Red Sox once briefly considered exchanging their star outfielders. The theory was that Williams, a great left-handed hitter, would benefit from Yankee Stadium's short right-field porch, while DiMaggio, swinging from the right side, could beat a steady tattoo on Fenway Park's Green Monster in left field.
The proposal was the cocktail-party creation of club owners Dan Topping and Tom Yawkey and was called off in the light of the next day. Rightly so, DiMaggio decided.
"The thing is, Williams never had a great series in Yankee Stadium," he said. "He never pumped a lot of balls out of the park. And I wouldn't have had any greater home-run production in Fenway Park. I was a line-drive hitter. I didn't get the ball high. My line drives rose, but the high fence in Fenway would have kept them from going over."
\ "Roosevelt Insists Seas Be Kept Open; 14 Ships Launched" "Nazis Claim 665,000 Captives With End of Kiev Battle" The New York Times front page, Sept. 28, 1941.
After the 56-game hitting streak ended, DiMaggio started a new one that lasted 16 games, giving him a remarkable stretch of hits in 72 of 73 games - not including his All-Star Game double. He finished the season batting .357, leading the league with 125 RBI and winning the Most Valuable Player award.
Williams led the league in home runs with 37 in his .406 season and, a year later, he took the Triple Crown, batting .356 with 36 homers and 137 RBI. By 1943, both sluggers were off to the war, away from baseball for the next three seasons.
In the half-century since DiMaggio and Williams electrified baseball, there have been occasional runs at the records. In 1978, Pete Rose hit in 44 consecutive games and, in 1987, Paul Molitor reached 39. In 1977, Rod Carew batted .388; in 1980, George Brett batted .390.
Nice tries all, but each well short of 56 and .406, the statistics of the summer of '41, a time for heroes.
by CNB