Joe DiMaggio Strikes Out!
Off and on it had rained through the night in Washington, D.C. As game time approached at now-soggy Griffith Stadium on May 29, 1941, doubts increased about whether the game would be played.
Eddie Rommel was the umpire crew chief and scheduled behind the plate. He believed conditions were good enough to play ball. When the Senators took the field, fewer than 1,600 fans were in the stands.
On this day, the Yankees hoped to make short work of their hosts. An overnight train trip awaited as New York hit a weird scheduling bump.
The following day—a Friday—the Bombers would be in Boston for a doubleheader. They’d be off Saturday, traveling to first-place Cleveland for another twin bill on Sunday.
Energy and pitching needed to be conserved. Marius Russo would go for the Yanks. Washington countered with Smokey Sundra, a happy-go-lucky kinda guy who—had he trained, paid attention to the game and kept his night life to a minimum—might have had a better than 56-41 lifetime record.
After all, Sundra was 11-1 with the Yankees two years before, but manager Joe McCarthy gave up on him. Now he toiled in relative obscurity for a bad team.
But Sundra did something to Joe DiMaggio in the first inning that would happen only 12 other times in 1941: he struck out the Yankee Clipper.
As the drizzle turned to a light rain, the game slogged on.
Washington took a 1-0 lead in the third; New York tied it, however, in the fourth. DiMaggio singled—running The Streak to 14 straight games. Joltin’ Joe went from first to third on Bill Dickey’s hit and scored when Frankie Crosetti flared one to right.
Tommy Heinrich smacked a pitch that cut its way through the now-heavy rain and nestled in the seats, but Russo couldn’t hold the lead and the Solons tied things. At that point, Rommel had seen enough of the elements, calling the game, tied at 2-2 through five.
Looking back, taking into account DiMaggio’s brilliant 13 seasons, that strikeout and Joe going from first to third are worth exploring.
Let columnist and baseball historian George Will weigh in:
“The unrivaled elegance of (DiMaggio’s) career is defined by two numbers even more impressive than his 56. They are eight and zero.
“Eight is the astonishingly small difference between his…career totals for home runs (361) and strikeouts (369). Zero is the number of times Mr. DiMaggio was thrown out going from first to third.”*
*Baltimore Sun, March 1999
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