DiMaggio's 1941
This was getting to be serious.
A 24-game hitting streak was the longest in the league in a couple of years and since it was a New York Yankee writing the script, 12 Gotham-area newspapers were happy to follow along.
In San Francisco, the Call-Bulletin had a front-page feature called the DiMag-O-Log. It followed the exploits of the three homegrown DiMaggios. Poor Vince was sentenced to the struggling Pirates while Boston’s Dom and New York’s Joe were in the limelight—and played each other 22 times a season.
The family restaurant, DiMaggio’s Grotto at Fisherman’s Wharf, in recent weeks had almost doubled business. Folks were jammed in to hear radio reports of the Yankee Clipper’s streak, and tell stories about the boys growing up. After all, everybody knew Joe or his parents, or one of his eight brothers and sisters.
From coast to coast, The Streak was on everyone’s minds. It was the perfect bromide for a nation that knew war was at hand—a nation that was still trying to get its footing after a decade of economic misery. Joe DiMaggio was the diversion everyone craved.
Despite what the rest of the nation was thinking, only 10,000 Midwesterners cared enough to see the Yankees in the doubleheader with St. Louis.
What the Browns fans saw was DiMaggio go 4-for-8 with three home runs, seven RBI and five runs scored as the Yankees swept a pair, 8-3 and 9-3.
The Streak was at 24 games. DiMaggio’s average was ever moving upward. At .340 now. The Yankees were in a three-way tie for second with Boston and Chicago—four games behind Cleveland.
A quick stop on June 9 for an exhibition game in Kansas City, then New York would be headed home to play the White Sox and Indians.
“Everything he’s hitting is a line drive. Even Joe’s outs are loud,” rookie Phil Rizzuto told the Journal-American.
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