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Comment Of The Day But, sometimes not every day. |
Most recent past comment.
Joe DiMaggio.
A couple of interesting things you might have missed.
March 9, 1999
 The
famous 56-game streak began on May 15, 1941 and finally ended
on the night of July 17 before a packed stadium in Cleveland.
The Indians' third baseman was the problem. He had made two stupendous
backhand plays to rob DiMaggio of two sure hits for the Yankees.
On his fourth at bat Joe was intentionally walked, ending the
streak. Interestingly, the next day, he started another 16-game
streak. So, had they not walked him, the streak might actually
have gone all the way to 73 games. Just a thought for your mental
records. Many game experts say today that the streak will never
be broken, but if it is, there is always this  little
fact to consider: what if they hadn't walked him?And secondly, having married Marilyn Munroe for nine months in 1954, and then divorced, Joe entered a long and lonely portion of his life. One of the interesting episodes of their marriage that stands out is his vociferous opposition to Billy Wilder's insistence that in the picture, "The Seven Year Itch," Marilyn's skirt should be dramatically blown up very high. While that is one of her definitive photographs, and perhaps the world would be less  beautiful
without it, our hero, Joe, hated it, hated it, hated it. Joe
had always been a very private person, who, when he dined out,
always had a special table far from the view of the prying public
and reporters. But, ironically, he fell in love with the world's
preeminent diva, and sex-goddess, and then he tried to make her
into something she wasn't. He never got over the heartbreak of
that relationship and when Marilyn was on the verge of emotional
collapse in the very early sixties during her excursion into
the Kennedy clan, he took her back to help her recover, at the
Yankees training camp and, again, tried to shield her from the
world of her own choosing. Unsuccessfully, of course. When she
died of a drug overdose on August 4, 1962, he took charge of
her funeral and up until yesterday, when he died himself, he
kept fresh roses outside her cript in Los Angeles. His will provides
for the roses to continue forever, not surprisingly.In his day, and in ours, he was considered by most the greatest baseball player of all time. And it is clear that his appeal to so many for so long had as much to do with his character and his grace as a human being, as it did with the accuracy of his bat, and the elegance of his movements in center field. Even today, when the world recently acclaimed the class of Mark McGuire, it was tempered with the thought that, "There'll never be another Joe DiMaggio." May he rest in peace. |
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