Wednesday, May 28, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.
A look at the streak
In 1933, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio put together a 61-game hitting streak -- a professional record on all levels -- while playing for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.
Here's how DiMaggio performed during each game of the record-breaking feat: May 28 at Portland 1 for 4
May 30 at Seattle 3 for 6
May 30 at Seattle 3 for 4
May 31 at Seattle 2 for 4
June 1 at Seattle 1 for 5
Juna 2 at Seattle 2 for 5
June 3 at Seattle 2 for 4
June 4 at Seattle 2 for 4
June 4 at Seattle 1 for 3
June 6 at Oakland 1 for 4
June 7 at Oakland 1 for 3
June 8 at Oakland 3 for 5
June 9 at Oakland 1 for 4
June 10 at Oakland 2 for 5
June 11 at Oakland 3 for 5
June 11 at Oakland 1 for 4
June 13 vs. Seattle 2 for 4
June 14 vs. Seattle 1 for 3
June 15 vs. Seattle 2 for 4
June 16 vs. Seattle 2 for 5
June 17 vs. Seattle 3 for 4
June 18 vs. Seattle 1 for 3
June 18 vs. Seattle 2 for 2
June 20 vs. Mission 1 for 2
June 21 vs. Mission 2 for 5
June 22 vs. Mission 2 for 4
June 23 vs. Mission 1 for 4
June 24 vs. Mission 2 for 4
June 25 vs. Mission 2 for 4
June 25 vs. Mission 1 for 4
June 27 at L.A. 1 for 4
June 28 at L.A. 3 for 5
June 29 at L.A. 1 for 5
June 30 at L.A. 1 for 4
July 1 at L.A. 1 for 4
July 2 at L.A. 1 for 4
July 2 at L.A. 2 for 4
July 4 vs. Hollywood 1 for 5
July 4 vs. Hollywood 2 for 5
July 5 vs. Hollywood 1 for 4
July 6 vs. Hollywood 2 for 5
July 7 vs. Hollywood 1 for 5
July 8 vs. Hollywood 2 for 5
July 8 vs. Hollywood 1 for 3
July 9 vs. Hollywood 3 for 6
July 9 vs. Hollywood 1 for 3
July 11 at L.A. 2 for 4
July 12 at L.A. 1 for 4
July 13 at L.A. 3 for 4
July 14 at L.A. 2 for 5
July 15 at L.A. 4 for 4
July 16 at L.A. 1 for 4
July 16 at L.A. 1 for 3
July 18 at Sacramento 3 for 4
July 19 at Sacramento 3 for 5
July 20 at Sacramento 1 for 5
July 21 at Sacramento 1 for 5
July 22 at Sacramento 1 for 4
July 23 at Sacramento 1 for 5
July 23 at Sacramento 1 for 4
July 25 vs. Oakland 1 for 5
Recap: 61 games, 40 pitchers faced, .405 batting average (104-for-257), 16 2Bs, 6 3Bs, 11 HRs, 49 runs scored.
Best of the AL
The top American League hitting streaks:
The Best of the NL
The top National League hitting streaks:
Joe DiMaggio neither fought nor spelled particularly well. He vowed not to follow in his father's fisherman footsteps and he dropped out of Galileo High.
Then his life took a dramatic turn on May 28, 1933.
His quiet confidence soon commanded respect everywhere, many would deign him the prince of an era and his immortality would be sealed in two lines of a pop song, about where he'd gone and lonely eyes.
Seventy years ago today, the legend of "Joltin' Joe" took root when DiMaggio began a 61-game hitting streak in the Pacific Coast League, for the San Francisco Seals, that stands as a professional baseball record.
"Phenomenal," said Lou Pisani, 76. "My father and I never missed a Sunday game in those days, and we had to take the ferry from Oakland. It's all you read about in the sports pages; him, the streak and what happened."
Pisani was born and raised in Oakland, and he has coached in various capacities at Las Vegas and Bishop Gorman high schools, and UNLV, during his 50 years in Las Vegas.
He was only 6 when DiMaggio first splashed onto the sporting scene, but the impression was indelible. If only Pisani's mother hadn't thrown out those DiMaggio-signed Seals scorecards before he returned from World War II.
"He was the talk of the town," Pisani said of DiMaggio in '33. "What they talked about was his great bat contact. He just was a natural."
With the same introverted stoicism that became ingrained in his father on a tiny island, Isola delle Femmine, off the coast of Sicily, Joe DiMaggio played baseball on North Beach sandlots in San Francisco, then on semipro teams.
His big break arrived when older brother Vince, an outfielder for the Seals, suggested that manager Ike Caveney, in need of a late-season fill-in at shortstop, take a look at Joe in 1932.
A couple of hits in three games earned Joe a tryout with the Seals in spring training in '33, just as ground was being broken on the Golden Gate Bridge.
The tryout, and all that followed, nearly dissolved when rumors circulated that the Seattle franchise might fold. Panicky PCL owners, fighting to make their bottom lines in the post-depression era, discussed canceling the '33 season.
In "Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life" (Touchstone), published in 2001, author Richard Ben Cramer noted that baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis threatened to make all PCL players free agents if that season wasn't played.
Thankfully, for 18-year-old Joe DiMaggio, they played.
He made four errors at short, after regular Augie Galan suffered an injury, in the last exhibition game. Caveney, though, liked DiMaggio's arm, so Joe made the opening-day roster.
In the third game, Caveney sent DiMaggio in as a ninth-inning replacement in right field after he flied out as a pinch-hitter in the eighth. He started the next night in right, gunning down two runners trying to nab extra bases.
DiMaggio hit .250 that April. Seals owner Charley Graham signed Vince to a two-week contract, then Joe hit .300. When Vince was released, Joe's average dropped below .250. He had one extra-base hit in 50 at-bats.
On May 28, the Seals took two in Portland. In the second game of the doubleheader, DiMaggio hit a double.
Two days later, DiMaggio went 6-for-10 -- with a double, triple and home run -- in a doubleheader in Seattle. In those days, a series was a week-long affair, and DiMaggio recorded multiple-hit games in four of the Seals' next five against Seattle.
A star was born.
On June 20, against the local rival Missions at Seals Stadium, DiMaggio, like the rest of the Seals, struggled against 19-year-old pitcher Johnny Babich, who went on to become a Yankee killer for Philadelphia.
Seals center fielder Elias Funk connected for a double in the bottom of the eighth of a scoreless game. Babich, according to Cramer's book, tried to throw a fastball by DiMaggio, who slugged it for a triple for his only hit -- and the only run -- of the game.
Joe's ninth-inning hit the following night drove in the winning run, again. Afterward, he was mobbed by his teammates in the clubhouse.
After DiMaggio hit in his 30th game in a row, on June 25, Abe Kemp of the San Francisco Examiner glowed about this "DeMaggio" kid in his copy. He had a long way to go, Kemp wrote, to reach the PCL mark of 49 set by Jack Ness of Oakland.
Ness accomplished that during the summer of 1915, just before DiMaggio's family celebrated his first birthday.
On to Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, where opposing fans first started coming out in droves to cheer for DiMaggio. When the Seals returned home for a July 4 doubleheader against Hollywood, more than 5,000 packed Seals Stadium.
The Streak stood at 37 when peripheral players got into the act. Spike Hennessy took credit for finding DiMaggio, and third baseman Leo Ostenberg said he talked to Joe before each at-bat and instructed him not to wear bright yellow shirts in hotel lobbies.
DiMaggio mostly kept very, very quiet. Kemp wrote a question-and-answer column featuring Joe, featuring only a grunt or shrug for DiMaggio's responses. Another columnist dubbed him "Dead Pan Joe."
Touching the bill of his cap to acknowledge applause after extending the streak to 39 with a first-inning single against Hollywood qualified as wild exuberance for DiMaggio. In that series, fans started leaving after seeing Joe get his hit.
Nothing else mattered.
When DiMaggio pushed it to 47, Graham had a fancy watch prepared for the event of Ness's record being broken. He asked Joe how he spells his last name, and Joe said, "Aw, spell it any way you want to," according to Cramer's biography.
Graham persisted, and DiMaggio came clean. He never read the papers, so he never noticed the misspelling. And older brother Tom didn't notice when Joe signed his first contract, at $225 a month, as "De Maggio."
In his 48th game, Joe doubled in a run. In 49, he singled on the first pitch he saw, then he homered on the next one. He added a line-drive single in the eighth.
Before the 50th game, mayor Angelo Rossi presented DiMaggio with the watch that Graham had engraved. His father, Giuseppe, wore a fine fedora. He gave his mother, Rosalie, a lavish flower arrangement before a crowd of 10,000.
When DiMaggio had trouble picking up Newsome's pitch, because of the point-blank flashes from nearby photographers, Graham hurdled a railing and physically beat them behind the foul line with a rolled-up program.
Joe cracked the next pitch by Newsome's ear for a hit. Headlines screamed about "De Maggio."
In Sacramento, a shortstop didn't field a DiMaggio grounder cleanly. When official scorer Steve George gave him a hit, police had to escort George from the park after the game.
That, however, typified a tiring DiMaggio who reached 61 thanks to a few late bleeders and bloopers. In the last 10 games of the streak, he had no extra-base hits. Only two of those were multiple-hit games, too.
Overall, DiMaggio hit .405 off 40 different pitchers during his 61-game hitting streak.
Pitchers rarely dodged the wrath of DiMaggio's dark hickory bat by intentionally walking him, but that didn't exempt him from confrontation.
Later that season, the Seals were hammering Oakland pitcher Roy Joiner in the first inning. On a play at the plate, he covered home as DiMaggio barreled around third. Joe was called out, but Roy supposedly said something to him.
Joe came up swinging, but Roy floored DiMaggio with a left. Joe stood, and Joiner hit him again, falling on top of DiMaggio. Neither was tossed, and DiMaggio went 2-for-4.
"I remember him making three great catches, just by outrunning the ball, that year," Pisani said. "It was just after the Depression, so people didn't have much money. But he brought people to the park. He just stirred up the Coast League that year."
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