1 JOLTIN JOLTIN JOE’S STREAK N ew York Yankees center fielder Joe DiMaggio was in a slump As he walked up to home plate on the afternoon of May 15 1941 he had not had a hit in two games His batting average had dropped 67 points since May 1 He did not look like the same player who won the American League AL batting championship the past two years But in the bottom of the first inning at Yankee Stadium DiMaggio got a fastball he liked from Chicago White Sox pitcher Eddie Smith He hit a line drive to center field for a single Yankees star Joe DiMaggio made headlines in 1941 with the longest hitting streak in Major League Baseball MLB history 4
At the time DiMaggio’s hit did not mean much The Yankees would lose 13 1 Only 9,040 fans were there to see it Yet the single was the start of something big Through the rest of May all of June and well into July Joltin Joe got a hit in every game he played His hitting streak lasted 56 games a major league record The United States was on the brink of World War II DiMaggio’s streak was a nice distraction for many people As his streak grew news of his feats made its way onto the front pages of daily newspapers from New York to California DiMaggio paid little attention to it at first He was just happy he was hitting again and the Yankees were winning He said the key to getting hot was remembering to point his left foot toward the pitcher It was something he’d learned in the minor leagues but had moved away from during his slump Everybody asked what was wrong DiMaggio said They told me I was striding too far They told me I was upper-cutting the ball They told me just about everything And then on May 15 I took a gander at my left foot It wasn’t pointed toward the pitcher at all It was pointed toward first base Back in his familiar stance DiMaggio started hitting the ball hard to all fields On May 16 he had two hits a home run and a triple Two games later he had three hits On May 27 he had four hits to run his streak to 12 games 6
Joe DiMaggio rips a single to left field on June 29 1941 to run his hitting streak to a record 42 straight games On June 7 DiMaggio had three hits in St Louis against the Browns The next day he had four hits including three home runs in a doubleheader That extended his streak to 24 games I knew I was hitting the ball well but I wasn’t conscious of the streak until after that series in St Louis when the 7
