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By now much of the nation was following DiMaggio’s streak on a daily basis through radio updates and newspaper reports. In addition to the fans, DiMaggio’s teammates were acutely aware of what was going on, as evidenced by the drama of this thirty-eighth game. DiMaggio flied out to left in the second, but his fourth inning at bat was more eventful. He hit a sharp grounder which shortstop John Berardino booted for an obvious error. (The twenty-four-year-old Berardino, by the way, would have a forgettable eleven-year career with a handful of baseball teams, but a forty-year career as an actor. Soap fans might remember his thirty-year stint as Dr. Steve Hardy on “General Hospital”.) As DiMaggio crossed first base safely, his Yankee teammates gathered on the top step of the dugout, peering into the pressbox and awaiting the official scorer’s decision. When the error sign was given, the players were furious. DiMaggio was 0 for 2.

After another groundout in the sixth, this time to third, the pressure began to mount, and this is where things got interesting. The Yankees led the Browns 3-1 as they came to bat for what would likely be the final time in the bottom of the eighth inning, and DiMaggio was due up fourth. The first batter, Johnny Sturm, popped up for the first out, but Red Rolfe came up next and managed a walk. With DiMaggio on deck, Tommy Henrich stepped up to the plate but realized that all would be lost if he were to hit into a double play. He had homered earlier to extend the home run streak, but now he was more concerned about DiMaggio’s streak. He called time to consult with Yankee manager Joe McCarthy and suggested that maybe he should lay down a bunt. Even though the score and game situation clearly dictated otherwise, McCarthy gave the okay. Henrich dropped his bunt and advanced Rolfe to second, avoiding the double play and bringing DiMaggio to the plate for one final shot. At this point in the streak, DiMaggio had become more aggressive than usual at the plate, prefering to jump on the first hittable pitch he saw rather than put himself in a two-strike hole or accept a base on balls. In this final at bat, he took the first pitch he saw and roped it past the third baseman and into the left field corner for a double. Both the crowd and his teammates gave him a prolonged ovation. Thirty-eight straight.

As further evidence of the crowd’s focus on DiMaggio, Yankee starting pitcher Marius Russo took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, but no one seemed to notice. The Yankees won the game, 4-1, and remained in a first place tie, but on this day at least, that didn’t seem to matter.

[Photo Credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt]

DiMaggio didn’t wait nearly as long as he had the previous day to keep his streak alive. He smashed a two-run homer to left in the fourth inning, extending the team streak to twenty straight games with a homerun and moving his number to thirty-seven in a row. He was now only four games shy of George Sisler’s 41-game streak. The homerun was DiMaggio’s 16th long ball of the year, and it moved him into first place in the American League in that category. Building on this early lead, the Yanks went on to top the Browns, 7-5, and moved into a tie with Cleveland for first place in the American League.

[Photo Credit: Carl Mydans]

The St. Louis Browns, one of the worst teams in baseball, came to Yankee Stadium for a three-game series, and the Yankees took advantage immediately, taking the first game in a walk, 9-1. Red Rolfe homered for the Bombers in the second inning, keeping the homerun streak alive, but DiMaggio made the fans wait a bit longer to see if he could extend his hitting streak. He grounded out in the first, popped out in the third, and then fell victim to the dimensions of the Stadium as he smashed a long fly to left center, only to have it hauled in some 457 feet from the plate for a long out. Finally, in the eighth inning, the Clipper ended the suspense and came through with a clean single over the head of the shortstop. Elsewhere, Ted Williams was “slumping.” He was hitless for the second game in a row, and his average plummeted to .403.

It took a while, but in the sixth inning DiMaggio stepped up to the plate and killed two birds with one stone as he sent a home run to right, bringing his personal hitting streak to thirty-five games and stretching the Yankee home run streak to a major-league record eighteen games in a row. The homer gave his team a brief lead, but the Yanks would need a two-out ninth-inning rally (which included a DiMaggio double) to earn a 5-4 win.

DiMaggio came to bat in the first inning and got jammed, but managed to muscle a single over the head of Detroit first baseman Rudy York, extending his streak to thirty-four straight. That total matched George McQuinn’s streak from 1938; all that remained was Ty Cobb’s 1911 streak of forty games and Sisler’s record forty-one. The other streak continued as well, as Phil Rizzuto (Holy Cow!) knocked one out to left. The Yankees had homered for seventeen games in a row, tying the major league record. None of this was enough to earn a win on this first day of summer, however, as the Tigers posted a 7-2 victory.

If you just look at the score, you’ll think the game wasn’t close. If you just watch the highlights, you’ll think the game was played in a time machine set for April of 2009 when every pop fly seemed like it floated into the seats. But if you skipped work and took in every pitch — or if you’ve got the entire summer off, like me — you know the truth. This was a close game, and there were exactly four moments that decided the outcome. Each moment fell in favor of the Braves; things might have turned out differently if even one had gone the Yankees’ way.

Moment #1: Top of the first, two outs. Michael Bourn on first base.
Bourn is one of the fastest men in the major leagues, and has stolen more than 250 bases in his career. Even though he plays in the other league, I’m guessing his name came up in the pitchers meeting this week. Still, Phil Hughes ignored him, and with two outs Bourn was able to take four steps towards second before Hughes even moved. It might’ve been the easiest steal of Bourn’s life. Four pitches later, Dan Uggla singled to left, easily scoring Bourn. If Hughes had paid attention to Bourn when he was still on first, that run wouldn’t have scored.

Moment #2: Top of the first, two outs. Dan Uggla on first base.
Hughes has been so good recently that some people (okay, me) have been thinking that maybe — just maybe — he might still live up to all that hype that’s evaporated over the past couple years. But even as good as he’s been, he still hasn’t been able to get past his home run issues. Facing Freddie Freeman immediately after yielding the Uggla single, Hughes peered in and located Russell Martin’s target, low and inside. I know you have to pitch inside, even in Yankee Stadium, even when you serve up gopher balls like heated towels on a first class flight, but it makes me nervous every time I see a Yankee catcher slide over to the first base side of the plate. Sure enough, the fast ball that was meant to be just a touch inside floated out over the heart of the plate and was quickly deposited into the right field seats. Braves 3, Yankees 0.

Moment #3: Bottom of the seventh, one out. Runners on first and third.
We’ve skipped over several home runs, all solo shots. In order: Derek Jeter in the first, Martín Prado in the third, Jason Heyward in the fourth, David Ross in the fifth, Eric Chávez in the fifth, and Alex Rodríguez and Robinson Canó, both in the sixth. All of that brought the score to 6-4, Braves, when Curtis Granderson singled to right to score Martin and push Jeter to third. The Yankees trailed by only a run, and Rodríguez was headed to the plate. I think it says a lot about the 2012 version of A-Rod that whenever he comes up in situations like this,  instead of hoping for a home run or base hit — or even a sacrifice fly — I find myself hoping he avoids the worst-case scenario. The camera zoomed in on him as he dug his cleats into the dirt and rocked back on his heels before coiling in anticipation of Chad Durbin’s first pitch. I took the opportunity to have a quick chat with him. “Please don’t ground into a double play,” I said. “Please.” He hammered Durbin’s second pitch to short for a made-t0-order 6-4-3 double play.

A strikeout or popout would’ve passed the baton to Canó; a fly ball would’ve tied the game; a base hit would’ve tied the game and upped the ante. A home run? That’s the old A-Rod. (Well, actually this is the old A-Rod, and we’d better get used to it.)

Moment #4: Top of the eighth, one out. Runners on first and third.
Still trailing 6-5 (see Moment #3, above), Freeman rifled a ground ball directly at first baseman Eric Chávez. The ball came up on Chávez a bit, and it bounced away from him. He recovered to make the out at first, but the run scored from third. Had Chávez fielded the ball cleanly and started a 3-6-3 DP, the inning would be over. (I know I’m not supposed to, but I just assumed the double play.) Heyward came up next and launched his second homer of the day, a no-doubter into the seats in right. Twenty minutes earlier the Yankees looked ready to tie the game at six; now they trailed 9-5, and nothing else mattered. Final score: Braves 10, Yankees 5.

The good news, of course, is that thanks to their torrid June, the Yankees still sit comfortably atop the standings in the American League East. We could worry about their failure to hit with runners in scoring position, but no one else would shed a tear. We could lament the end of a streak which saw Yankee starters pitch at least six innings in nineteen straight games, but we wouldn’t get any pity.

Here’s the bottom line. Even though yesterday’s recap had a funereal theme and this one focused on what might have been, we just might be talking about the best team in baseball. And that’s never a bad thing.

[Photo Credit: Al Bello/Getty Images]

The Detroit Tigers came to New York for a three-game series and were greeted rudely by the Bronx Bombers, who crushed Detroit pitching and came away with a 14-4 win. Tommy Henrich hit a high drive into the right field seats in the first inning, keeping the Yankee home run streak alive at sixteen games, and DiMaggio singled immediately after to keep his own string going. He would add three more hits, two singles and a double, to give himself a nice 4 for 5 afternoon. With seven hits in two days, DiMaggio’s season average was up to .354, good enough for fifth in the league but still far behind Ted Williams, who led the galaxy at .420. DiMaggio had now moved to within eight games of Sisler’s mark, still believed to be the all-time record, and he seemed to be paying attention. Much later, DiMaggio would look back at this game as pivotal: “I didn’t get warm about this thing until the 33rd game.” As summer arrived in the Bronx, he’d get warmer still.

DiMaggio avoided any drama by singling in the first inning, bringing the streak to thirty-two games in a row. Apparently relaxed, he went on to collect another single in the fifth and a homerun in the eighth. These efforts, along with a grand slam by Charlie “King Kong” Keller (that’s Keller in the photo above), led to a much needed Yankee victory as they salvaged the finale of the their three-game set with the White Sox, winning 7-2. Thirty-two straight for DiMag, fifteen for Yankee home run hitters, and a home run in three straight games for Keller. Not bad at all.

Your calendar might tell you that the first day of summer is later this week, but for me it was Monday. I got out of bed at around 10:30, had a casual lunch, ran a few errands, then tried out the shiny new grill my wife got me for Father’s Day the day before. Let me tell you this with certainty — there are few things better than grilling some burgers while watching the Yanks during the late afternoon of a California summer day. (And if you’re interested, aside from the burgers the full meal included corn on the cob, fries, and a salad with the most incredible white peach balsamic vinegar for dressing.)

The only thing that could’ve made all this better, of course, was a Yankee victory — and that’s just what they delivered, cruising to their tenth straight win.

After suffering a three-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees only ten minutes ago, the Braves came out determined to turn the tables and open the series with a win. Speedster Michael Bourne opened with a triple to left center, then scored on a ground out to give Atlanta an early 1-0 lead off Yankee starter CC Sabathia, and they’d add another run in the fifth to double their lead to two.

Mike Minor, meanwhile, was holding the Yankees down but good. There was a walk to Alex Rodríguez to open the second, but A-Rod was immediately erased on a 4-6-3 double play, and that was it. Minor had faced only twelve batters through the first four innings, but the Yankee bats came to life in the fifth.

A-Rod opened the inning with a line drive single to center and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Robinson Canó followed that with a walk, and two batters later Russell Martin rifled a ground-rule double down the left field line to score A-Rod and put runners at second and third with one out. After a walk to Jayson Nix and a popout from Chris Stewart, Derek Jeter came to the plate with the bases loaded and two out and his team needing a base hit to take the lead. The Captain delivered, bouncing a grounder back up the middle to score two and move the score to 3-2.

Mark Teixeira homered to left in the next inning to push the lead to 4-2, Jeter came up with another two-out RBI with another grounder through the box in the seventh, and Canó finished the Yankee scoring with a bomb into the monuments in dead center field in the eighth. Yankees 6, Braves 2.

The story of the game, though, was Sabathia. After the game he would say that the starters had all been going so well that he didn’t want to be the one to end the streak. He might’ve given up a few things early on, but once he got the lead and smelled the victory, the Big Man was on his game. In the final four innings he allowed only a single base hit while striking out six. It was Sabathia’s first complete game of the year, and according to ESPN’s Game Score stat, it was his best outing of the season.

Ten wins in a row for the Yank, a two and half game lead in the American League East, and just half a game behind the Dodgers for the best record in baseball. Life is good.

[Photo Credit: Al Bello/Getty Images]

The Yankees lost their second straight to the White Sox, coming up on the short end of a 3-2 score. DiMaggio managed only a single in three at bats, a blooper over the head of shortstop Luke Appling, but it was enough to keep the streak alive. Charlie Keller’s two-run homerun in the second accounted for all of the Yankee runs and made it fourteen straight games that New York batters had homered.

There were some who believed that DiMaggio’s single hits in games thirty and thirty-one were questionable at best. The ball that hopped off of Appling’s shoulder on the 17th was seen as especially controversial, and various reporters at the time reported that fans at the Stadium stood in silence as they awaited the official scorer’s decision. That official scorer was Dan Daniel, and in October of 2007 David Robeson wrote an article in the Walrus in which he asserted that Daniel’s biased scoring had erroneously given DiMaggio two hits that he didn’t deserve. (The hit in the 31st game glanced off of Appling’s glove, and Robeson argues it should’ve been scored an error as well.) Here’s the crux of Robeson’s argument:

In keeping with the ethics of the era, Dan Daniel, a popular writer who had been covering baseball since 1909, enjoyed all the perks of covering the Yankees. He travelled with and befriended the players, and had his expenses paid for by the club itself. Daniel was, by modern standards, part of the team, as much a PR man as a reporter. He wrote of DiMaggio extensively, championing “The Big Dago” before DiMaggio had even appeared in the bigs, and it was he who authored the quote, “Here is the replacement for Babe Ruth.” The Clipper made for wonderful copy: he was a good-looking bachelor who patrolled the most revered position in all of sports, centre field for the New York Yankees. Daniel also happened to be the most important witness to the streak. The reason? This friend of DiMaggio and quasi-employee of the New York Yankees just happened, unbelievably, to be the Yankees’ official home-game scorer as well — the very arbiter of hits and errors. For games at Yankee Stadium, Daniel, and Daniel alone, decided if DiMaggio was to be credited with a hit.

There is, of course, no video of either play, so we are left only with a box score and a handful of written accounts. One thing is certain, though. There are countless variables in the game of baseball, ranging from an umpire’s view of a pitch in the neighborhood of the outside corner to the distance of one park’s fence as compared to another. An official scorer’s decision is simply one more thing which is beyond a player’s control. DiMaggio had a hit on the 17th, another on the 18th, and lots more after that.

The Chicago White Sox snapped New York’s winning streak at eight with an 8-7 victory, but the two other Yankee streaks continued. Charlie Keller crushed an upper-deck shot in the eighth inning, temporarily tying the score and making it thirteen straight games with Yankee homeruns, but the Sox won it in the ninth. DiMaggio set the all-time Yankee hitting streak record at thirty games, but he needed some luck. He came to the plate in the seventh inning, still without a hit, and smashed a hard ground ball directly to Chicago shortstop Luke Appling. But just before Appling could gather in the grounder and put an end to the streak, the ball took a horrible bad hop, bounding up and hitting Appling in the shoulder. He had no play, and DiMaggio kept streaking. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Much more on this tomorrow…

In the final game of their showdown at the Stadium with the Cleveland Indians, the Yankees grabbed a 6-4 victory and moved to within a game of first place. DiMaggio hit a double to left in the fifth inning, setting a Yankee record by hitting in his twenty-ninth straight game. Second baseman Joe Gordon had homered earlier in the fourth inning, meaning the Yanks had gone deep in twelve straight. The Yankees had now won eight games in a row, and seemed to have finally gotten their season headed in the right direction. It’s interesting that the current Yankees seem to have found their way as well.

As the Yankees played on consecutive days for the first time in a week, DiMaggio had only one hit against the Cleveland Indians on this afternoon in the Bronx, but it was enough to continue two streaks. DiMaggio hit his thirteenth homerun of the year, an upper deck blast which extended his personal hitting streak to twenty-eight and the Yankees team homerun streak to eleven. The Yankees beat the first place Indians, 3-2, for their seventh win in a row; they were now only two games out of the top spot in the league.

At twenty-eight games, DiMaggio was now only one game behind the Yankee record, held jointly by Earl Coombs (1931) and current Cleveland manager Roger Peckinpaugh (1919). Reporters were starting to wonder if DiMaggio might challenge the all-time record, then believed to be George Sisler’s forty-one game streak from 1922. (It would be a few weeks before someone turned up the actual record.) Contacted by the New York Daily News, Sisler said, “You can’t imagine the strain. The newspapers keep mentioning the streak. Your teammates continually bring it up. You try to forget, but it can’t be done. It’s in your head every time you step to the plate.” And he didn’t have to deal with live cut-ins from ESPN, plus he probably smoked cigarettes with tons of nicotine.

The Yankees returned home to face future Hall of Famer Bob Feller and the first place Indians at the Stadium. Feller was working on a streak of his own; since a loss on May 9th, he had won eight straight decisions, bring his season’s record to an impressive 13-3. When DiMaggio came to bat in the third inning, he watched three straight balls before Feller finally had to come into the zone. Hitting away, DiMaggio slashed a drive into the right-center field gap for a double. Also of note, Tommy Henrich homered for the Yanks in the first inning, extending another string. The Yankees had hit homeruns in ten games in a row, a streak that some local papers were beginning to follow.

In one of the Yankees’s few night games of 1941, DiMaggio stretched his streak to twenty-six games with a fourth-inning single against the Chicago White Sox. Later, with the game tied in the top of the tenth, he gave his team the winning run with a solo homerun. The Yankees held on for the 3-2 victory and inched closer to the first place Cleveland Indians.

The Yankees won their fourth in a row on this afternoon at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, topping the White Sox by a score of 8-3. DiMaggio was able to extend his streak only through the benefit of a decision by the official scorer. He hit a hard shot at third baseman Dario Lodigiani in the seventh inning. Lodigiani was handcuffed by the ball and couldn’t make a play; the scorer saw it as a hit, and the streak lived another day. Baseball tradition says that no-hitters and perfect games often need a little help from a great defensive play or a questionable call from an umpire, and we don’t have to think back any farther than Johan Santana’s recent no-no for the Mets. This hit by DiMaggio wasn’t as controversial as Carlos Beltran’s foul ball on the chalk, but in today’s culture it might’ve raised a few eyebrows. Oh, well. Twenty-five straight for Joe D.

The Yankees again took advantage of the St. Louis Browns, this time sweeping both games of the doubleheader by scores of 9-3 and 8-3. DiMaggio hammered the Brown hurlers in one of his more impressive performances of the season. He homered twice in the opener, then went deep again in the nightcap in addition to a double. He drove in a total of seven runs in the two games. What little kid wouldn’t want to be Joe DiMaggio when he grew up? Elsewhere, Ted Williams fell by the wayside in his efforts to keep pace with DiMaggio’s streak. In a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox, Williams was hitless in both games, stopping his streak at twenty-three straight games.

The St. Louis Browns, having recently replaced manager Fred Haney with Luke Sewell, continued their losing ways by giving up five runs in the ninth to lose to the Yankees, 11-7. DiMaggio had three singles on the day, easily keeping his string intact at twenty-two straight. In Chicago, meanwhile, Williams stayed a game ahead of DiMaggio by singling once in four at bats and stretching his streak to twenty-three games. DiMaggio’s streak, of course, was still a week from its midpoint; Teddy Ballgame’s would die the next day.

Perhaps caught in a malaise in the aftermath of Lou Gehrig’s death and funeral, the Yankees dropped their third straight game, falling to Hal Newhouser and the Tigers, 5-4. DiMaggio tripled into the left field corner in the sixth, but that was it for him. His one for five day at the plate saw his average dip to .326, but during the streak he was hitting a bit better, .354 (29 for 82). Ted Williams, meanwhile, was keeping pace. He had now hit in twenty-two straight, and was hitting an even .500 (40 for 80!) during his streak, pushing his season number to a laughable .434.

When they got off the train in Detroit the night before their series against the Tigers, the Yankees were greeted with the stunning news that Lou Gehrig had died earlier in the day. Several of the older players, including DiMaggio, who had played with Gehrig were concerned for his wife and considered skipping the game. DiMaggio decided to play, and his fourth-inning homerun was a small bright spot in a bleak day as the Yankees lost, 4-2, while mourning their former captain.