DiMaggio's Streak Ends
The largest night crowd in baseball history, 67,468, gathered at Muncipal Stadium in Cleveland on Thursday, July 17, 1941. The fans knew they would witness history one way or the other. Either Joe DiMaggio of the hated Yankees would extend his hitting streak to 57 games, or he would be stopped.
Manager Roger Peckinpaugh sent left-hander Al Smith to the mound for the Indians, who were in 2nd place, six games behind the visitors. The Yankees countered with Lefty Gomez, a future Hall-of-Famer.
The Yankees sent the following batting order against Smith: (1) Johnny Sturm 1B (2) Red Rolfe 3B (3) Tommy Henrich RF (4) Joe DiMaggio CF (5) Joe Gordon 2B (6) Buddy Rosar C (7) Charlie Keller LF (8) Phil Rizzuto SS (9) Lefty Gomez P
Cleveland lined up like this: (1) Roy Weatherly CF (2) Ken Keltner 3B (3) Lou Boudreau SS (4) Jeff Heath RF (5) Gee Walker LF (6) Oscar Grimes 1B (7) Ray Mack 2B (8) Rollie Helmsley C (9) Al Smith P
The Yankees scored a run in the top of the first when Henrich drove in Rolfe. That brought Joe to the plate. A dead pull hitter who disdained opposite field homers, he smashed a 1-0 pitch down the third base line but Keltner, playing deep, made a lunging backhanded stop, whirled, and threw DiMag out at first.
In the fourth DiMaggio drew a walk. (No mention of whether the crowd booed.) In the bottom of the inning, Walker's HR tied the game.
The Yankee Clipper came up again in the seventh. Another shot to third, another fine stop by Keltner. Out at first. The official scorer must have breathed a sigh of relief that Ken made the 1st- and 7th-inning plays because this relieved the scorer of enormous pressure to rule a hit if Keltner had merely knocked down either ball or thrown wildly to first. New York did score a run to lead 2-1.
In the course of a two-run Yank eighth, Big D came to bat with the bases loaded and one out against right-hander Jim Bagby. He hit a 1-1 pitch straight to Boudreau at short who started a double play. Unless the Yankees batted around in the ninth or Cleveland rallied to tie the game, Joe would get no more chances to extend the streak.
The home team nearly did its part to give DiMaggio another shot. Down 4-1, the Indians opened with singles by Walker and Grimes. Manager Joe McCarthy replaced Gomez with Johnny Murphy, his fireman (closest term for a "closer" in those days). The move nearly backfired as pinch-hitter Larry Rosenthal smacked a triple to score two and put the tying run on third. Cleveland fans had extra incentive to root for their club to tie the game so they could see the Clipper bat again. However, Murphy had other plans. He retired pinch-hitters Hal Trosky and Clarence Campbell and then Weatherly (none on strikeouts) to close out the victory. This was one of 15 saves for Murphy that season as calculated retroactively decades later.
So the streak that started May 15 against a left-handed pitcher named Smith (Eddie of the White Sox) ended on July 17 against another southpaw Smith.
Afterwards DiMaggio related a story about the cabdriver who drove him and Gomez to the ballpark for the fateful game. After some chitchat, the driver said, "I've got a feeling that if you don't get a hit your first time up tonight, they're going to stop you." "Who the hell are you?" Gomez supposedly snapped. "What are you trying to do, jinx him?" Over 30 years later, Joe reported talking to someone who said he was the cab driver. He apologized for jinxing the Great One. Joe told him he hadn't jinxed him. "My number was up."
Postscript #1: The next day DiMaggio began a 16-game hitting streak! So he hit safely in 72 of 73 games. Of course, the 56-game streak was not the longest of his career. In his first year of pro ball at age 19 with the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League, he had a 61-game streak that ended on July 26, 1933.
Postscript #2: The Yankees won the 1941 pennant by 17 games over the Red Sox and defeated the Dodgers in five games in the World Series.