Word: di
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...offer to take first base. Then he banged out homer No. 14 high over the centerfield fence, 402 ft. away. Everybody was beginning to talk, too, about his superb fielding, running, throwing. Such spring training carryings-on were usually reserved for rambunctious rookies-not the great Giuseppe Paolo ("Joe") Di Maggio of the New York Yankees...
...Army must have done it. The Great Di Maggio, who once made news if he showed up for any spring hitting at all, hadn't changed much physically. The sheen of his black hair was flecked with grey; his weight (a prewar 205) was down to 190. But his disposition, like his ulcers, was better. He still knew that he was the greatest baseball player alive, but now he talked as if he were only as good in his business as many others are in theirs. He no longer called himself the "Great Di Maggio," now resented conceit...
...good proof that Di Maggio had hot lost any power since he played in the '42 World Series was one terrible wallop he took at a ball in a Panama exhibition game-it landed 476 feet, 10 inches from homeplate and rolled another 101 feet. Pitchers, usually far ahead of batters in the spring, were throwing him outside balls. When they did, 31-year-old Di Mag practiced hitting to right field (the right field home run fence at Yankee Stadium, once Babe Ruth's pet target, is the closest). His 30-game R.B.I, total...
Evers Has a Chance. Not even the great Joe Di Maggio, after three G.I. years, was taking any chances. Hollow-cheeked, 31, and still nursing ulcers, Di Mag stepped to bat one day last week, swung as if the final game of the World Series depended on it, clouted one homer, one double, and two singles in four times up. Ex-Marine Ted Williams, 27, once content to be baseball's best batsman, was now working at his fielding, too. Brooklyn's Dixie Walker, the pride of Flatbush, was no cinch to be a regular...
...Wine, New Bottles. Most of the actual work of running the new winery, along with Di Giorgio Fruit, has fallen on the heirs apparent to the fruit empire, four of the childless little king's nephews. All told, they boss dozens of enterprises (orchards in the Sacramento Valley, a cannery and 8,000 acres of citrus groves in Florida, a box factory in Oregon, etc.), which netted $4,212,000 last year...