Word: di
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...fifth inning; the Boston Red Sox were playing the New York Yankees. Bronx thermometers registered 94° in the shade. But the crowd was oblivious of the sweltering heat. They sat on the edges of their sticky seats, gripping their sticky score cards. Strapping Joe Di Maggio, Yankee slugger nonpareil, was at bat, and something more than a ball game was at stake...
...loped around the bases amid a deafening roar, the 26-year-old Yankee Clipper left in his wake the broken fragments of one of baseball's immortal records. Di Maggio had just hit safely in his 45th successive game, bettering the fabulous string of 44 spun by wondrous Wee Willie Keeler (who "hit 'em where they ain't") 44 years...
...apparent that the big Italian from San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf was approaching a record that had eluded Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other great batsmen, Big Joe's hits have been the biggest news in U.S. sport. Radio programs were interrupted for Di Maggio bulletins. Crowds jammed the ball parks where he played. Three days before, when he broke the modern record of 41, set by George Sisler in 1922, 31,000 parboiled fans crammed into Washington's Griffith Stadium. Day before, when he tied Keeler's all-time major-league...
...records of Big Joe and Wee Willie were not really comparable (in Wee Willie's day, the rules were different-for instance, fouls did not count as strikes). Nevertheless, baseball fans insisted on comparisons. In 179 times at bat, Di Maggio got 67 hits (including twelve doubles, three triples, 13 home runs) for a total of 124 bases. In 201 times at bat, Keeler got 82 hits (including eleven doubles, ten triples, no homers) for a total of 113 bases. Di Maggio's batting average was .374, Keeler...
...Said Di Maggio: "You've got to give some of the credit to Joe McCarthy. He let me swing on those three-and-nothing pitches [three balls, no strikes]. Ordinarily he wouldn't do that. He was right with me all the time...