Word: dimag
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...other league, well, the story of the summer is Pete Rose's hit parade. There's rooting here that it will be stopped. Joe DiMaggio, after all, was greater than Rose, an admittedly great player, will ever be. And besides, they always said that DiMag's 56-game hitting streak was the one record that would never be broken. Is there no respect for the past? And will Charlie Hustle do it? The guess here is no, on both counts...
Allen also makes little effort to explain DiMaggio's hero status--he alludes frequently to the fact that DiMag was somehow different from everyone else in Allen's owneyes and in the nation's, but he doesn't give any hint of why. He begins the book, "I was fifteen when I first touched Joe DiMaggio. He doesn't remember it. I can never forget it." This is undoubtedly an accurate portrayal of his and others' sentiments, but to treat DiMaggio as a phenomenon and leave it at that is to skirt the issue...
Perhaps, as Allen and many others say in the book, no one ever really knew Joe DiMaggio. Even Marilyn never understood what it meant to be DiMaggio. Story goes that is 1954, when Marilyn returned from entertaining troops in Korea, she said to DiMag, "Joe, you've never heard such cheering." DiMaggio replied softly, "Yes I have...