Suddenly working on a streak of their own, the Yankees won their fourth straight game (not including the suspended game from the day before) and three other notable streaks continued as well. Trailing 6-5 in the seventh, DiMaggio capped a four-run rally with a two-run single, bring the score to its final count, 7-6. It was his only hit of the game. Williams, for his part, singled twice, raising his streak average to a blistering .447. Neither of these accomplishments had yet been noted by the press, but it was reported that Yankee rookie first baseman Johnny Sturm was nursing an eight-game string. Manager Joe McCarthy had inserted him in the lineup just a day before the beginning of his streak, and reporters following the team were tracking his progress, waiting for the bubble to burst. They still weren’t on to the true story; eventually they’d figure things out.

The Yankees and Red Sox entered Friday afternoon’s game at the Stadium in third and fourth place respectively, trailing the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox by a handful of games. Like the Yankees, the Red Sox had been struggling; their record sat at en even 15-15. While DiMaggio had been putting hits together recently, Boston’s great slugger, Ted Williams, was doing the same. Both players entered the game riding identical eight game hitting streaks, and both kept their streaks alive.

In keeping with the similar states of the two teams and their stars, the game ended in a 9-9 tie, called on account of darkness. The game wouldn’t count in the standings (it would eventually me made up as part of a July 1st doubleheader), but the stats were good. RBI singles for DiMaggio and Williams were enough to keep them streaking, but not enough to earn a win for either team.

[Photo Credit: Associated Press]

The Yankees earned their third straight win on this day with a 6-5 victory over the Tigers. DiMaggio managed only a seventh-inning single, but it was enough to keep his streak alive. It’s likely that DiMaggio was unaware of his young streak at this early date, and as yet there had been no mention of it in any of the local papers, but both he and the Yankees were beginning to turn their seasons around.

For the first time in almost two weeks the Yankees were able to put together consecutive wins. DiMaggio wasted no time in extending his streak, as he singled and drove in a run in the first inning to help the Yanks beat the visiting Detroit Tigers, 5-4. Bill Dickey saw his streak end at twenty-one, but in Boston Ted Williams pounded out four hits to equal DiMaggio’s streak at seven games. Williams would match DiMaggio game for game for quite some time. You might remember that 1941 would turn out to be quite a year for Teddy Ballgame as well.

Continuing the pattern, the Yankees followed a loss with a win as they topped the Browns in a slugfest, 10-9. DiMaggio lost a sure hit in the fifth as St. Louis third baseman Harland Clift made a spinning stab of his liner for a fielder’s choice at second, but the streak continued with a clean single to center field in the eighth. Bill Dickey extended his own streak to twenty-one and raised his average to .391 with a three hit game.

The Yankees continued their pattern of alternating wins and losses as they lost to the Browns, 5-1, before a crowd of only 5,388. For the first time in the young streak DiMaggio was forced to wait until his final turn at bat to keep his string intact as he doubled to left with two outs in the seventh inning. He finished the game 1 for 3, but catcher Bill Dickey homered for the Yankees’s only run and extended his own hitting streak to an impressive twenty games.

A crowd in excess of thirty thousand filled Yankee Stadium on this Sunday afternoon and watched as the Yankees pummelled the worst team in the American League, beating the St. Louis Browns, 12-2. Lefty Gomez, one of DiMaggio’s closer friends on the team, started and got the win. Joltin’ Joe went three for three on the afternoon, scoring three times and driving in a run. New York papers reported the next day that two of the hits could’ve been called errors, and the third was a single awarded on the basis of catcher’s interference, the result of a rule which has since been changed. At any rate, the three hits brought DiMaggio’s four-game totals to 7 for 14, an even .500; the slump was certainly over.

The day after appearing to snap out of their funk, the Yankees slipped again, losing to the White Sox, 3-2. The Yanks were now a game below .500 at 15-16, and they stood a disappointing 7 1/2 games behind the streaking Cleveland Indians (23-9) in the American League standings. DiMaggio was limited to a single in the second inning, but he had now hit in three consecutive games.

[Painting by Erin Wong]

There were fewer than 1,500 fans in the Stadium as the Yankees snapped their five-game losing streak, beating the White Sox, 6-5. Those who were there saw DiMaggio hit a momentous homerun in the third inning, a colossal blast which cleared the bullpen in leftfield before landing far up into the bleachers. It was said at the time that the only other right hander to hit a ball that far in Yankee Stadium was Detroit’s Hank Greenberg. The Yankees came to bat in the bottom of the ninth down by a run when DiMaggio smashed a triple to dead center, keying a two-run rally that would earn his team a much-needed win. Two down, fifty-four to go.

Seventy-one years ago Tuesday, Joe DiMaggio began his historic fifty-six game hitting streak, a feat which likely will never be matched. To commemorate this achievement, we’ve decided to track Joe D day-by-day and game-by-game over the next two months, which promises to be fun. Here’s the first installment…

As the Yankees arrived in the middle of May, both the team and its twenty-six year old center fielder were in the midst of terrible slumps. DiMaggio came into the afternoon’s game against the White Sox hitting a respectable .306, but he had seen his average drop more than 200 points in the previous three weeks following a torrid start to the season. The Yankees started the day 5 1/2 games behind the first place Cleveland Indians, and they lost that day to Chicago, 13-1. DiMaggio’s 1 for 4 effort at the plate actually lowered his batting average to .304, and so it appeared that both slumps were continuing. While it’s likely that few would’ve expected the team’s struggles to continue, it’s certain that no one had any idea where DiMaggio’s first inning single would eventually lead.