Streak: Joe DiMaggio and the Summer of '41

by Michael Seidel

Overview

Streak vividly and poignantly tells the story of "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio's legendary fifty-six-game hitting streak and the last golden summer of baseball before America was engulfed by the maelstrom of the Second World War. That long-lost summer also witnessed other unforgettable events: Ted Williams's quest to bat 400 and Lefty Grove's pursuit of his three-hundredth victory; a sizzling, epic race between the Dodgers and the Cardinals for the National League pennant; and Mickey Owen's infamous passed ball in the fourth game of the World Series.

Featuring complete box scores for each game, Streak showcases DiMaggio's crowning achievement, commemorates a baseball season like no other, and invites us to an America in the last moments of its innocence.

Michael Seidel is Jesse and George Siegel Professor of Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author of many books, including Ted Williams: A Baseball Life, available in a Bison Books edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803292932
Publisher:	UNP - Bison Books
Publication date:	03/01/2002
Pages:	285
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Michael Seidel is Jesse and George Siegel Professor of Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author of many books, including Ted Williams: A Baseball Life, available in a Bison Books edition.

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
	Prologue	1
	Streak Journal	35
	Endgame	201
	Epilogue	207
	Afterword	221
Appendix	Box Scores	227
	Name Index	267
	Subject Index	276

Editorial Reviews

"[DiMaggio's] feat is lovingly chronicled, game by game, in Streak, a book New York Yankee fans will admire. . . . [Seidel] has interviewed many of the men who played with and against DiMaggio that year and tells just how DiMaggio managed to keep on hitting and hitting."—New York Times Book Review

New York Times Book Review

"This book chronicles the intricate factual events of DiMaggio's achievement, and pays the best kind of proper respect, while providing the right sort of description. . . . [It] succeeds with a simple and honorable premise. The streak itself is such a good story, such an important event in our cultural history, that the day-by-day chronicle will shape a bare sequence into a wonderful drama with beginning, middle and end."—The New York Review of Books

The New York Review of Books

It is generally agreed among baseball experts that one of the most unusual records in the game is Yankee centerfielder DiMaggio's feat of achieving a hit in 56 consecutive contests in 1941. Here Columbia University professor Seidel recaptures the excitement of that streak and places it against the backdrop of the dramatic events in world history that were taking place at the same time: deputy Fuhrer Rudolph Hess's bizarre flight to England, the Nazi capture of Crete and Hitler's attack on Russia. Seidel recreates the era, from the price of bread and new subway rides to the arrival on the screen of The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart. But the principal focus is Joltin' Joe and his teammates and Seidel tells their story in memorable style. Photos not seen by PW. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Perhaps the greatest feat in baseball history took place in 1941 when Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees hit safely in 56 straight games. The book chronicles the day-by-day progress of DiMaggio's awesome accomplishment; box scores of every game are listed. At the same time the author has attempted to document the important national and world events of that fateful year. This results in some rather awkward juxtapositions, e.g., equating some of the battles taking place against Nazi Germany with baseball games going on in the United States, which was still not officially at war. Criticism aside, this is recommended for sports collections.Samuel Simons, Memorial Hall Lib., Andover, Mass.

Library Journal