The release of the Blackwing 56 was very much a labor of love for a team full of baseball enthusiasts. Along the way, we discovered some pretty astounding things about Joe DiMaggio’s famous streak. Hours spent scouring sites like Baseball-Reference.com and Baseball-Almanac.com, even helped us make a few connections that have never been published (to our knowledge). Here are the the 17 most interesting facts we discovered about Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak while making the Blackwing 56 pencil.
Note: the number 17 is significant in that, well, that’s how many we came up with.
1. Joe DiMaggio won the American League MVP award in 1941 over Ted Williams who hit .406 – the last time anyone hit .400 for an entire season. Incredibly, White Sox pitcher Thornton Lee and his 22-game winning performance actually received a first place vote over two of the most iconic single season performances in baseball history. It was the only first-place MVP vote Lee, who finished fourth overall in the voting behind Bob Feller, ever received.
2. Lost in the streak season was White Sox OF Taft Wright setting an AL record with at least one RBI in 13 consecutive games.
3. DiMaggio’s salary for the 1941 season was $37,500. Phillies 1B Ryan Howard is currently hitting .150 yet makes over $150,000 PER AT BAT, four times as much as DiMaggio earned all season.
4. DiMaggio’s failure to extend the streak just one more game may have cost him $10,000 (which which would have equated to a 25% pay increase). The Heinz Corporation reportedly offered Dimaggio a bonus in that amount for endorsing their popular “Heinz 57” line had the streak reached 57 games.
5. DiMaggio had 91 hits during the streak, with 15 HRs and 55 RBIs.
6. St. Louis Browns teammates Bob Harris and Elden Auker gave up more hits to DiMaggio during the streak than any other pitchers. Auker was an All-american QB at Kansas State and turned down an offer to play QB for the Chicago Bears to pursue professional baseball. His reward? The first batter he faced in the big leagues was Babe Ruth. (Ruth struck out on four pitches).
7. DiMaggio struck out just five times during the streak. His last strikeout during the streak was on June 8. He did not whiff for the final 32 games of the hitting streak, and not again until July 26, 42 games later.
8. DiMaggio did not bunt for a hit during the streak.
9. DiMaggio used a 42-ounce Louisville Slugger during the streak.
10. May 28th marked the first ever night game at Washington DC’s Griffith Stadium. DiMaggio tripled as the Yanks beat the Senators 6-5 and extend his streak to 13 games.
11. After DiMaggio recorded two hits off future hall of famer Bob Feller on June 2nd, the New York Times reported: “DiMaggio, incidentally, has hit safely in nineteen straight games’’. This was believed to be the first printed reference to the streak.
12. On June 19th, Cheerios invented their now famous O-shaped cereal. Joe D. had 3 hits and an HR against the White Sox that day to extend his streak to 32 games. No idea if the Yankee Clipper ate his Wheaties that morning.
13. The streak was interrupted by the 1941 All-Star Game at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. DiMaggio was 1-for-4 against the National League, which means he technically hit in 57 straight games.
14. The streak almost ended at 35 games. On June 24 against St. Louis, DiMaggio was hitless when he stepped in against Browns’ right-hander Bob Muncrief in the bottom of the 7th. Browns manager Luke Sewell ordered Muncrief to walk DiMaggio, but Muncrief refused. Instead he delivered a strike that DiMaggio batted into LF for a single to keep the streak alive.
15. When the streak began on May 15th, the Yankees were in fourth place with a record of 14-14, 5 1/2 games behind Cleveland. After Game #56, they were 55-27 and in first place with a six game lead over the Indians.
16. The Yankees’ previous record for a hitting streak was 29 games shared by Roger Peckinpaugh in 1919 and Earle Combs in 1931. Combs was Yankees’ first-base coach in 1941 while Peckinpaugh watched Game #56 from across the diamond – as the Indians’ manager.
17. DiMaggio once had a 61-game hit streak with the Pacific Coast League’s San Francisco Seals in 1933.
