Streak
Page 15
On June 10, 1941, a story broke that, like so many during DiMaggio’s streak, was brief in duration but intense in terms of wartime outrage. In this instance a Brazilian merchant vessel came upon a forlorn lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Those in it had been drifting aimlessly with the currents for 18 days. The rescued castaways, mostly American, revealed that their ship, the Robin Moor, on its way to South Africa with a crew of 28 plus seven passengers, had been torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat a thousand miles off the coast of Brazil. The U-boat surfaced, and its captain gave the threatened freighter a half hour to lower crew and passengers into lifeboats. Thirty minutes later the U-boat fired a torpedo into the ship at point-blank range and then sailed away, leaving four lifeboats adrift. Those picked up on June 10 were unsure of the whereabouts of the other three boats—they had separated some 2 weeks before in the dark of night. Among the missing were three women and a toddler.
According to the survivors, the Germans knew that the freighter sailed the seas under an American flag but blew it up anyway. The Robin Moor thus became the first American ship to fall victim to German submarines, and many in the United States, including some of Roosevelt’s closest advisers, urged armed retaliation. The President thought about it but was then in the middle of drawing up more controversial and comprehensive plans for the strategic protection of the Atlantic shipping lanes. Meanwhile, the question still remained: Where were the other lifeboats of the Robin Moor?
A superb and haunting war-espionage film opened in New York City on June 10, Fritz Lang’s Man Hunt with Walter Pidgeon, George Sanders, and Joan Bennett. It was adapted from Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male, about an English big-game hunter who stalks Hitler at Berchtesgaden. The bizarre plot of this extraordinary film charted the regression from hunter to hunted, from sportsman to victim, in a thinly disguised fable about the effect of Nazi pressure on the British psyche. George Sanders headed a menagerie of Nazi agents sinister enough to strike fear into a stone wall. Joan Bennett, having pleaded to get the role, brilliantly played a down-class seamstress. In the novel on which the film was based her character walked the streets, but in deference to the Hays office she was censored into merely sewing where once she had reaped.
Later in the summer Man Hunt came before the Nye investigating committee in the Senate as one of the year’s films supposedly packaged by warmongers to whip the American population into a frenzy of unreasoned Nazi hating. If so, Lang’s Man Hunt did its job with exceptional skill. When the Nye committee launched its summer attack, Man Hunt was in good and bad company. I Wanted Wings, I Married a Nazi, Escape, Convoy, Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, Sergeant York, and Churchill’s favorite movie, That Hamilton Woman, were all branded by the committee as insidious interventionist ploys. Senator Nye charged among other things that the movie industry was run by Jewish financiers intent on provoking a war with Hitler. Former presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, the primary lawyer for the film industry before the committee, would deliver such a blistering attack on Nye and his staff that the Senate voted to cut off funds for the committee’s work until it resumed doing what it was meant to do, whatever that was.
Overseas on June 10, the British invasionary force in the middle east knifed into Syria and Lebanon, approaching Damascus on one assault line and occupying Tyre on another. Though headlines bannered the attack, another front-page story anticipated something far more ominous for June. A dramatic rift began to appear in Nazi-Soviet relations, a rift that in a matter of days would widen beyond anything previously known to modern war. The British had already decoded Hitler’s invasion directive for Russia, Operation Barbarosa. When they attempted to tell Stalin, he refused even to see the British ambassador. Either Stalin wouldn’t believe what he was about to hear or he believed it all too well and didn’t require that the British tell him. For months Stalin had been making substantial preparations for war by training troops and readying arms in the hinterlands of his vast country. No one imagined the extent of these preparations, including an American, Charles Lindbergh, who in 2 weeks would begin mocking Russia’s chances against Hitler just as he had mocked England’s in the Battle of Britain. On a trip to Russia in the late 1930s Lindbergh had been shown a few flivvers and some bailing wire and told that he had seen the bulk of the Russian Air Force. He, like Napoleon and Hitler, underestimated the reserves of Russia and its people when faced with an invading army.
GAME 26: June 12
The Yankees were rained out June 11 on a day when headlines around the country reported the most recent tally of American lend-lease funds since March: over $4.5 billion for the production of wartime matériel slated for overseas delivery. On June 12 New York and Chicago played under the lights at Comiskey Park before 37,102 fans, a crowd 16 times larger than that which had attended the afternoon game 2 days before. The night game at Chicago was of the sort that Roosevelt wanted to see more of so that defense workers could spend all their afternoons producing and not skip out to the ball park. DiMaggio opened the Yankee fourth inning with a sharp single to center off Chicago’s Thornton Lee to extend the streak to 26. But his big hit of the day sent the local multitude home unhappy: he homered with two out in the top of the tenth off Lee to break a tie and give the Yankees and their pitcher, Spurgeon Chandler, a 3–2 win over the White Sox.
Joe Gordon’s home run for the Yankees in the sixth extended the team’s consecutive streak to 9 games and drew them to within a run of Chicago, who had scored single runs in the second and the fifth. Gordon started things again in the ninth inning with a single. He scored when the amazing Yankee pinch-hitting pitcher, Red Ruffing, entered the game and jolted one off the left field wall for a double. The White Sox manager, Jimmie Dykes, came roaring off the bench protesting to the umpires that a fan had touched Ruffing’s shot and that Gordon should be held at third. The umpires disagreed, and Dykes went into typical hysterics before the large crowd. It did him no good.
White Sox pitcher John Rigney, who just won a 60-day extension of his June 20 induction date, changed his mind under the pressure of publicity surrounding his appeal as a family hardship case. The only hardship that many saw in his case was the threat to Chicago’s pennant chances. Actually, Rigney filed the extension form when he thought all ballplayers had the right to do so while the season was in progress. The hardship clause seemed to him a mere technicality. Dan Daniel, the patriotic and interventionist sportswriter for the New York World-Telegram, tried to stand back a bit and take a kinder look at Rigney. In so doing he marked the fervent if conflicted mood of the time: “Life seems to be rather jumbled these days, ideas and ideals are confused, and a lot of people who all insist they are right are tugging in different directions. One cannot be too tough on the ball players for being a bit muddled with so many others.” In any event, Rigney now proclaimed himself ready to serve and hoped the fans would appreciate his gesture. One consolation for Rigney was that as of June 12, 1941, all servicemen were admitted to major league ball games for free. But his story had one more wrinkle in it: Rigney versus the army doctors.
A pensive Joe DiMaggio contemplating the 1941 season.
(The Sporting News)
Rookie New York shortstop Phil Rizzuto, during spring training 1941.
(National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York)
Bill Dickey, Hall of Fame catcher for the Yankees.
(National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York)
Johnny Sturm of the ’41 Yankees.
(National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York)
Joe D’s classic batting stance as demonstrated during game 43 of the streak.
(National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York)
Joe DiMaggio relaxing after equaling the major league record by hitting in 44 consecutive games.
(The Sporting News)
A rare news photo records the last swing of DiMaggio’s streak, during the eighth inning of the July 17th night gam
e at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. DiMaggio has just bounced a hard shot to Lou Boudreau, which the Cleveland shortstop will turn into a double play.
(Cleveland Plain Dealer)
The World Champion 1941 New York Yankees.
(National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York)
The Cleveland Indians, trying to win their games and fend off the Yankees, who were pacing them for a move on the league lead, had other problems this day. Their starting center fielder, Roy Weatherly, was in the hospital after a severe beaning the day before in a game in which they had almost lost Ken Keltner as well in a runaway headhunter exchange. Therefore, the Indians took up the offer made during spring training by Larry MacPhail of the Dodgers to supply any major league team that wanted them with his recently patented protective helmet liners. It was about time for Cleveland to give the liners a try.
MacPhail got himself into the national news for a different reason on June 12. He was charged with being rude and insulting over the phone to one William T. Leonard, head of the Brooklyn chapter of the America First Committee, who was trying to rent Ebbets Field for an isolationist rally. Leonard probably didn’t know he was talking to a man who had tried to kidnap the German kaiser before the peace talks ending World War 1.
In any event, MacPhail let Leonard have it full broadside. Leonard was mortified and complained to the press that the Dodger executive had “applied unseemly terms to such outstanding Americans as Colonel Lindbergh, Senator Wheeler, Senator Nye, and to the entire membership of the America First Committee.” In response to Leonard’s demand that he apologize, MacPhail might have pointed out that Lindbergh was no longer a colonel, but instead he pretended to be contrite to a fault, agreeing to apologize at a future date: “Yes, indeed. Right on the steps of Borough Hall in the year 1999, if the America First Committee is still in the National League.”
GAME 27: June 14
June 13 was Baseball Hall of Fame Day. The Yankees had the unlucky Friday off, which was just as well for DiMaggio. On the other hand, the gravel-voiced but always sultry Tallulah Bankhead considered it her lucky day: she showed up in Reno on June 13 to get a divorce from her husband of 4 years, John Emery. Tallulah, the daughter of the former speaker of the House of Representatives, William B. Bankhead, appeared for the proceedings leading a leashed pet lion cub which she had named Winston Churchill. Though mental cruelty served as the grounds for divorce, Tallulah told reporters that her husband, John, was a darling man: “Why just the other day he wrote me a beautiful letter.”
Back in New York on June 14, the Yankees readied themselves to face the Cleveland Indians, and DiMaggio prepared in this home series to pursue the first of many records that would tumble during the hitting streak: the Yankee individual mark of 29 straight held by Earle Combs and Roger Peckinpaugh. Now managing the Indians, Peckinpaugh was on hand to watch the Yankee center fielder fly past him. A crowd of 44,161 turned up at the Stadium for the showdown series and for the two Yankee streaks, DiMaggio’s and the team’s consecutive-game home run string. The hottest pitcher in baseball, Bobby Feller, was on the mound trying to grind everything to a halt. He had not lost a game since May 9, winning 8 in a row for a season’s record of 13–3. The Indians, with and without Feller, had won their last six; the Yankees, in second place four back, had won their last five. As for DiMaggio, the last time he had faced Feller in New York he had been completely frustrated and handcuffed.
On this occasion the Yankees broke Feller’s spell early, touching him for four runs by the fifth inning. Tommy Henrich, who usually hit Feller well under any circumstances, began the Yankee scoring in the first with a solo home run. In the third, DiMaggio sliced a double to right, extending the streak to 27 and driving in a run. The count on DiMaggio at the time was three balls and no strikes, but Joe McCarthy gave DiMaggio the hit sign. Batters take whatever edge is given them, and the hit sign is a baseball inspiration; it means “swing” but conveys the confidence with which it is flashed: “Hit.” With Feller grooving the cripple, DiMaggio sliced one into the right field alley that rolled to the fence over 415 feet away. This was the only DiMaggio at bat off him during the streak that Feller still remembers: “Yeah, he hit a cripple once. I put it over the plate to get a strike on the 3–0 count. If it’s not 3–0, he gets nothing fast from me over the outside part of the plate. That’s murder. I tried to get him out tight at the waist—I didn’t want to get it up any higher.”
Babe Ruth showed up at Yankee Stadium for the game and saw the powerful Yankees extend their consecutive-game home run streak to 10, amassing 24 homers in their last 15 games. The New York fans were so delighted to see Ruth at the game that a special stadium cop had to keep autograph seekers at bay. The mood was getting festive as the Yankees made a run at the American League lead. In the National League, the pennant race caught fire again as St. Louis and Brooklyn faced each other head-on in a four-game series. The Dodgers lost a heartbreaker, 1–0, to the Cardinals on June 13 at night in Ebbets Field. On June 14 the Dodgers got back within two of the Cards by outslugging them 12–5. A seven-run outburst in the sixth inning paced by Dolf Camilli’s home run ruined St. Louis, who couldn’t touch Dodger relief pitcher Vito Tamulis for the last four innings. Tamulis, like the soon to be famous Rip Sewell, threw a blooper or floater. Watching him pitch, according to local wags, was like viewing a filmed game in slow motion.
Roosevelt this day made his first move in open retaliation for Germany’s sinking of the Robin Moor. He froze all assets of the Axis powers in America, including the accounts of nearly 1 million resident aliens, mostly German and Italian. Mussolini was furious at the freezing of Italian funds. After all, he hadn’t sunk the Robin Moor. Il duce countered by immediately freezing all American funds in Italy. For the next several weeks the cycle of deteriorating relations continued, affecting what few loose ties remained between the United States and war-torn Europe.
Abroad on June 14, British troops had by now squeezed the Vichy French forces tightly around the Syrian capital of Damascus. The U.S. secretary of state, Cordell Hull, rubbed salt in Pétain’s wounds by telling him that the United States planned to take action if the French employed their colonies as Nazi bases. Since the Germans had virtually deserted Vichy forces in Syria, the point seemed painfully moot. The British made another point on June 14. They launched the heaviest aerial bombardment against Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley so far in the war. A message was clearly intended: England wished to remind Hitler that no matter what surprise he thought he had in store for Russia, he still had a two-front battle to wage in Europe.
Meanwhile, Charles Lindbergh and his America Firsters had not heard or seen the last of Larry MacPhail of the Dodgers. MacPhail said on June 14 that he simply didn’t want Lindbergh in the Brooklyn ball park and that was why he had told the organization’s representative what he thought of him and it. A Brooklyn lawyer and member of the America First Committee, George Dyson Friou, got into the fray. He threatened to sue not over MacPhail’s refusal—the park was privately owned—but over the relatively new phenomenon of night baseball. Friou wanted the Dodgers in court for the insult to Lindbergh and would use any tactic he could. He pondered a class action suit on behalf of Brooklyn’s elderly, who were denied necessary sleep because of the clamor at the ball park. America First officially disassociated themselves from Friou’s suit but intended to go over MacPhail’s head to the Dodger owners. MacPhail, of course, had already checked in. The Dodgers stood their ground and barred Lindbergh from occupying it. Friou never did bring suit on behalf of the sleepless elderly. In another insult the day after MacPhail shut the doors of Ebbets Field to Lindbergh, the city council of Charlotte, North Carolina, voted to change the name of Lindbergh Drive to Avon Avenue: “Judging from the man’s stand in regard to his country, he doesn’t deserve to have a street named after him.” This was a far cry from the spirit of St. Louis.
In New York on June 14, British author and actor Noël Coward was in town to arrange for t
he production of his play Blithe Spirit later in the year. He wanted to send an actor acquaintance a gag telegram about seeing him perform in another play then running on Broadway. Coward asked the Western Union clerk to sign the telegram “Mayor La Guardia.” The clerk looked up at him and said, “Can’t do that, sir. It’s not permitted to sign a false name to a telegram.” “Oh, all right,” said Coward, “then sign it Noël Coward.” “Sorry, sir,” said the operator, “you can’t use his name either.” “But I am Noël Coward.” “Oh, all right,” said the clerk, looking up with a flash of recognition, “then you can sign it Mayor La Guardia.”
GAME 28: June 15
Another huge crowd poured into Yankee Stadium on Sunday, June 15, to witness the tightening pennant race and to cheer DiMaggio as he approached the individual Yankee hitting streak record. Attendance was up all around the majors, aided by a large St. Louis crowd at Sportsman’s Park (34,543) for the Dodger doubleheader. The Cards and Brooklyn split, enabling St. Louis to cling to a two-game lead. Rudolf Hess, whose daring leap had made headlines the world over a month before when DiMaggio began his streak, was again in the news. He took another leap on June 15, this time without a parachute. Hess tried to kill himself by leaping over the third floor balcony of his prison at Mytchett Palace. When Hess hit the ground, he broke his leg and his pelvis but remained alive, much to his dismay and certainly to Hitler’s. Hess had just written his wife that the Reich had a special medal for successful heroic acts, but failed actions that endangered the realm called for execution within Germany or suicide without.