Posted at 6:28 a.m., Monday, July 16, 2007
Baseball: DiMaggio diaries detail glory, stress
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Ah, the pressures of a 56-game hitting streak."If I thought this would be taking place," Joe DiMaggio laments in a diary entry about the public relations frenzy, "I would have stopped the hitting streak at 40."
The 1991 confession is part of a 2,000-page, 29 volume collection of the New York Yankees icon's diaries, now being offered for sale by Steiner Sports Marketing.
The diaries were written between 1982 and 1993. Some of the entries indicate that the grind had been getting to Joltin' Joe for years.
In 1989, DiMaggio wrote that a flurry of autograph signing on "Old Timers Day" was "beginning to be too much stress."
"Traveling getting to be damn much," he wrote in 1987. Noted another entry: "Plane food should be fed to pigs."
But there was plenty of pomp and circumstance, as well, including a White House dinner hosted by President Reagan for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
"After dinner, proceeded to another room to hear Van Cliburn play. Mrs. Gorbachev requested a song that Cliburn played and Mrs. Gorbachev sang along," wrote DiMaggio.
"Had to buy a new shirt because neck size down to 15½."
On July 16, 1941, DiMaggio extended his hitting streak to 56 games with a 3-for-4 day as the Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians 10-3. The Hall of Fame center fielder, who played for the Yankees from 1936 to 1951, died in 1999.
