Dom Dimaggio, R.I.P.

Red Sox legend Dom Dimaggio died this morning at age 92. Dimaggio played 11 years and hit a career .298. His 34 game hit-streak set the Sox record. He made 7 All-Star teams and would have gotten into a few more in there but he was part of the generation that put their careers on hold to go off to war. He was one of the best center-fielders the organization has ever seen, and one of its nicest guys.



Dimaggio was on the small side and wore coke-bottle glasses his whole career, and in my personal basseball mythology he's the quintessential Arthur Miller type---the guy who reminds you that you don't have to be gifted to bag Marilyn Monroe (Dom's own brother being the counterpoint). This is one of the greatest things about baseball. You can really believe that you don't really need to be all that much of a natural athlete to succeed. You can be known as the "Little Professor" and still hit .298 over an 11 year career. Probably Dom was a gifted athlete in his own way, but he let you think he wasn't. He didn't go for the limelight, and he never seemed particularly bothered by the flashy stars to which his own was inevitably attached (Williams and his brother, Joe.)



In this respect, the Globe did him a great injustice with the headline they temporarily ran this morning: "Dom Dimaggio, brother of Joe, dies at 92." The man was a Boston legend, but even in death the Boston paper gives him second billing? That's a damn shame. Fortunately someone had the good sense to fix that as the morning went on. The man deserves his own line.



Dom Dimaggio died this morning at 92. He was an important part of the Sox oganization and an important part of the game. R.I.P.