Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 324

After a poor 1951 season, various cumulative injuries, and a scouting report by the Brooklyn Dodgers that was turned over to the New York Giants and leaked to the press, DiMaggio announced his retirement at age 37 on December 11, 1951. When remarking on his retirement to the Sporting News on December 19, 1951, he said; “I feel like I have reached the stage where I can no longer produce for my club, my manager, and my teammates. I had a poor year, but even if I had hit .350, this would have been my last year. I was full of aches and pains and it had become a chore for me to play. When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game, and so, I've played my last game.”

DiMaggio might have had even better power hitting statistics had his home park not been Yankee Stadium. In "The House That Ruth Built," its nearby right field favored the Babe's left handed power. For right handed hitters, its deep left and center fields

made home runs almost impossible. Mickey Mantle recalled that he and Whitey Ford witnessed many DiMaggio blasts that would have been home runs anywhere other than Yankee Stadium. Bill James calculated that DiMaggio lost more home runs due to his home park than any other player in history. Left center field went as far back as 457 feet, whereas left center rarely reaches 380 feet in today's ballparks. Al Gionfriddo's famous catch in the 1947 World Series, which was close to the 415 foot mark in left