The Streak

By then the news had traveled to all the ballparks in the country. And from New England to California, some version of this news report was broadcast on the radio: The Nazis, continuing their march, are now said to be just 225 miles from Moscow. [Pause.] And this has just come in from our nation's capital: Joe DiMaggio has done it! The Yankees slugger has hit in 42 consecutive games, a new record.

In San Francisco customers ordered Scotch highballs at the Grotto. Giuseppe DiMaggio felt relieved and aglow. And who said he couldn't joke around in English? A reporter from the Chronicle spoke to Papa DiMag and transcribed his words this way: "Joe, he waited too long. He waits until da seexth inning before he ties da record of Seesler. Then he waits until da seventh inning before he breaks Seesler's record in da second game. He makes his papa worry too long. Why cannot my son Joe do it in da first inning?"

Across the country in Brooklyn, a shout went out in Bensonhurst, where a group of young stickballers including nine-year-old Maury Allen stopped their game and ran to the first radio they could find. Down the coast in Ocean City, N.J., the main street buzzed and another nine-year-old, Gay Talese, felt thrilled, even empowered by what DiMaggio, a fellow Italian-American, had done.

And in South Jamaica, Queens, the radio hummed on the grocery-store counter near which yet another nine-year-old, Mario Cuomo, sat on a milk box, fiddling with his pea shooter, all ready to go. It was a hot Sunday night, and often on hot Sunday nights Mario and his parents and his brother and sister would all get into the wood-paneled station wagon and drive out to Rockaway Beach. They would park on the sand and put the tailgate down and sit together in the back of the car listening to the water lapping in and talking, perhaps, about the things that had happened in the ball games that day. The sun slipped to the horizon, and you could hear the voices from the boardwalk. There was not the hubbub of a place like Coney Island, with its roller coasters and Wonder Wheel and the air-rifle shooting galleries where the tin ducks had been replaced by little models of Nazi paratroopers. At Rockaway Beach the night was quieter; there was just noise enough. Mario could fall asleep under the blankets, the sea breeze upon him, full of sweet anticipatory giddiness, knowing that the next day his ballplaying hero Joe DiMaggio would be all over the newspapers, the hitting feat there for Mario, and millions of boys like him, to feast upon.