The Pecan Park Eagle

Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio

In April 1951, I got to see Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle play for the New York Yankees in a spring exhibition game at Buff Stadium against our home town Houston Buffs. Standing with my dad, my brother, and my best friend in the SRO roped off area in left center, I still have every picture in my mind that I could not take with my missing camera on that golden day. When you are 13 years  old, in my day, we couldn’t  always afford film, but still – what a day to be without it!

Joe DiMaggio’s lifetime total of 361 career MLB home runs may not seem like much today, but it was good enough for 5th place on the all time MLB leader list when he retired after the 1951 season. And no doubt about it – had Joe D. played his entire career at Fenway Park, rather than in the deep left center to center field canyon that was Yankee Stadium I, he could have posted a much larger number. That Bronx locale was built by Ruth – for Ruth – and all the great lefties that followed. It was mean to right handed power alley hitters.

Joe D. began his major league all Yankees career on May 3, 1936, in the club’s 18th game of the season. He began as a house-afire hitter from the start, but did not hit  his first career HR until May 10, 1936. It was the Yankees’ 24th game of the season and the 7th game of his active play.

That first Joe DiMaggio HR of May 10, 1936 happened at Yankee Stadium in the bottom of the first inning of  a game played against the Philadelphia Athletics. Lefty George Turbiville was the A’s pitcher as Joe D. took him long to deep left, where leaving the field of play was a deep possibility for some fly balls. DiMaggio compiled a total of 29 HR in his 138 games played in 1938. He followed that feat with his best HR season of a 15-year career by banging out 46 homers in 1937.

After that game in Buff Stadium, we were wishing we could invite Joe D. over to Eagle Field in Pecan Park for a little game of  flies and rollers. – It was only two miles away, but, unfortunately, it was also another world away. We contented ourselves in the knowledge that, on this particular Sunday, we had been privileged to have spent more time with the great DiMaggio than most other people in the United States.

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” – Our nation turns ts lonely eyes to you! – Paul Simon.

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Newspaper accounts of the 7-2 Yankee win over the A’s on May 10, 1936 are rather bland in their reporting of DiMaggio’s first big league home run, with most stories  that we examined stopping at “Dickey and DiMaggio homered for New York” as their  featured copy of the game that played out in Yankee Stadium that day.before 32,034 fans. One noted that DiMaggio had been in a 10 at bat hitless slump before he unloaded in the first for a 2-run shot off George Turbiville that gave the Yankees an early 2-0 lead.

That fact  that Joe DiMaggio had just cracked his first big league homer seemed of little to no importance to the people reporting the action that day. It makes me wonder more than usual if any attention was paid to retrieval and preservation of the ball that left the yard off Joe’s bat.  I’m thinking that it probably ended up on a sandlot or street ball course, where it lived out its natural life as a scuffed instrument of kid ball joy.

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Baseball Almanac Box Scores: Philadelphia Athletics 2, New York Yankees 7
Game played on Sunday, May 10, 1936 at Yankee Stadium I
Philadelphia Athletics ab   r   h rbi Finney 1b 4 0 0 0 Moses cf 3 0 0 0 Johnson lf 3 1 1 0 Puccinelli rf 4 0 2 1 Higgins 3b 2 0 0 0 Warstler 2b 3 0 0 1 Newsome ss 3 0 0 0   Dean ph 1 0 0 0   Peters ss 0 0 0 0 Hayes c 4 0 1 0 Turbeville p 2 0 0 0   Wilshere p 0 0 0 0   Mailho ph 0 1 0 0   Upchurch p 0 0 0 0   Berry ph 1 0 0 0 Totals 30 2 4 2	New York Yankees ab   r   h rbi Crosetti ss 3 1 0 0 Rolfe 3b 4 1 1 1 DiMaggio lf 4 1 1 3 Gehrig 1b 2 1 0 0 Dickey c 4 1 2 2 Chapman cf 4 0 0 0 Selkirk rf 3 2 2 0 Lazzeri 2b 2 0 1 1 Murphy p 3 0 0 0   Malone p 1 0 0 0 Totals 30 7 7 7
Philadelphia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 – 2 4 2 New York 2 1 0 0 3 1 0 0 x – 7 7 0   Philadelphia Athletics IP H R ER BB SO Turbeville  L(1-3) 5.0 5 6 5 3 0   Wilshere 2.0 2 1 1 3 2   Upchurch 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 Totals 8.0 7 7 6 6 3   New York Yankees IP H R ER BB SO Murphy  W(2-1) 7.2 4 2 2 7 4   Malone  SV(2) 1.1 0 0 0 0 2 Totals 9.0 4 2 2 7 6 E–B. Johnson (2), Higgins (7).  DP–Philadelphia 1. Newsome-Warstler-Finney, New York 1. Murphy-Gehrig.  HR–New York DiMaggio (1,1st inning off Turbeville 1 on); Dickey (7,5th inning off Turbeville 1 on).  Team LOB–8.  HBP–Gehrig 2 (2).  Team–7.  CS–Selkirk (1).  U–Lou Kolls, George Moriarty, Steve Basil.  T–2:15.  A–32,000.
Game played on Sunday, May 10, 1936 at Yankee Stadium I
Baseball Almanac Box Score |

Tags: Joe DiMaggio's 1st MLB HR

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