Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak the focus of MLB Network show on Sunday
Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio, right, with his wife Marilyn Monroe in San Francisco in an undated photo from the 1950s. Credit: Getty Images
MLB Network marks the 75th anniversary of the start of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak at 8 p.m. Sunday with a one-hour special, “56: The Streak.”
The first half of the show, which is narrated by Hewlett High School alumnus Ed Burns, looks back at the streak itself, while the second is built around interviews with the three men who have come closest to DiMaggio since 1941: Pete Rose, Paul Molitor and Jimmy Rollins.
Rose recalls visiting Vietnam on a USO tour with DiMaggio in 1967, saying, “When I got the call from the State Department asking me to go to Vietnam, I said, ‘Well, not really, there’s a war going on.’ Well, they said, ‘Joe DiMaggio’s going.’ I said, ‘I’ll go!’ Hell, I’d walk through hell in a gasoline suit to meet Joe DiMaggio.”
Also among those interviewed are Robin Ventura, who had a 58-game streak in college, Commack’s own Bob Costas and documentarian Ken Burns.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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