DiMaggio’s final streak

The great but ailing Joe DiMaggio, then 84 years old, is given his last rites 25 years ago today.

DiMaggio, though, prideful and stubborn to the end – and always one to live life on his terms – decides that, no, he is not quite ready to go and impressively recovers well enough to keep on living.

DiMaggio’s last rally comes 57 years after his record-setting hitting streak of 56 straight games in 1941.

Phil Rizzuto and Joe DiMaggio, 1941

Turns out that DiMaggio’s final streak – the one to extend his own life – lasts 87 straight days beyond what the attending doctors and priests predict on this day in 1998.

“There was an aura about him,” Phil Rizzuto says of his longtime friend and New York Yankee teammate.

“He walked like no one else walked. He did things so easily. He was immaculate in everything he did,” Rizzuto says. “Kings of State wanted to meet him and be with him. He carried himself so well. He could fit in any place in the world.”