DiMaggio’s last big swing

Joe DiMaggio in Japan, 1951

With his playing career now being measured in days rather than years, Joe DiMaggio hits a 400-foot home run 73 years ago today in Tokyo as a team of American League all-stars beat their Japanese counterparts 3-2. Playing in front of 50,000 fans,

DiMaggio’s eighth-inning homer ties the score at 1 before his brother, Dom, unties the score with an RBI triple in the ninth inning.

The victory helps the touring American League players to a 13-1-2 record in the series. DiMaggio’s homer comes exactly one month after he doubles in his final at-bat with the Yankees – a drive to right-center in the eighth inning of the Yankees’ 4-3 victory over the New York Giants in the sixth and deciding game of the 1951 World Series.

The homer in Tokyo also comes exactly one month and one day before DiMaggio formally announces his retirement from baseball at the age of 37.

“When baseball is no longer fun, it’s no longer a game,” DiMaggio says a month after his homer 73 years ago today in Japan. “And, so I’ve played my last game of ball.”

When he is having fun playing the game, DiMaggio has few, if any, peers.

During his 13 seasons with the Yankees from 1936-51 – he misses three seasons due to World War II – DiMaggio hits .325 in 1,736 games with 361 career homers and 1,537 runs batted in.

He also is selected as an American League All-Star in each of those 13 seasons, wins two batting titles and three times is named the league’s most valuable player.

More important, DiMaggio leads the Yankees to 10 World Series appearances and nine titles in those 10 appearances.

By 1951, though, DiMaggio is slowed by bone spurs in his feet and bone spurs in his right arm.

“I feel that I have reached the stage where I can longer produce for my ballclub, my manager, my teammates and my fans the sort of baseball their loyalty in me deserves,” DiMaggio tells the New York Herald Tribune.

“If I can’t give out what I want to give out, I don’t want to play.”