Recalling Joltin’ Joe and flyin’ flags
Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio is usually not thought of as having a connection to flags. But the centennial of his birth (Nov. 25, 1914) brings memories of how often he was associated with bunting, pennants and American flags.
The anniversary also calls attention to another Joe DiMaggio, who is associated with flags because he loves to take photos of them.
The original Joltin’ Joe was a phenomenon from his first days in the minor leagues in his home town of San Francisco. In 1934, when he was on the Seals, the team celebrated five pennants from previous seasons. A newspaper called the record “one of the finest…ever established” in the Pacific Coast League.
When DiMaggio advanced to the New York Yankees in 1936, he acquired national fame and a nickname: the Yankee Clipper. In his years with the team, he helped to lead it to many post-seasons, which came with red-white-and-blue bunting, American League pennants and World Series flags.
In his first season, a journalist reported, an “ardent group of Yankee supporters” gathered in centerfield, behind DiMaggio, and unfurled an Italian flag. Two years later, when the team faced the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, the ballplayers “paraded…to the flagpole where, to the strains of the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ Old Glory was hauled aloft.”
The championships mounted up. Just three paragraphs into his 1948 autobiography, DiMaggio referred to his early years on the team as a time of “winning pennants hand over fist.”
But he isn’t the only Joe DiMaggio with a strong link to Old Glory. A professional photographer with that name specializes in many subjects, including the U.S. flag. On his blog, he wrote: “Many photos are considered clichés. The Empire State Building, the Arc de Triomphe, the Great Wall of China, Lady Liberty….You would think…the American Flag would be a cliché, but not to me. The American Flag has beautiful colors, great design, balance and when the wind blows right it has powerful stance” (http://blogjoedimaggio.com/tag/american-flag/).
When the original Joe D died in 1999, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, responded by lowering its flag to half-staff. At Yankee Stadium, American flags were brought down as a sign of sorrow; so, too, was the one in Monument Park, where a plaque salutes DiMaggio.
On the Yankee Clipper’s 100th birthday, flags should fly high – as high as some of the homers he clouted.