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This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, a show where America is the star. and the American people. On January 29, 1774, Benjamin Franklin was called to appear in Britain before a select group of the king's advisers in an octagonal shaped room in a palace known as the cockpit. Though Franklin entered the room as a dutiful servant of the British crown, he left as a budding American revolutionary. And it was this event that ultimately pitted Franklin against his own son.
suggesting that the revolution was in no small part a civil war. Here to tell the story is renowned Franklin historian Sheila Skemp. Author of The Making of a Patriot. Benjamin Franklin at the cockpit. Let's take a listen.
Benjamin Franklin was not a provincial man. As a young boy, he had lived in England for 18 mostly pleasurable months when he was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He returned in 1757. remained in London five more years, This time he came not as a bewildered boy trying to find his way in the big city. but as a man whose intellectual credentials had dazzled men of letters throughout Western Europe.
He'd already conducted his famous kite experiment, becoming known everywhere as the man who tamed the lightning. Yeah. He'd been admitted to London's prestigious Royal Society. an honor few Englishmen and even fewer Americans were ever able to attain. And once in England he was wined and dined and feted and celebrated everywhere he went.
It's not surprising. that when he finally left for home in 1762, He wasn't very happy about it. He might have missed his wife and daughter, but he promised one London friend, he said, I will return, and this time I will settle here forever. He got back home. And Okay.
still missed London. He told more than one person. Pennsylvania, even Philadelphia, is a provincial backwater. It just doesn't compare to the big city. And so he was delighted.
When less than two years after he got back to Philadelphia for the second time, he returned to England once more. He went there, ironically, to try to get the king to turn Pennsylvania into a royal colony. This at the very time when the Stamp Act was just going into effect.
So the irony there, to my mind, is rather amazing. Franklin loved England. Not just because of the friends he had. not just because of the honors he received. not just because of the stimulating conversations he enjoyed there, but because he had devoted most of his adult life to the service of king and country.
Just a few examples. He'd helped raise money for the king's army during the French and Indian War. He used his influence to secure a job as royal governor of New Jersey for his son William. He'd worked long and hard and ultimately fruitlessly. to make Pennsylvania a royal colony.
He had made excuses over and over and over again for King and Parliament when the government enacted the Stamp Act and the Townsend Acts. earning himself enemies in Pennsylvania. As a result. He steadily sought to become a member of the king's government. to get a more important position than that post office job.
He did all this and more, not just because he was an ambitious man, though I think he was a very ambitious man, but because he really and truly believed that Englishmen on both sides of the water would benefit from seeing themselves, as he put it, not as belonging to different communities with different interests, but as one community with one interest. He wanted an Anglo-American alliance based upon equality. that would be as he put it The awe of the world. And so he was a real English patriot. Uh up until almost the end.
As late as 1770, the year of the Boston Massacre. He was urging the colonists to maintain a steady loyalty to the king. and claimed that George had the best disposition toward us. and has a family interest in our prosperity. And not surprisingly, he moved in really, really august circles.
He knew personally many of the men whom political leaders at home were saying were trying to destroy American liberty. And he would say, yeah, a few of them, maybe. There were some of them that he did despise, no doubt about that. But he also knew, because he was there and he knew these people personally and didn't just know about them from rumors spread across the Atlantic Ocean. He knew that there were many, many friends of America in England.
And he knew that most others were not out to destroy colonial liberty. They might have been misguided. They might have been stubborn.
Some of them, he admitted, were not very bright. But they were not evil. Thus, even when he was frustrated by government policy, Franklin was always hopeful. The popular inclination here, he would say confidently, is to wish us well. and that we may preserve our liberties.
Benjamin Franklin changed his tune. after seventeen seventy four. His humiliation at the cockpit was a critical encounter for Benjamin Franklin. He was never again the same. And you've been listening to Sheila Skemp, and she's a renowned Franklin historian, and the book is The Making of a Patriot, Benjamin Franklin, at the Cockpit.
You're learning a lot about Franklin here that we were not taught in school. I didn't know any of this until much later in life, having read quite a number of books. We have a terrific one about Franklin and the battle that he and his son had, called The Loyal Son, and it's about the war inside Ben Franklin's own family.
So when anyone tells you Americas have never been more divided, one need only look at Ben Franklin's home to get the answer to that. When we come back, we'll find out why. with Sheila Kemp. Here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here.
As we approach our nation's 250th anniversary, I'd like to remind you that all the history stories you hear on this show are brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College. And Hillsdale isn't just a great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but for you as well. Go to hillsdale.edu to find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series on communism is one of the finest I've ever seen. Again, go to hillsdale.edu and sign up for their free and terrific online courses.
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No return shipping or restocking fees, every penny back. Upgrade now at washablefas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. The only thing between you and your best self is a start button. This Black Friday, explore the world with Nordic Track.
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Train anywhere? Explore everywhere. Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Wim Sound smart speaker. Get high-resolution audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control, and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $2.99. From quiet mornings to lively holiday gatherings, WimSound makes every moment sound better and feel better too.
Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself. Wim Sound, beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Wim Sound. That's W-I-I-M-S-O-U-N-D. And we continue with our American stories and the story of how Ben Franklin went from being an Anglophile in the end to what we might call an American phile.
Let's pick up where we last left off with historian Sheila Skemk. Franklin entered a tiny room in Whitehall Palace that was known as the Cockpit, on january twenty ninth, seventeen seventy four. The room was built by Henry the Eighth. and he used it to stage cockfights, which is why it became known as the cockpit. Long since that was no longer the case.
The government used it to conduct normal official business, but the old name stuck. Franklin's appearance, physical appearance that day, was not designed to impress. He had a very old-fashioned wig on. and wore a simple blue coat of Manchester velvet. He entered the room.
He looked around. and he realized that all the seats were taken. And so the sixty eight year old man, was forced to stand. as a man young enough to be his son. Harangued and berated him to the delight of an overthrow crowd.
For About an hour. Everybody who was anybody. was there to watch Franklin be humiliated. Lord North was there. General Thompson Gage also managed to make it.
Even the stray scientist or philosopher was squeezed into the room. Most members of the prestigious Privy Council were also there. Significantly, I think crucially, Franklin knew most of these people personally. He had hoped to be one of them. uh he counted them among his friends.
And so from the beginning. This was personal for him. as well as political. Why was he there? Ostensibly.
He came to defend a petition from the Massachusetts legislature asking for the removal of two men from office. Governor Thomas Hutchinson. and Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver. Franklin was there as an agent, which is kind of like a lobbyist for Massachusetts. And he knew when he walked in that this petition was going to be rejected.
In fact, he was surprised that he even had to show up. But it was his job to go through the motions. uh defend it if he could, uh and so he was there in that capacity. Two things. made what under any other circumstances would have been a mere formality.
into a spectacle that captured the attention of everybody in London. First. The timing could not have been worse. Franklin had been originally prepared to defend the petition on January 11th. But when he found out on January 11th that Governor Hutchinson had hired a lawyer to defend him, he thought, well, maybe I should get a lawyer to defend me too.
And so he asked for a postponement. Unfortunately for him, he got it. And so instead of defending the petition on January 11th, He defended it on January 29th. Eighteen days. 18 days meant, in this case, a lot.
because it turned out. That on January 20th, just nine days before he appeared at the cockpit. London received word about what we now know as the Boston Tea Party. Had he gone on the original date, January 11th, he would have gotten there before news of the Boston Tea Party arrived. Rightly or wrongly.
English leaders were furious. at the Boston Tea Party. To them, this was the last straw. They had done, from their standpoint, everything that they could to be conciliatory toward the colonists for 10 years. And this was the thanks that they got.
A bunch of Boston ruffians had thrown private property. Into the ocean, and had shown that they had no respect for England. Its laws. or its lawmakers. They were hurt.
They were angry. They were frustrated. They were out for blood. They were looking for someone, anyone. to blame for the ills that beset the English Empire.
and Benjamin Franklin was a convenient target. But why frankling? He clearly had no control over the men who destroyed the tea. In fact, when he first heard about it, he was furious and said, why did they do this? He was not pleased at all.
So Why Franklin? Franklin himself was partly to blame. which brings us to our second reason. for what happened in that room. To understand this, Um you have to go back a little bit and look at some background.
Between 1768, Thomas Hutchinson, and Andrew Oliver. had written occasional letters to a man by the name of Thomas Wateley. Whately was a Member of Parliament. He was a supporter of the Stamp Act. Both Oliver and Hutchinson had been victims of mob violence during the Stamp Act riots.
Their houses had been destroyed. their most prized possessions had been ground into the dust. They had barely escaped with their lives. Three years later, for some reason, they were still angry. And so in letter after letter to Whateley, they talked about the mob violence that characterized Boston.
and they insisted over and over again. England must clamp down on the colonies before it was too late. Otherwise independence would be inevitable. Thomas Whateley died in seventeen seventy two. But the Hutchinson Oliver letters survived.
And in the winter of 1772, someone Franklin never told anybody who. Historians still don't know who it was.
Somebody got possession of those letters. gave them to Franklin, and said, Do with them what you will. And Franklin forwarded the letters to Thomas Cushing, who was Speaker of the House. in Massachusetts. Franklin's explanation for his decision to send the letters back to Massachusetts.
has been People just still shake their heads at it. This is supposed to be a smart guy. What was he thinking? He said, and he never stopped saying this. He thought that when people saw these letters.
that they would feel the same way that he had. He said when he saw them, light dawned. Everything suddenly made sense.
Now he knew why king and parliament were so determined to destroy colonial liberties, which he just couldn't figure out before. Parliament's efforts to tax the colonies. The government's decision to send red coats to Boston in 1768, which led to the Boston Massacre. Came because people like Hutchinson and Oliver had intentionally misled. London officials lying to them.
He thought sending these letters would bring England and America closer together. It was about as wrong a prognostication as anybody has ever made. Immediately, the Massachusetts legislature drew up a petition asking the king to remove the governor and lieutenant governor from their offices. It was an audacious demand. I mean, it was these people served at the discretion of the king.
This was not a democracy. It wasn't going to happen. But they nevertheless sent this petition to London, and it was this petition that Franklin was trying to defend at the cockpit. And you've been listening to renowned Franklin historian Sheila Skemp. Author of The Making of a Patriot, Benjamin Franklin at the Cockpit.
And now you know what the cockpit was. And how it got its name from a cockfighting tradition long before this meeting. But there is Franklin in this little room, walks in, and it's a total setup. All these people he'd known, people like Lord North, General Thomas Gage, and there they are, not even leaving him a seat to sit in. And he is going to take a beat down.
Total humiliation. He's about to experience. When we come back, more of this remarkable story, The Making of a Patriot. Benjamin Franklin at the cockpit. here on Our American Stories.
Shh, you won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs. Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it? It's not a tablet. It's not a toy.
It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning. Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus. Only at Costco. A couch potato warning is in effect as DirecTV transforms Thanksgiving into StreamsGiving.
DirecTV's got free TV nationwide. With a heavy front of 60-plus live channels and a steady stream of streaming apps, conditions are perfect for non-stop entertainment.
So hunker down on the couch and sign up for your free trial of My Entertainment from DirecTV. I'm going to watch some free TV. Start streaming My Entertainment from Direct TV now at streamsgiving.com. MyFree is free, paid services. Five-day free trial, then auto renews monthly.
Cancel any time. Temporary credit hold may apply. Restrictions apply. See StreamsGiving.com for details. AI produced.
Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anibay. Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabric.
Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. Sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Shop washablefas.com for early Black Friday savings, up to 60% off site-wide, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees, every penny back.
Upgrade now at washable.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. The only thing between you and your best self is a start button. This Black Friday, explore the world with Nordic Track. From the peaks of Peru to the streets of Paris, every workout moves you somewhere new with iFit trainers leading the way.
The equipment's amazing, smooth, quiet, and those screens make it all feel real. Ready to start your next workout adventure with the number one treadmill brand in the U.S.? Shop NordicTrack.com for Black Friday savings. Nordic Track. Train anywhere?
Explore everywhere. Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Wim Sound smart speaker. Get high-resolution audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control, and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $2.99. From quiet mornings to lively holiday gatherings, Wim Sound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself.
Wim Sound, beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Wim Sound. That's W I M S O U N D. And we continue with our American stories and the story of the making of a patriot. We're talking about Benjamin Franklin's time at the cockpit.
And there he was. He found himself in 1774 in that room with all of British high society and every aspect of British society from the military to letters to lords and nobles. Let's pick up where we last left off with Sheila Skemp, author of The Making of a Patriot. and so when he walked into the cockpit, Franklin encountered the perfect storm. The king's men were furious about the tea party.
They were furious about Franklin's use of the Hutchinson Oliver letters. They had put two and two together, and they had come to the conclusion that it was Franklin's fault. That the relationship between Massachusetts and England was so bad. He was to blame for the petition. He was even to blame for the Boston Tea Party.
Still, even though he knew that people were mad. Franklin was not ready for what happened to him in the cockpit. One man. uh stood up. Uh two.
defend Hutchinson and Oliver. His name was Alexander Wedderburn. He was the Attorney General of the King. He was known everywhere for his ability. To use words as weapons.
He was an orator par excellence, and he was never in better form. General Gage said. Wedderburn was serious, Pathetic. and severe by turns. And it was the attack on Franklin.
Not a defense of Hutchinson, which he hardly even mentioned, that was at the heart of Wedderburn's performance. Franklin, he said, was the leader of a secret cabal whose members were determined to destroy the empire. He was a true incendiary. who int had intentionally set the whole province in flame. On and on he went.
I've just picked a few of the worst things he said. I mean, it just went on just forever, it seemed like, I'm sure, especially to Franklin. By any standard, it was a spectacular performance. The audience loved it. They hooted.
They applauded. as Wedderburn, in one man's words, poured forth such a torrent of virulent abuse on doctor Franklin as no man had ever endured before. and through it all Franklin stood, said nothing, didn't even allow his facial expression to change. He thought that a common criminal Would not have been subject to the treatment he received at the cockpit. Finally, it was over.
Wedderburn sat down. He invited his victim to respond. Franklin simply said. I do not choose to be examined. And there was nothing more to say?
and he walked out of the room. And as he walked out he looked at everybody gathered around Wedderburn, congratulating him on his brilliant performance, shaking his hand, slapping him on the back. No one in that room seemed to understand what they had just done. they had turned a loyal English subject. into a patriot.
in less than an hour's time. In short order, The Privy Council rejected the Massachusetts petition, which they could have and should have done without any of this grand display. Two days later, Franklin was fired from his position as the king's deputy postmaster of the American colonies, a position he'd had for two decades. On his own, He resigned his position as Massachusetts agent. Knowing full well that whatever use he had been to the colony was at an end.
He was now a private man. with no one to serve? No job to do. It's impossible to overstate uh the significance of Franklin's humiliation at the cockpit. It was devastating.
He was a proud and loyal empire man. And now he was a committed patriot. At the time, he tried to pretend that it didn't matter. He said, I've not lost a single friend as a result of this. People are coming to my rooms every day and telling me that they still support me and that they're indignant at the unworthy treatment that I received.
He told his sister Jane that he was proud that he had lost his post office job. This was a badge of honor. He said that he never tried to defend himself, but just kept a cool, sullen silence. That wasn't exactly true. After the cockpit, Franklin's mood darkened perceptibly.
his vision changed in a variety of ways. Let me just give you a couple of quick examples. kind of the before and after picture. before the cockpit, He laughed. When he heard people like Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry say that the king and his ministers were the masterminds of an insidious plot to destroy colonial liberty.
He said this is paranoid. I know these people. This is not true. They respect us. They love our liberties.
Again, they make a mistake now and then, but this does not mean evil intention. After January of seventeen seventy four, Franklin said, the men who hold the reins of power in England look at Americans with total disdain. If somebody like Wedderburn could sneer at him. A world-renowned scientist. A man of letters.
a talented man. What must he think of ordinary Americans? If ministers who had once told him that they thought he deserved a position in the government, were laughing uproariously at Wetterman's gibes. How could Franklin cling to the belief? that Englishmen would ever join the colonies.
in this panempirical Empire. That would be the envy of the world. I don't think it's an accident. That on the day he signed the Franco-American Treaty of Alliance in 1778. He put on that same suit of Manchester velvet to sign the peace treaty.
It was like he was saying, You got me then, I've got you now.
So, America would have survived without Benjamin Franklin, as much as I think he would hate to think that that was the case. I don't think Franklin would have done so well without America. He made mistake after mistake after mistake and somehow ended up landing on his feet. and he landed on his feet because he made one decision. that allowed most observers then and especially now to forget all the other mistakes he ever made.
He embraced independence. His poor son, William, was a loyalist and was on the losing side. And who but me has ever heard of William Franklin? But Benjamin Franklin made the right choice. In doing this.
He has gone down in history. as one of the most valuable members. of the New Nation's founding generation. and it was the cockpit. that made him make that decision when and how he did.
and a terrific job on the editing and production by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Sheila Skimp. Author of The Making of a Patriot, Benjamin Franklin at the Cockpit. And we learned, look, he was entering the cockpit. It was a perfect storm.
I do not choose to be examined. were Franklin's words. After the beatdown he experienced. And then, of course, he turns and becomes what would become. a major part of our revolution and one of our founding fathers.
But I love what Kemp said. America could have survived without Franklin. No doubt. Franklin. I could not have survived.
without America. The story of the making of a patriot, Benjamin Franklin, at the cockpit. Here on Our American Stories. Is it different? Shh!
You won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs! Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it? It's not a tablet. It's not a toy.
It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning. Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus. Only at Costco. A couch potato warning is in effect as DirecTV transforms Thanksgiving into Streamsgiving.
DirecTV's got free TV nationwide. With a heavy front of 60-plus live channels and a steady stream of streaming apps, conditions are perfect for non-stop entertainment.
So hunker down on the couch and sign up for your free trial of My Entertainment from DirecTV. I'm going to watch some free TV. Start streaming My Entertainment from Direct TV now at streamsgiving.com. My free is free. Paid services.
Five-day free trial, then auto renews monthly. Cancel anytime. Temporary credit hold may apply. Restrictions apply. See streamsgiving.com for details.
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Sofas start at just $699 and right now, get early access to Black Friday savings up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washable sofas.com. Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. The only thing between you and your best self is a start button.
This Black Friday, explore the world with Nordic Track. From the peaks of Peru to the streets of Paris, every workout moves you somewhere new with iFit trainers leading the way. The equipment's amazing, smooth, quiet, and those screens make it all feel real. Ready to start your next workout adventure with the number one treadmill brand in the U.S.? Shop NordicTrack.com for Black Friday savings.
Nordic Track. Train anywhere? Explore everywhere. Bring incredible sound into every corner of your home this holiday with the new Wim Sound smart speaker. Get high-resolution audio with a 1.8-inch touchscreen, smart control, and modern design in one powerful speaker for just $2.99.
From quiet mornings to lively holiday gatherings, WimSound makes every moment sound better and feel better too. Get the gift of the season for the music enthusiast in your life or for yourself: Wim Sound, beautifully designed, effortlessly connected. Shop now at Amazon and search Wim Sound. That's W-I-I-M-S-O-U-N-D. This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show.
As you know, Which brings us to George Will, the renowned political columnist, whose very best writing. is about baseball. Here's George. I was born in May 1941 in the nick of time. I had 11 days to get my bearings before it began.
The streak. It was the greatest event of a baseball season that flared dazzlingly on the eve of darkness. There were just 16 teams in 10 cities, and St. Louis was baseball's westernmost outpost, but the future, California, was present in San Francisco's Joe DiMaggio and San Diego's Ted Williams. Williams was so volatile as a cult.
and as one-dimensional as a surgeon. DiMaggio's cool elegance concealed a passion to excel at every aspect of the game. Williams used a postal scale in the clubhouse to make sure humidity had not increased the weight of his bats. The officials of the Louisville Slugger Company once challenged Williams to pick the one bat among six that weighed half an ounce more than the other five. He did.
He once sent back to the factory a shipment of bats because he sensed that the handles were too thick. They were. by five one hundredths of an inch. In 1941, Williams was hitting 39955 going into the season-ending doubleheader in Philadelphia's Shibe Park. Daylight savings had ended the night before, so the autumn shadows that made hitting hard would be even worse.
If Williams had not played, his average would have been rounded up to 400. Instead, he went six for eight, including a blazing double that broke a public address speaker. He finished at 4.06. Today when a batter hits a sacrificed fly he is not charged with an abat. In 1941 he was.
Williams manager Joe Cronin estimates Williams hit 14 of them.
So under today's rules his average would have been 419. Since then, the highest average has been George Brett's 390 in 1980. Williams' achievement is one of the greatest in baseball history, but not the greatest in 1941. Nothing in baseball quite matches DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. The Yankees were on a tear, so at home they rarely batted in the bottom of the ninth.
DiMaggio had to get his hits in eight innings. And in the 38th game of his streak, he was hitless entering the bottom of the eighth with the Yankees ahead. Three to one. He was scheduled to be the fourth batter. The first batter popped out, the second walked, and Tommy Henrik was up and worried.
He was a power hitter who rarely bunted, but if he hit into a double play, the streak probably would end. He returned to the dugout and got manager Joe McCarthy's permission to bunt. Then DiMaggio hit a double. On July 8th in Detroit, the American League won the most exciting All-Star game when, with two out in the bottom of the ninth and the National League leading five to four, Williams had a three-run home run to Briggs Stadium's upper deck. When play resumed after the All-Star break with DiMaggio's streak at 48, he erupted for 17 hits and 31 at bats.
As the pressure intensified, DiMaggio's performance became greater. He had four hits in the fiftieth game, went four for eight in the doubleheader that ran the streak to fifty-three. had two hits in the fifty fifth game and three in the fifty sixth. The streak ended in Cleveland when the Indians' third baseman Ken Kiltner made two terrific stops of rocketed grounders. Both times, his momentum carried him into foul territory from which he threw DiMaggio out by a blink.
In those 56 games, DiMaggio hit 408 with 91 hits, 35 for extra bases, including 15 home runs. He drove in fifty five runs and scored fifty six. The next day he began a sixteen game hitting streak. When it ended, he had hit safely in 72 of 73 games, not counting his hit in the All-Star game. Most records are improved by small increments, not this one.
The consecutive game hitting record for a Yankee had been twenty nine. The modern Major League record had been George Sistler's 41. The all-time Major League record had been Willie Keeler's 44. DiMaggio fell short only of two other professional heading streaks, sixty-nine games by Joe Wilhoyt of Wichita of the Western League in nineteen nineteen. and 61 in 1933 by an 18-year-old playing for the San Francisco Seals named Joe DiMaggio.
During DiMaggio's streak, radio broadcasts had been interrupted to bring bulletins about his progress. but once radio interrupted baseball. On the night of May 27th, when the Braves were playing the Giants in the polo grounds, both teams left the field for a while at 10.30. And the public address announcer said, Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. About 17,000 fans listened to FDR's radio address describing the lowering clouds of danger.
Michael Seidel, author of Streak, Joe DiMaggio in the Summer of 41. says DiMaggio was a lot like the taciturn, enduring characters then played in movies by Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper. who was soon to play Lou Gehrig. DiMaggio, No. 5, was the successor to Lou Gehrig, No.
4. who died on June 2, 1941, of the disease that now bears his name. Gehrig was seventeen days shy of his thirty eighth birthday. He died 16 years to the day after he became the Yankees' regular first baseman in game two of a streak of. two thousand one hundred and thirty games consecutive played.
DiMaggio's similar stance toward life, a steely will, Understated style. relentless consistency. Was mesmerizing to a nation that knew it would soon need what he epitomized. heroism for the long haul.
However, The unrivaled elegance of his career is defined by two numbers even more impressive than his fifty-six. There are eight. and zero. 8 is the astonishingly small difference Between his 13-year career totals for home runs, 361, and strikeouts. 369.
In the 1986 and 1987 seasons, Jose Canseco hit 64 home runs. and struck out 332 times. Zero is the number of times DiMaggio was thrown out in his entire career going from first to third base. On the field, the man made few mistakes. Off the field he made a big one in his marriage to Marilyn Monroe.
but even it enlarged his mythic status. as when they were in Japan and she visited US troops in Korea. Upon her return to Tokyo she said to him ingenuously, You've never heard cheering like that there must have been fifty or sixty thousand. he said dryly. Oh yes, I have.
They had gone to Japan at the recommendation of a friend, Lefty Oduo, manager of the San Francisco SEALs. who said that in a foreign country they could wander around without drawing crowds. The friend did not know that Japan was then obsessed with things American, especially baseball stars and movie stars. When the most famous of each category landed, it took their car six hours to creep to their hotel through more than a million people. As a Californian, He represented baseball's future.
He and San Diego's Ted Williams, a 21-year-old rookie in 1939 when DiMaggio was 24. DiMaggio, a son of San Francisco fisherman, was proud, reserved, and as private as possible for the bearer, the second generation, of America's premium athletic tradition. the Yankee greatness established by Bay Ruth and Lou Gehrig. DiMaggio felt violated by the sight of Marilyn filming the famous scene in The Seven Years' Itch. when a gust of wind from a Manhattan subway grate blows her skirt up over her waist.
Delicious. Precious. Pride, supposedly one of the seven deadly sins. is often a virtue and the source of others. DiMaggio was pride incarnate, and he and Hank Greenberg did much to stir ethnic pride among Italian Americans and Jews.
When, as a player, DiMaggio had nothing left to prove, he was asked why he still played so hard every day. Because, he said, every day there is apt to be some child in the stands who has never before seen me play. An entire ethic, the code of craftsmanship, can be tickled from that admirable thought. Not that DiMaggio practised the full range of his craft. When one of his managers was asked if DiMaggio could bunt, He said he did not know and I'll never find out either.
DiMaggio, one of Jefferson's natural aristocrats, proved that a healthy democracy knows and honors nobility when it sees it. And you've been listening to George Will, the story. of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, the story of class incarnate two folks here. on our American stories. You won't believe.
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