THE MYTHICAL SUMMER OF '41

My Chicago was just voted "Best Sports City in America" by Sporting News. Given all the titles by all the teams throughout all the years, you can see why. We won't even pause to lament the most lamentable of all sports stories: The Chicago Cubs 102-year record without winning a World Series. Instead, let us savor what we have, and restrain the sports-fan's gift for greed.

However, fan-or-not, there IS one thing we can all be greedy for again. The Summer of '41!

The national clock was ticking down to the last precious days before Pearl Harbor. Before our entry into WWII. Before everything about America and about us changed forever. It was still July. It was still baseball. It was still a time when Americans could still believe in magic, in peace, in happy-endings, in Washington, and especially in Joe DiMaggio. The Yankee's Jolting Joe was on an historic tear, and most of the nation held their breath. Even if they didn't know a tinker's damn about baseball.

DiMaggio -- executing what is considered the toughest skill in all sports -- was hitting those 95 mph fastballs with stunning success. He was doing the mathematically impossible all summer long by hitting in every park in every game for 56 straight games. While the Nazi Panzers had conquered half of Europe and had just now invaded Russia to seize the rest of it, America under FDR still hoped this was not our business. Instead, that mythical summer 70 summers ago was very much about one man smashing one record that would say to all men: Everything is still possible!

Sure we had an ugly inkling war over-there was getting close to over-here. And sure we knew the longest depression in our history was still not yet over. But summer-times are when grownups can still be kids again. Especially when the Yankee Clipper was belting the ball out of parks to the cheers of kids and fans and presidents alike. When you're the most afraid, that's often when you're the most likely to look for heroes.

Joe was our hero, but even heroes are mortal. And so it was that on a sweltering July 18, 1941, our hero's 56-game streak finally ended in Cleveland. The home crowds didn't know whether to cheer or to cry. But DiMaggio -- a study in grace rarely seen on today's playing fields -- knew it was over when he hit into a double play in the 8th.

Some fans and writers cried a little. Not Joe. For the rest of his life -- and ours -- he would know that in that special summer of '41 he had burst the bounds of the game. He had helped us remember that boundaries are made to be broken...