Joe DiMaggio Reveals-
INSIDE FAST BALL FINISHED ME!
Tells Secret Of Super-Play
"A runner on first, Joe DiMaggio declared, should be able to get to third base on a hit to the outfield.
'A man should try,' said the greatest ball player of his generation, 'unless the ball is hit awfully hard. You take Hank Greenberg and Tommy Henrich- they weren't too fast. Yet they could go from first to third very well. That's why Tommy was so valuable. He used to lean off first with the pitch. You've got to lean with every pitch.
'You've got to take a lead so that when the ball is caught by the catcher, you can't loaf back to first. You've got to run. It's that little extra effort, that's what gets a guy to third on a single. I wasn't a fast man. I took those big strides. On the straightaway, I wasn't that fast. I couldn't outrun most guys. For instance, Charlie Keller would lose me in a race.
'But I could get off. I didn't seem to gain momentum. I seemed to start at full speed. I was deceiving because I could run the turns on the bases and get a fast start. Going to first, I was just mediocre. I was just above the average. I wasn't slow, but I wasn't fast. When I played the outfield, it didn't appear I was moving. But I got there.
'My last year with San Francisco- Lefty O'Doul managed the ball club- I stole 24 bases in 25 attempts. The next year with the Yankees I stole one base. Why did I have to steal? We had fellows like Gehrig, Dickey and Lazzeri. So Joe McCarthy never gave me the steal sign. He never played for one run. He was going for the big inning.'
It is DiMaggio's theory you can teach a player most of the techniques of the sport.
'I don't think you can teach a man to hit,' he explained. 'Yet take the case of Lou Finney. He had a great year. He was a left-handed hitter who used to dribble balls to left field. All of a sudden, he started to hit like a fiend. He started to hit to right. He had that one big year.
'You can teach a guy to pull. But I don't think you can teach them to get the fat part of the bat on the ball six out of seven times. Yet a fellow like Finney will get it for a year, sometimes for a few years.'
He talked about playing the outfield.
'When an outfielder is out there,' he said, 'there isn't much to do, is there? He is out there to catch a fly ball. But he should be thinking about everything that can happen if the ball is hit to him. He should be ready. He should have every angle figured and know exactly what to do with the ball, no matter where it's hit.
'The situation changes with men on the bases. He should figure what he will do if the ball is hit to his right, his left, in front of him, behind him, right at him. He must figure, if there are runners on, can I catch the guy and where can I catch him? He must know the runner's speed. Will he take a chance with the throw? You've got to know the ball players on the other team to be able to make a decision.
'You've got to worry about the guy who hit the ball if he gets a hit and there's a man on. You must remember the guy on first base, too. We know there is a cut-off man if a runner is heading for third. But will he cut it off if the play at third is close? Suppose you miss the man at third and the guy on first takes second. You've got to have your mind made up when you get to the ball.
'One thing I'm sure about. The outfielder must have a clear mind. You can't be out there worrying about batting averages. You know, if I get another hit I'll be hitting .300. You can't take any outside problems on the ball field with you. You can't have your mind on outside problems and handle the situations that come up with base runners. One bad habit a guy can fall into is just playing automatically.'
There are ball players, DiMaggio stated, who are creative.
'Henrich made up his own plays,' DiMaggio said. 'He had a play with Phil Rizzuto. If a guy was on first and Tommy handled a base hit, he knew the guy would make the turn at second. Phil stood behind the runner, between second and third. Naturally, he was closer to second.
'The guy made a turn to draw a throw to third. Instead of throwing ahead of the runner to third, Tommy would throw right to second base. Soon as the guy stopped, Phil would break for second. In order to make the play, Phil had to beat the runner to second. He did, too, many a time.'
We discussed base runners.
'Mickey Mantle,' DiMaggio said, 'is as fast a base runner as I've ever seen. He has tremendous speed but he also knows how to take advantage of it around the bases. I've seen Mantle hit a one-skipper to second base. The guy would take his time- and be lucky if he'd get him by half a step.'
Ball players know when they're finished.
'The ball was upon me before I started to swing,' he said. 'A fast ball inside used to be my meat- boom, I'd hit it down the line. But then it went by me. It wasn't my fielding that made me give up. It was the hitting, that inside fast ball going by me.'
I asked him if he became restless now that's it's spring training time.
'No,' he said. 'I faced it. But someday I'd like to put on a uniform and see how much I really lost. I imagine I could still field well.' "
-Jimmy Cannon, New York Post (Baseball Digest, April 1956)
DIMAG'S BAT DEAD? NOW, PAUL!
"Paul Richards places some of the responsibility for the decline in batting averages on Joe DiMaggio's well developed shoulders.
'DiMaggio's stance and the way he held his bat were imitated everywhere,' says Richards, 'but that's not the way to bat. DiMaggio himself would probably have hit .700 had he copied the style of some of the other leading hitters. The batter who looks like a statue cannot swing with full effectiveness.'
A glance at DiMaggio's batting record indicates that he was not entirely ineffective. There are pitchers alive today who will testify to DiMaggio's effectiveness. He was effective enough to hit safely in 56 consecutive games in 1941 and no other player ever did that.
As for DiMaggio hitting .700 had he copied some of the other leading hitters, that can easily win top award as the overstatement of the year.
What if DiMaggio did look like a statue? It did not keep him from being the most dangerous hitter of his time.
Richards mentions a list of hitters from Babe Ruth to Ted Williams, and some before Ruth, who succeeded because 'they kept their bats alive.'
Does he mean that DiMaggio's bat was 'dead?' Contemporary pitchers often wished that it were.
Richards should know by this time that no two human beings are precisely alike. This holds especially true in baseball where there is a wide divergence of style. Players adopt the style best suited to them. It may violate all concepts of good batting form but, what of it? As long as it is the style they find most adaptable."
-H.G. Salsinger, Detroit News (Baseball Digest, July 1956)
No comments:
Post a Comment