56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports - Softcover

Kennedy, Kostya

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1603209131 ISBN 13: 9781603209137

Publisher: Sports Illustrated, 2012

Synopsis

Winner of the 2011 CASEY Award from Spitball Magazine

Seventy baseball seasons ago, on a May afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio lined a hard single to leftfield. It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Starting that day, the vaunted Yankee centerfielder kept on hitting-at least one hit in game after game after game.

In the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces moved relentlessly across Europe and young American men were drafted by the millions, it seemed only a matter of time before the U.S. went to war. The nation was apprehensive. Yet for two months in that tense summer, America was captivated by DiMaggio's astonishing hitting streak. In 56, Kostya Kennedy tells the remarkable story of how the streak found its way into countless lives, from the Italian kitchens of Newark to the playgrounds of Queens to the San Francisco streets of North Beach; from the Oval Office of FDR to the Upper West Side apartment where Joe's first wife, Dorothy, the movie starlet, was expecting a child. In this crisp, evocative narrative Joe DiMaggio emerges in a previously unseen light, a 26-year-old on the cusp of becoming an icon. He comes alive-a driven ballplayer, a mercurial star and a conflicted husband-as the tension and the scrutiny upon him build with each passing day.

DiMaggio's achievement lives on as the greatest of sports records. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.

About this title

From the Author:

Kostya Kennedy is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated and the New York Times bestselling author of 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, winner of the 2011 Casey Award and runner-up for the 2012 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. He lives with his wife and children in Westchester County, N.Y. To learn more, visit kostyakennedy.com.

About the Author:

Kostya Kennedy is a clinical assistant professor at NYU’s Tisch Institute of Sports Management, and the co-director, Research Initiatives at NYU Sports and Society. A former assistant managing editor and senior writer at Sports Illustrated, he is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Pete Rose and 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, both of which won the CASEY Award as best baseball book of the year. He is a regular on-air contributor to the MLB Network, and the editor of several books. He lives with his wife and children in Westchester County, N.Y.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sports Illustrated
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1603209131
• ISBN 13: 9781603209137
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368