Talk about being overshadowed. Dom DiMaggio grew up in the same household as Joe DiMaggio, so that meant the bespectacled San Franciscan had a brother who hit in 56 consecutive games, married Marylin Monroe and became a baseball icon known as "The Greatest Living Ballplayer."
Then DiMaggio has to share the outfield with Ted Williams. All the Splendid Splinter did was become the last player to hit .400 for a full season, win not one but two triple crowns and become "The Best Hitter Who Ever Lived."
So Dom DiMaggio was towered over by two of the biggest legends in sports history.
Which makes it hard to put his career in perspective.
There are some who would look at The Little Professor's 1,680 career hits and .298 average and say, "Well, he had a nice little career for himself."
Baseball-reference.com lists Shannon Stewart, Kevin Seitzer and Tommy Holmes as some players who are most similar to DiMaggio.
A reason for DiMaggio's short career is that, like so many stars in the '40s and '50s, he went off to war. DiMaggio missed the three seasons when he would have been 26, 27 and 28.
There are some fans, however, who consider a Hall-of-Fame caliber player who was so overshadowed by the two greatest players of his time he never got the respect he deserved.
While DiMaggio might not belong in Cooperstown, this view of his legacy is probably more accurate than not.
One major problem for DiMaggio is that his career is so short - he played in just 11 seasons, the last of which saw him get into just three games.
No doubt, the years DiMaggio missed while serving his country would have been prime seasons of his career. The two seasons before he left, DiMaggio scored 117 and 110 runs. The seasons afterward saw him score 85 and 75 runs. Then he rocketed to the top of the league with 127, 126, a league-leading 131, and 113 runs.
From those numbers it's easy to tell DiMaggio was a prodigious run scorer. He crossed the plate 1,046 runs in his 10 full season.
So it would be interesting to see how many runs DiMaggio would have scored in those missed seasons.
But DiMaggio did more than just score runs. He was one of the best defensive center fielders of his era.
Consider:
- Six times, he tallied 15 or more outfield assists. Brother Joe accomplished the feat just twice. Ted Williams never reached that number
- In 1948, DiMaggio set the record for putouts with 503. The Record wouldn't be broken for 29 years.
- Dom DiMaggio was so consistent in the field he had more than 400 putouts four times. Joe DiMaggio, a legendary defender, did that three times.
- Many Red Sox followers have argued that had he not gotten injured in Game 7 of the 1946 series, the Sox World Series drought would have ended long before Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and Manny Ramirez led Boston to the crown in 2004. Many believe that had Dom not been relegated to the bench, Enos Slaughter would not have scored the game- winning run.
DiMaggio was a seven-time All Star and inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame.
And his own shadow was something to be proud of.
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