Farewell Little Professor

We take a break from the stupidity of modern athletes to mourn one of the all-time great Red Sox: Dom DiMaggio.

Connected to and overshadowed by both premier outfielders of his generation, teammate Ted Williams and brother Joe DiMaggio, he had a stellar, yet underrated, career.

From his Boston Globe obituary:

The author David Halberstam described Mr. DiMaggio as "probably the most underrated player of his day." Playing in the shadow of the era's two biggest superstars made that inevitable, perhaps. But neither of his great contemporaries failed to appreciate Mr. DiMaggio's talents. Williams considered him "the best leadoff man in the American League," and his older brother called him "the best defensive outfielder I've ever seen."

Bill James' 2001 Baseball Abstract rated him the 24th best centerfielder of all time.

And I'm pretty sure he was 100 percent clean.

For some reason, this death makes me madder about the drug-infested era we're living through. It's also sad that there's only one left of the Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky trio.

I have a nice picture of them somewhere. I should go find it. (It's too big to scan in for the blog.)

And didn't mention yesterday because of Manny Ramirez and lack of sentimental attachment, but former Phillies manager Danny Ozark died.

J-Roll's an idiot: First Jimmy Rollins said he was retired from the prediction business. Then, he predicted a .400 month. (Although it's an improvement over April's .207, May's .222 is a far cry from Ted Williams.) Now, we learn he had predicted a Phillies-Yankees World Series. I guess hitting isn't the only thing J-Roll is struggling with this year.

Phillies: We bumped into a friend at the grocery store and talked for a while, so we were later than usual coming home. The Phillies were already three innings in when we tuned in the car radio, just in time to hear Cole Hamels give up his first hit, and to hear Larry Andersen say he's not into "Spacebook or Myface" when Scott Franzke asked if he Twitters.

Hamels pitched his first decent game of the year: six innings, two runs on three hits and two walks. Seven strikeouts. Things got a bit dicey in the 9th when Brad Lidge, who hadn't pitched since Tuesday, was summoned to protect a seven-run lead. He did, but gave up three runs in the 10-6 win over the Braves.

Red Sox: Brad Penny pitched into the 7th (two decent starts in a row) in a 7-3 win over the Rays (finally!). Jonathan Papelbon needed 11 pitches to quickly end the game in his non-save situation.

[Photo: Boston Globe files]