You Can Make It Up Next Time

If today is one of those days when you come to Running Down a Dream to receive a polemic from yours truly regarding the pressing matters of concern in our world, I have bad news for you. It's just not happening tonight. What you are going to receive instead is something that made me more confused than George Will at a Jay-Z show.

Last night as I wading through the TV morass during dinner seeking something to view while I dined, I came across the ESPN miniseries "The Bronx is Burning". The series is based on Jonathan Mahler's excellent book Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics and the Battle for the Soul of a City (which I highly recommend) and recently finished airing on the Worldwide Leader. I caught was the final episode, which chronicles the 1977 World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers and culminates in Reggie Jackson's 3 homers in 3 pitches performance during the Game 6 clincher for the Evil Empire.

As the episode opened, I was trying to accustom myself to John Turturro playing Yankees manager Billy Martin and Oliver Platt attempting to capture the essence of The Boss, George Steinbrenner, when I was caught more off-guard than the Hessians on Christmas Day in Trenton. The camera quickly cut to a shot of a man dressed in a suit walking up to the ticket office outside Yankee Stadium in order to retrieve tickets for Game 1. The man emphatically announces himself solely by his surname, DiMaggio.

Now, I know what you're thinking. This is the Yankee Clipper. The man who was briefly married to Marilyn Monroe and immortalized by Simon & Garfunkel. The man was the epitome of class, so he must have been portrayed by someone equal to that task, right? Well, in a word, no. Who did ESPN select to play Joe D.? What's that? Yes, you heard correctly, it was Christopher McDonald, Shooter McGavin himself.

Well done, ESPN. I hope you can sleep at night with the sound of Joe DiMaggio spinning in his grave.