1941 - Sports

Sports

Jockey Eddie Arcaro rides Whirlaway to victory in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes to take the first of two Triple Crowns that he will win (see 1948). Missouri-born horseman Horace Allyn "Jimmy" Jones, 34, and his father, Ben, have trained the Calumet Farm 3-year-old for Warren Wright at Lexington, Ky.

Bobby Riggs wins in men's singles at Forest Hills, Sarah Palfrey Cooke, 18, in women's singles.

New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig dies at New York June 3 at age 37 (see 1939).

Yankee outfielder Joe DiMaggio sets a record 56 consecutive game hitting streak. Now 26, he hits safely at Yankee Stadium May 15 and goes on to surpass Willie Keeler's major league mark of 44 before finally going 0 for 4 July 17 in a night game at Cleveland's League Park, where Indian third baseman Ken Keltner makes two outstanding catches that rob the Yankee Clipper of what otherwise would have been solid hits. (DiMaggio's salary for the year is $32,000.)

Stan Musial goes to bat for the St. Louis Cardinals beginning late in the season and has a .426 average for 12 games. Stanley Frank Musial, 22, will have a lifetime average of .331 in 22 seasons and a career total of 3,630 hits.

Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox ends the season with a batting average of .406, becoming the first player to break .400 since 1930 (the feat will not be duplicated again in this century). It is the highest average since the 1924 Rogers Hornsby record of .424, and Williams's lifetime batting average for 2,292 games will be .344.

The Brooklyn Dodgers win their first pennant under the direction of Massachusetts-born manager Leo Ernest "the Lip" Durocher, 35, but the New York Yankees win the World Series, defeating the Dodgers 4 games to 1.