Strangers in the Bronx

DiMaggio, Mantle, and the Changing of the Yankee Guard

Rare is the athlete who captures the imagination of a generation. In Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, sports culture had two such figures. Undoubtedly, DiMaggio and Mantle are two of the most revered names in baseball literature. However, there is one particular moment that has been overlooked by baseball historians and writers: the 1951 pennant-winning New York Yankees team—DiMaggio’s last year and Mantle’s rookie season. For that one year, the paths of these two baseball icons converged, the naissance of Mantle’s career poignantly juxtaposed with the slow descent of DiMaggio’s final season. Strangers in the Bronx is more than a chronicle of a pennant-winning team, it is also a study of heroes: the decline of an all-too mortal American icon and the emergence of the newest sensation in sport.