Yanks split doubleheader with DiMaggio’s help

BOSTON, May 30, 1941 — It was only a Memorial Day doubleheader, but enough took place between the Yankees and Red Sox on the field at Fenway Park on Friday that it almost seemed like an entire baseball season in itself. And it wasn’t a particularly pretty one.

At the end of the grueling, day-long proceedings, the clubs had split a rather sloppily played twin bill, with the Yankees winning the first game, 4 to 3, and the Red Sox whitewashing New York in the finale, 13 to 0.

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But there was quite a bit of drama dotting each box score.

In Game 1, played before a jubilant holiday gathering of some 34,000 persons, the biggest Boston baseball crowd of the year, New York took an improbable victory by scratching out three unearned runs in their half of the ninth inning.

The game was scoreless into the third inning, when Boston pitcher Earl Johnson scored on a sacrifice fly by Lou Finney to give the Red Sox a 1 to 0 lead, but New York struck back in quick order in the top of the fourth when Red Rolfe hit a solo home run off Johnson. The tie held until the bottom of the sixth, when Ted Williams led off with a double and Joe Cronin singled him in.

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