In the ever-changing New York landscape, one tradition has stayed constant throughout this century: Excellence and history-making performances from New York major league baseball teams.

This means not just great teams--the 1927 Yankees, the 1951 Giants, the 1955 Dodgers, the 1969 Mets (to name just a few)--but also New York as home to the game's greatest players. One of the greats, Yankee star Joe DiMaggio, passed away March 8. Last week, two Roslyn area residents, both of whom have written extensively about major league baseball, reminisced about the man who achieved an heroic stature that few Americans, much less athletes, have attained in modern times.

Stan Isaacs, a Roslyn Heights resident and former sports columnist for Newsday, wrote a long feature on DiMaggio in that paper's March 9 edition. When Isaacs worked for Newsday, DiMaggio had already retired. But the young Isaacs covered the Yankee great during the 1950 and 1951 seasons as a reporter for a now-defunct New York paper, the New York Daily Compass.

Isaacs recalled DiMaggio as having a "regal presence" in the locker room. As a young reporter, Isaacs did not have many conversations with DiMaggio. "He wasn't outgoing," Isaacs recalled. "Tommy Henerich was the outgoing guy" in that locker room. Teammates such as Phil Rizzuto "idolized" DiMaggio, but the Yankee Clipper did not, for instance, reach out and befriend the young Mickey Mantle when the latter joined the Yankees as a highly publicized rookie in 1951. Mantle, Isaacs recalled, promised that if he ever became a star, he would be sure to remain one of the boys and be friendly with other shy Yankee rookies.

Years later, Isaacs met DiMaggio in spring training and asked the now-retired DiMaggio why he was so aloof as a player. DiMaggio only replied that he was shy, not aloof. But as Isaacs remembered, DiMaggio, as a player or a retired baseball icon, was always "very careful about whom to talk to." He was, Isaacs noted, "afraid people would ask him about Marilyn Monroe." People wrote books about DiMaggio without interviewing him, Isaacs said, and that increased his suspicious nature towards the press.

Still, DiMaggio liked baseball talk even if he wasn't the "great raconteur" that his contemporary, Boston Red Sox star Ted Williams was. DiMaggio was more reserved than Williams, but Isaacs clearly rates DiMaggio as a "much better player" than the Splendid Splinter. In addition to his offensive talents, DiMaggio was superior in the field to Williams, who played left field for the Red Sox.

Isaacs covered baseball during New York's golden age, the 1950's, when the World Series, from 1947-1956, involved the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants in every year except for 1948. Still, to this day, Isaacs is not quite sure who was the better ballplayer---DiMaggio or Giant centerfielder Willie Mays.

Mays, in Isaacs' view, was a better fielder. (Much has been made of DiMaggio's ability to catch everything chest high. To Isaacs, there was nothing wrong with a centerfielder diving after balls.)

But DiMaggio, he thought, was a better clutch hitter. "I like the old mentality," Isaacs said. "I like a guy who doesn't strike out much."

That was Joe DiMaggio. During his great 1941 season, when he had his 56-game hitting streak, DiMaggio hit 30 home runs, he had 541 at bats---but incredibly enough, only 13 strikeouts. For his career, DiMaggio combined 361 home runs with only 369 strikeouts, by far and away the best home run to strikeout ratio of the game's great sluggers.

DiMaggio was also a hero to millions of Americans who weren't even born when he retired in 1951, or for that matter, when he was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1965. What accounted for DiMaggio's hold on the American public? Isaacs cites the "mythical treatment" given to the DiMaggio legend; also, his 1954 marriage to movie star Marilyn Monroe. Here was a marriage between the most famous athlete of his generation and the most glamorous star of the silver screen.

Although the ill-fated marriage lasted only nine months, the two remained close in the succeeding years. When Miss Monroe died in 1963, DiMaggio took care of funeral arrangements. He also had roses delivered to her grave three times a week. That act of loyalty, Isaacs observed, added tremendously to the DiMaggio mystique.

"He had mythical qualities," Isaacs said, "[he was] quiet, shy and elegant."

Last year, East Hills resident Richard Tellis published a unique baseball book, Once Around The Bases about ballplayers who played only one big league game. As it turned out, two of the subjects crossed DiMaggio's paths. One, Jim Hisner, pitched in DiMaggio's last regular season game in October, 1951.

The Yanks had clinched the pennant the day before. Hisner did mop up duty for the Red Sox and during his only big league appearance, he struck Mickey Mantle twice and gave up Joe DiMaggio's last regular season hit ever.

The story of Yankee pitcher Rinaldo Ardizoia never made it into the final draft of the book. However, Ardizoia, like DiMaggio, a native of the San Francisco Bay area and a man of Italian descent was befriended by DiMaggio.

"It was pretty exciting," Ardizoia recalled many years later. "Big Joe took me under his wings and looked after me." The rookie was friendly too with Phil Rizzuto, Frank Crosetti, "all the paisans," from the great Yankee teams of the late 1930's and early '40's.

But Tellis had his own cosmic encounter, you might say, with the Yankee legend.

Before moving to New York while still a teenager, Tellis lived with his family in Wilkes-Barre, PA. Wilkes-Barre was home to a Cleveland Indians farm team. And so, the young Tellis rooted for the Indians and went to Yankee Stadium when the Tribe was in town.

Tellis also knew the histories of Indian farm hands who made it to the majors. In 1946, Tellis sat in the packed centerfield bleachers at Yankee Stadium, while the Bombers took on the Indians. That day, Bob Lemon was pitching for the Indians. In the minors, Lemon had been a good-hitting centerfield, but Indian management had decided to make him a pitcher. Lemon, Tellis knew, was a pitcher who could hit. His fellow fans in the bleachers did not know this.

Although still an Indian fan, Tellis, like most baseball fans, liked and respected DiMaggio. That day, when Lemon came to the plate, the young Tellis stood up and yelled, "Hey, Joe! Move back! This guy can hit!"

Just like that, DiMaggio backpedaled several feet, positioning himself for Lemon's at bat.

Of course, DiMaggio didn't hear his teenage fan. He had the scouting reports, and knew Lemon was a threat to go deep.

But the fans didn't know all this. They looked at the young Tellis in awe, utterly amazed to see the great DiMaggio doing exactly what this teenager had told him to do.

During the game, the fans kidded Tellis. Whenever an Indian came to the plate, they would rib him and ask, "Hey, kid. Can this guy hit, too?"

Tellis recalled DiMaggio as "such a graceful player." "Everything they said about him was true. He always had a good start on balls hit to him."

While still an Indian fan, Tellis, along with the rest of the country, eagerly followed DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in 1941. Every morning, he would turn on the radio or look at the box scores to see how DiMaggio did. While many of the "unbreakable" records in big league history have fallen--Babe Ruth's 714 home runs, Ty Cobb's 4,191 base hits and Lou Gehrig's 2,130 consecutive games---DiMaggio's hit streak remains intact, standing as the Mount Olympus of baseball records.