Would DiMaggio slam his bat into the dugout roof?

The Yankees may have the best quartet of center fielders of any team, including three in the Hall of Fame. Chronologically:
Earl Combs
Joe DiMaggio
Mickey Mantle
Bernie Williams.

The center fielder on the most recent Yankee championship team was Melky Cabrera, who was suspended for using performance enhancing drugs (PED) years later while playing for the Giants.

It's difficult to imagine any of them, not even Mantle who kicked the water cooler in frustration over striking out, behaving like veteran center fielder Brett Gardner has in recent games. Gardner has taken to repeatedly slamming his bat vertically into the underside of the Yankee dugout roof in Yankee Stadium when he gets frustrated with the umpires. In four days Gardner will be 36 years old, the age at which Combs, DiMaggio and Mantle retired.

Gardner has been ejected from two games because of this. In both games Yankee manager Aaron Boone was trying to give right fielder Aaron Judge a full day off. Judge replaced Gardner after Gardner's first ejection and after the second Boone moved a minor league call up infielder to the outfield.

But instead of learning his lesson, Gardner makes immature statements speculating on switching to other silly forms of expressing his rage. Unfortunately, manager Boone and some of his coaches support this behavior, as do the Yankee players.

A few years ago I came to the conclusion that coaches and players in all three U.S. team sports (baseball, football, basketball) should not argue with officials and should not complain about officials. It distracts them and gives the players an excuse for their failures. It's especially absurd to complain about balls and strikes. The concept of the strike zone is ridiculous and impossible to define much less call. The strike zone is what the plate umpire says it is that day. Adjust and adapt. Reform won't come during that game.

Studies should be done on this. There are plenty on all sorts of mental aspects of team competition. The studies should include whether the complaining improves subsequent calls. The Yankees now feel that the umpires were looking for reasons to take action against them, especially Gardner's bat slamming action. Unfortunately, even mild mannered giant Aaron Judge is embracing the current defiant Yankee attitude by gently mimicking Gardner's bat motion after reaching first base.

Boone has lost control of himself in too many games this season and that has been imitated by some of the players. Too many fans and probably Yankee higher ups like the "fight" they see. More control and professionalism would probably bring more success. Aaron Boone is not Billy Martin, who would be very much out of date managing today. This Christmas will mark the 30th anniversary of Martin's death.

The late New York Football Giant great Frank Gifford when he saw a player being too demonstrative after scoring a touchdown would dryly say: act like you've been there before.

The only emotional display people remember from the great DiMaggio, as Hemingway called him, was that famous kick of the dirt near second base in game 6 of the 1947 World Series when 25 year old Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Al Gionfriddo, a late inning defensive replacement, robbed DiMaggio of extra bases, maybe even a home run, in Yankee Stadium in deep left field. It was the major league last game Gionfriddo ever played. The Yankees won that World Series in seven games.

So the next time you see a current Yankee out of control, think about the great DiMaggio.