Joe DiMaggio “The Heroes Life”

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Richard Ben Cramer
Simon and Schuster

2000

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Woo, woo, woo
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Jolting Joe has left and gone away
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

The answer to Simon and Garfunkel’s question—Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio---can be found in Richard Ben Cramer’s biography of this heroic yet flawed hero.

That said, in number, the DiMaggio biographies almost match Joe’s hitting streak of 56.

Among others there are Joe DiMaggio; Stranger in the Bronx; Joe DiMaggio “Baseball’s Yankee Clipper”; Streak; I Remember Joe DiMaggio; The DiMaggio’s and Dinner With DiMaggio.

Many of these tomes pay homage to Joltin’ Joe. But, again, the one that touches all the bases is Cramer’s Joe DiMaggio “The Heroes Life.”  Cramer, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer---through detailed research wrapped in his gift as a wordsmith and ear for an anecdote---paints a picture of America’s five tool center fielder that begs the addition of a sixth tool.

DiMaggio, for all his heroics between the white lines, was in fact himself (in today’s parlance) a TOOL!

As an athlete he was one of a kind, a tremendous ballplayer. Cramer never denies that, doesn’t miss a moment of the Dago’s heroics: the 56 game hitting streak,  the record-setting number of  World Series wins with the Yanks, his focus on the game and his willingness to play hurt. But Creamer elevates this biography by taking his readers through the turnstiles to an unwavering, at times relentless, box seat view of what Joe was and then eventually became.

A lot of moving parts to this personality, an introvert riding the lead float in a national tickertape parade. When the last piece of DiMaggio’s jumbled persona is in place, we learn that America deserves a share of the blame.  Starved for a hero, the country took Joe by the hand and helped this son of an immigrant up on that national stage.

But DiMaggio wasn’t just the son of a fisherman who would jump ship to become the hero the nation looked to when baseball was our king.  There was more there than those graceful running catches and balls hit like the game hadn’t seen since The Sultan took his swats.

Clearly, fans, hangers-on teammates, baseball’s beat writers, women, wives, his son Joe Jr., psychiatrists, columnists, New York’s “See and Be Seen Crowd ,” autograph shills, all wanted more of the Dago.  And sadly in the end, Joe wanted more. He not only left and went away. When he hung up the pinstripes for the last time, he tried to take with him every cent of cash he could get his “heroic” hands on!  

Sorry Joe D fans, spoiler alert!  Great player granted. But when Cramer lifts the curtain, we see an often petty, more often stingy, mean spirited idol with feet of clay.

A Look Inside Number 5 (Creamer’s pullouts from the book in italics, reviewers observations in Bold Face)

On-field heroics:  

A three-time Most Valuable Player Award winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. Ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships as the Yankees’ center fielder. Nine career World Series rings.

Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.

He was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during the baseball's centennial year of 1969.

Call it a destiny of talent (that five tool thing again). Of the five things a ballplayer must do---run, field, throw, hit and hit for power---DiMaggio was the first man in history who was brilliant at five out of five.

Stengel: 

A bad start with Joe that never got better. When Casey (who in his mind was the genius manager) came to the Yankees, he was asked how he felt to be managing an all-time great, like Dimag. “I can’t tell you much about that,” he said, “being as since I have not been in the American League so I ain’t seen the gentleman play, except once in a very great while.”

Mantle:

The rookie wunderkind, Mantle, with the help of the press was--- with Joe’s career injury riddled and winding down---the Clipper’s least favorite subject. “He was hardily sick of the stink about Mantle from the moment he arrived. Seemed like that was all he heard from the writers. What about the kid? Joe, you think Mickey could play centerfield? Actually they all seemed to have personal questions---not one of which Joe cared to discuss: his health, his failed marriage and What about Mickey?  During Mantle’s rookie year DiMaggio barely spoke to the kid.

Habits:

Joe chain smoked Chesterfields, drank to excess, became a “Bim Bam, Man who rarely bothered to say Thank You Mam!”  Eventually a problem drinker, he always gave his hanger on the privilege of picking up the check.” Other than drinking with Bobo’s and celebrities of the New York variety, his idea of a good time was sitting on his hotel bed watching old cowboy movies on TV.

Family:  At times, in the early years Joe paid the family freight, bought his parents a modest home, invested in a family restaurant, and treated his sister and brothers in a modest way (considering his means) that might be expected of an American idol.  But as he aged, his relationships with his kin faded and (where had he gone, this Joe DiMaggio?) became almost nonexistent.  (When he was knocking down millions trading on his name and celebrity---following the 1989 earthquake ) he had the old family place in Frisco remodeled (at cost or less by contractors who worked for autographed baseballs which some never saw) and during this reconstruction of the old home place,  there was a moment that said everything anyone needed to know about DiMaggio and “family.”

Joe walked past the little table with the phone for the house. There was the Pac-Tel bill---he checked that over.  “Eighteen dollars! Marie (his sister). What are we spending money on? “It’s all yours.“ Marie said instantly. She knew his moods ---knew that bill would cause an eruption. “I only make local calls,” she said.  (This was the house following the quake that Joe had walked out of with a garbage bag with $600,000 in cash from his signing sessions).

The Clipper scowled, and set the bill down. He had to check downstairs. He hadn’t had time, the day before, to inspect all his stuff there (stuff that had a card show value worth millions).  

And it wasn’t just Marie.  At DiMaggio’s funeral Dominic was the only living brother. Marie had passed away several years earlier, and Dominic and Joe at the end had no relationship at all. 

Fame:

One time when Joe complained about the fuss people made---“I don’t understand all this limelight”---his pal Eddie Leberatore said, “Look Joe, God made Mozart, and he said, “You’re gonna be a genius for music.’ He made Michelangelo, and he said ‘You’re gonna be a genius for art.’ He made you---‘You’re gonna be a genius for baseball’” Joe thought that over, and conceded, “You might be right.”

Hangers on:

There were dozens of them over the years that would somersault off of buildings for the Dago like lemmings diving into the sea. They formed a line to kiss his World Series rings. They drove him to and from, picked up his checks, picked up his laundry, picked up his women, and in a sense picked up his life. But then:

A lot of fellows who were still around were out of Joe’s life just as wholly, and finally, as if they’d been planted six feet under. Somewhere along the line Joe had decided, they weren’t true pals, or they’d done something wrong…and he walked away.  And when Joe walked away, that was it ; you were gone. You could try to call, or wanted to explain---he’d hang up. Or you could wait: he’d think it over; he was bound to call, right? What about those years of friendship? But it didn’t pay to hold your breath, Joe wouldn’t call!

Toast of the Town:

Some of the most riveting reading is about the Guys and Dolls characters laced throughout this life. Whom did he socialize with? Anyone he wanted to!  But the list is a Who’s Who of New York’s celeb life---Toots Shor, Jimmy Breslin, Jackie Gleason, Hedda Hopper, Walter Winchell and more made men with last names loaded with vowels than your average police blotter!

First wife: Dorothy Olson, a gorgeous, ambitious vaudevillian, showgirl, actress, from Duluth, Minnesota was the first Mrs. DiMaggio. The kind of dame that when she walked into Toots Shor’s on the slugger’s arm, lit the place up.

Everyone loved Dorothy---including Joe, at least for a while!

The way she looked at him, he was terrific. And if there was room for improvement (say, with the way he spoke or wouldn’t speak,) that was just the proof that she was needed. Year’s later people would ask why she had given up the movies for Joe. But the way Dorothy saw it; she wasn’t giving up a career---just taking on a new one. Joe simply hadn’t had the benefit of schooling. But there were books to teach him all the words he needed.  And for the rest, she could show him how to mingle socially, how to act at ease. It all went back to something Joe said that first day, on the set (with her) of Manhattan Merry-Go-Ground. “The toughest part about this whole business of acting,” he said. ‘Is being nonchalant. That’s a pretty rough thing to be!”

But Dorothy knew how---she seemed perfectly at ease. No one from Joe’s world ever remembered Dorothy displaying a moment’s anxiety.

Until this relationship led to marriage, and the bi-product little Joe D.  Then the relationship (which she thought having a child would solve) was on a collision to DIVORCE.

Joe Jr.: 

He and his father never had a relationship.  Joe Jr. was off to private schools; his father would visit and often pass the kid off to some of DiMaggio’s hangers on to go bowling.  The son was closer to his mother and to Marilyn Monroe than he was to his famous father. This was a lifetime of anger, resentment and then finally: In the end it was shame that finished Joe and his son. Shame and money---a deadly combination with DiMag. Joe Jr. never did stop drifting, or drinking. One night---late 1960s (he was out of the Marines) ---Joey was hanging around Miami Beach, and wandered into a houseboat from which a nighttime radio show was being broadcast. It was a popular show---made a big name for the host, a guy named Larry King---who, of course, put Joe Jr. on the air, straightaway. King told the story in his memoir, years later, he was shocked when Jr. started to speak about growing up a DiMaggio, ‘I never knew my father, ‘he said. “My parents were divorced when I was little, and I was sent away to private school, and my father was totally missing from my childhood. When they needed a picture of father and son, I’d get picked up in a limo and have my picture taken. We were on the cover of the first issue of Sport Magazine when it came out in 1949, my father and me, me wearing a little number 5 jersey. I was driven to the photo session, we had the picture taken, and I was driven back. My father and I didn’t say two words.

Marilyn:

With Joe and Marilyn it was always Lights, Cameras, Action---on the set, in public, this introvert and extrovert had no private life. Creamer’s writing covers the blonde bombshell as thoroughly as he does the Dago. Her Hollywood days were characterized by running feuds with the studios---over money, scripts, directors. Joe stepped to the plate in an effort to help. Meanwhile their relationship sloshed 180 degrees---from oil to vinegar to a bond that might best be described as Crazy Glue.  Following their nationally publicized divorce, while Joe bedded former Miss Americas and show girls, Marilyn was under the sheets with Frank Sinatra, and Jack and Bobby Kennedy.  She would eventually marry and divorce Author Miller who had plays on Broadway that would last longer than their nuptials.  Marilyn became addicted to drugs, Joe to booze and self indulgence. And the result was, like another song says, Two Lonely People!

Money:  

To present Joe’s greed and all out obsession with money would seem an almost impossible task for a writer---too many stories, too much evidence! Card and autograph shows were the engine that drove millions his way.  And through all the grubbing for the all mighty buck, this beautifully groomed “gentleman” treated the fans as though they were dirtier than the money they were throwing his way.

There was a 1995 show called “Yankee Legends” -----when DiMaggio arrived to join Mantle, Berra, Jackson and Rizzuto, (who were chatting with the fans signing as the lines moved through). Joe wore the dark blue suit.  Ignoring the others his table looked like one side of the boardroom at takeover meeting.

Large notices proclaimed.

Joe DiMaggio

Rules and Regulations for Autographs

Joe will not sign the following: bats, jerseys, Perez-Steele cards, baseball cards, plates, multi signature balls, original art, statutes, lithos, gloves, albums, caps,  cloth or wood items, flats over 16X20, books, items not related to baseball, photos or NL balls, equipment or personalization. Joe has the right to refuse to sign any item that in his opinion fits into these categories.

PLEASE DO NOT BRING UP ANY ITEMS THAT JOE WILL NOT SIGN

When that earthquake hit Frisco during that World Series game, Joe was in attendance. He was ushered out of Candlestick by one of his minions and taken to a safe place to spend the night.  When he was returned to his home (which had little damage and his sister was located safe and sound, which wasn’t exactly Joe’s first concern), Joe made a quick tour of the house and came out with nothing but a trash bag. Nothing would be incorrect. The bag, which Joe hustled off to a bank where he had a safety deposit box crammed with autograph cash.  That trash bag contained more than $600,000---just a small portion of the luger that he acquired by simply signing his name—at from $250 to $300 a pop on pre-ordained items.   

The end:

He basically died alone, with the exception of Morris Engleberg---the attorney who was there for Joe.  Dom wasn’t included.  But Engleberg was at his death bed ready for this long awaited moment when he would cash in on Joe’s passing---through deals, contracts, and a will. And he was there to instruct the nursing staff!

Morris stood by: But he didn’t approach, he didn’t touch Joe. He nursing staff was preparing the body for the funeral guys, who were to arrive at two a.m., by prearrangement with Morris. The nurse had folded Joe’s arms, and was about to wrap him in a sheet.

“Wait, “Morris ordered. “You need to take that ring of for me.”

“His ring?”

The nurse reached for Joe’s left hand, and pulled at the ring. But it wouldn’t budge. He couldn’t stretch out the finger and pull the ring at the same time.

Morris asked sharply: “Can’t you get something to take that off?”

“Well, yeah---we could lube it up…” But just then the ring came free.”

“What is it?” the nurse asked.

“Thirty six World Series, rookie year.”

The nurse turned the ring over---“Can I look?”... But he had only a glimpse before Morris yanked the ring out of his hands, and left the room in a hurry. All the nurse would remember was the weight of the gold, the edges worn smooth, and on the face, the soft sparkle of the diamonds.”

Following a read of this excellent Past Page Turner, some may hold fast to America’s hero, have pity for the man who carried America’s Pastime, opining that after all he was only human! Others, Creamer included, would say “Inhumane!”

For a reasonably priced copy of  Joe DiMaggio “The Hero’s Life”  click here.