The DiMaggios

by Tom Clavin

  The holdout gave Joe and Dominic their only opportunity to spend spring training together. The Seals were getting ready for the season at their facility in Hanford, southeast of San Francisco, near Fresno. Joe wanted to be ready for the season himself whenever his brother Tom approved a contract offer. He called Lefty O’Doul, who invited Joe to camp. This could have been an awkward situation for Dominic, who had earned the starting center fielder job, but Joe mostly took batting practice.

  Players and reporters who said Joe never got angry on the ball field missed a scene in Hanford, which may have indicated the stress he was feeling from his ongoing feud with Ruppert and Barrow. One afternoon a left-hander trying to make the Seals, Jimmy Rego, was on the mound. Joe sent one ball after another over the fence, each one farther than the last one. Rego realized he’d better forget practice and pitch like it was a real game or O’Doul would send him home. He cut loose. Rego recalled to David Cataneo: “And, Jesus, I was throwing hard and shoving the bat right up his ass. [Joe] was so pissed off. He threw the bat halfway out to the mound. He said, ‘You son of a bitch, what are you trying to do, pitch a ball game?’ I said, ‘No, but it sure looks like it, doesn’t it?’ And he walked off the diamond.”

  But he stayed in San Francisco. The Yankees continued spring training in St. Petersburg, and when that wrapped up they worked their way up to New York, playing a few exhibition games along the way. Seeing an opportunity to go from worst to first, the St. Louis Browns offered $185,000 for Joe, but Ruppert said he wasn’t for sale. New York opened the season—the third consecutive year without Joe in the lineup—with an 8–4 loss in Boston. After three games, with his team 1-2, Tom and Joe gave in and sent a telegram that Joe was getting on a train heading to New York.

  When he got there, he signed for $25,000. But because it would be almost two weeks into the season before he could play, the Yankees docked him $1,800. Tom and Joe wouldn’t forget this. Dominic made note of it too. When he got to the major leagues, he would be one of the pioneers of what became the players’ union.

  That winter, Vince’s former teammate Ted Williams had headed east with hopes of cracking the roster of another Boston club, the Red Sox. The Sox had invited Williams to spring training in Sarasota. Ted made the trip with borrowed money. In his first appearance on the field, his player-manager, Joe Cronin, yelled at him and called him “kid.” It stuck. (The “Splendid Splinter” nickname came later.) When spring training ended, the 19-year-old was farmed out to Minneapolis.

  One of the more famous stories told about Williams’s departure from Sarasota involves starting outfielders Ben Chapman, Doc Cramer, and Joe Vosmik. They were riding Ted hard for being cocky. He said to Johnny Orlando, the trainer, “Tell them I’ll be back, and tell them I’m going to wind up making more money in this frigging game than all three of them put together.”

  For the time being, Ted had to borrow more money, this time from Orlando, to hop a bus. He came to like Minnesota. When he wasn’t at the ballpark, he was off in the woods hunting or fishing. When he was at the ballpark, he was busy whacking the ball to all fields. By the end of the season, Ted had accumulated a .366 average with 46 home runs and 142 RBI. Bobby Doerr had beaten him to Boston, playing in 55 games that year for the Red Sox. There was no doubt, however, that they would be reunited in Beantown the next year.

  While Dominic wore glasses unapologetically, Vince wasn’t fond of them. Late in the 1937 season, he had worn them at bat (not in the field), and he claimed it was because he saw the ball better that his average rose. But he hoped that was only a temporary solution. A ’38 spring training newspaper item offered that Vince “has been taking eye exercises this spring by moving a pencil back and forth from arm’s length up to his nose and following it with his eyes. As a result, he is hoping he won’t have to don the spectacles this season.”

  He should have. Vince already had the reputation of striking out too often and having special trouble with curveballs from righties. During the 1938 season, there were more strikeouts—a lot more.

  As the season moved into summer, Joe was not slugging homers the way he had in 1937, nor was he knocking in as many runs. His batting average was down a bit too. Some reporters speculated that the holdout had affected his outlook, and that the booing he was receiving in many ballparks from embittered baseball fans was opening chinks in his confidence. To some extent, this was true. The season Gehrig was having didn’t help either. Faltering at the plate, the Iron Horse was not the menacing force batting behind Joe that he had been the previous two seasons. Conceding the obvious, during the season McCarthy altered the lineup, moving Gehrig down to the fifth spot and making Joe the cleanup hitter. Gehrig didn’t complain, and Joe took the move as his due. He would never say this in public, but it was clear to him that the Yankees were becoming his team.

  And Dorothy Arnold was becoming his girl. It was not an easy courtship. She was in Hollywood a lot going on auditions and nabbing a bit part here and there, while Joe was in New York or on road trips. The girl from Duluth was nothing like the sort of Sicilian woman Giuseppe and Rosalie would have picked for Giuseppe Jr., but Joe was a huge star and things would never again be normal for the DiMaggios. And he had bought his parents a house, so they weren’t going to give him grief about anything.

  There was already a spirited rivalry between the supporters of the Yankees and Red Sox. On May 30, almost 82,000 fans poured into Yankee Stadium to see the two teams in a doubleheader. Six thousand more were turned away. Boston’s Lefty Grove was riding an eight-game winning streak, but Red Ruffing twirled a shutout. Joe and the rest of the lineup put 10 runs up on the scoreboard. Then the Yankees edged Boston 5–4 in the nightcap, which featured the player-manager Joe Cronin slugging it out with Yankee outfielder Jake Powell on the field and, after they were ejected, continuing their fight beneath the stands.

  Joe would later write, “The going wasn’t easy for us in 1938.” Only a star on the Yankees could think that way. Cleveland and Detroit were playing better that season, but the only tough part for Joe McCarthy’s squad was that they didn’t ease into first place and remain there until mid-July.

  McCarthy again managed the American League team in the All-Star Game, in Cincinnati, and again Gomez was the starter. This time he was opposed by the Reds lefty Johnny Vander Meer, who already that season had hurled two consecutive no-hitters, against the Bees (striking out Vince, of course) and the Dodgers. Joe, Gehrig, and Dickey also represented the Yankees.

  It was a tight game until the seventh, when the National League surged ahead on a “bunt home run,” a play not likely ever to be duplicated in the majors. Frank McCormick singled, and the next batter, Leo Durocher, was told to lay down a bunt. He did. Jimmie Foxx charged in from third, grabbed the ball, and threw it into right field, where Joe was playing. He fired the ball home to nab McCormick, but it flew over Dickey’s head. McCormick scored, and before Dickey could come up with the ball, so too did the hustling Leo the Lip. The final score was 4–1.

  What Joe should have written was that the season wasn’t easy for him. It was another very good one with a .342 average (seven points behind league leader Foxx), 32 home runs (way behind Hank Greenberg’s 58), and 140 RBI. However, “It wasn’t a year I cared to look back upon for many reasons. First of all, I was booed around the league by the fans for having held out so long, which wasn’t exactly pleasant.” The other reason was a concern he shared with his teammates and front office—the approaching end of Gehrig’s career.

  The Yankee captain was only 35 when the ’38 season ended, and he had played in 2,122 consecutive games. Conceivably, with his strength, stability, and modest habits, Gehrig could play at a high level for several more years, especially with Joe batting in front of him and Dickey behind him. But there was no hiding the weaker numbers: 29 home runs, 114 RBI, and, at .295, batting under .300 for the first time since 1925, his first full year on the Yankees. The Iron Horse was losing steam a
nd giving way to the next great star in New York. No one, though, anticipated how swift and tragic the transition would be.

  Out in San Francisco, the Seals record had declined, but not by much, to 93-85. The ageless Sam Gibson won 23 games—throughout the 1930s he had been the perfect example of a really good (with flashes of brilliance) Pacific Coast League player who just could not cross the Rubicon to the major leagues. Gibson had Hall of Fame credentials—he had well over 200 wins in his PCL career and over 30 in the majors—but only on the West Coast.

  Dominic was devoted to avoiding that fate. A good showing by him and the Seals in the Governor’s Cup playoffs could earn him that coveted invitation to a big league club. He had finished the season having upped his average to .307, with 202 hits. He still hadn’t displayed power—over 70 percent of his hits were singles—but he was hitting the ball harder. O’Doul had impressed upon him the value of strong wrists, and Dominic had worked hard to develop them. His value to the team was in getting on base and scoring runs. And as Vince had done in 1936, Dom led all PCL outfielders in assists. (He would repeat this feat the next season too.) The Seals eked out a berth in the playoffs by just a half-game over the Padres.

  In the first round, San Francisco faced the Seattle Rainiers, who were led by 18-year-old rookie pitcher Fred Hutchinson and his 25-7 record. (He would go on to have a very good career as a coach and manager, helming the Cincinnati Reds, who won the 1961 National League pennant.) Dominic scored after greeting Hutchinson with a double in the first. The Seals went on to take two of three games in Seattle, and then they eliminated the Rainiers by taking a doubleheader in San Francisco. Dominic led the way, rapping out nine hits in the leadoff spot and going 2-for-2 with two walks and two runs scored in the clincher.

  In the second and final round, they went up against the defending champion Sacramento Solons. The Seals dropped the first game, but Dominic’s two hits helped his team to a 9–4 victory in the second one. The third game was a disaster for the Seals, a 22–3 thrashing. Three hits by Dominic couldn’t prevent a 3–1 loss the next day. A 4–1 win in the next game gave the Solons the Governor’s Cup. It had still been a good season for the Seals, and especially for Dominic.

  The Yankees sailed into another Series, their victims this time the Cubs, with Lazzeri looking strange in the Chicago uniform. On hand again was Giuseppe, or “Papa,” as many of the sportswriters referred to him. As the father of one of the most famous athletes in New York, he was viewed as something of a wise old sage who was as restrained verbally as young Giuseppe, yet he seemed to enjoy the attention. New York swept the underwhelming Cubs for their third consecutive world championship. Joe batted only .267 with a homer and two runs batted in, and Gehrig hit only .286 with no RBIs. But Dickey and Joe Gordon picked up the slack, and Ruffing and Gomez easily handled the Cubs lineup.

  Giuseppe had a happy train ride back to San Francisco. It had been a satisfying year for his two youngest boys, Dominic and Joe. But signs pointed the other way for Vince. It looked like he might not stick around long enough to be in the big leagues with his two brothers. A new manager had greeted him at spring training: Casey Stengel. Then 48, Stengel was from Kansas City. He was nicknamed “the Old Perfessor” because he had coached the baseball team at the University of Mississippi before his major league playing career got on track. He began on the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1912, then played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Giants, and Boston Braves. His first stint as a manager was with the Dodgers in 1934. When the Bees had hired him the previous November, one of the first newspaper headlines he was associated with read: “Stengel Sees V. DiMaggio as a Great Asset.” The subhead was, “Joe’s Elder Brother Elegant Outfielder and Fine Hitter in a Pinch.” The Old Scout’s article began: “The astute Casey Stengel, new manager of the Boston Bees, was quoted as saying the other day: ‘Watch Vince DiMaggio next year. He’s going to be an outstanding asset of the team.’ ” The writer concluded, “Casey went out on the limb for Vince and the chances are he won’t be far wrong.”

  Unfortunately, he was. It was a disappointing year for Vince, and an especially tough one to take given the year Joe had in the majors. More members of the press were pointing out the contrast in talents between the two brothers. As Joe collected more hits, Vince collected more whiffs at the plate. The manager never gave up on him, letting Vince play in 150 games with 540 at-bats, but the harder he tried the more pitches he missed. Pittsburgh columnist Bill Dooly wrote, “Vicious Vincent is noteworthy in that he’s in the midst of creating slugging history that methinks will send his name roaring down the ages. A hitter remindful of his brother Joe only in that both use a bat, Vincent is specializing in striking out. Perhaps the greatest ‘misser’ to ever swing a bat at a ball without touching it, the Boston Bees’ member of the DiMag family has already eclipsed the all-time National League record for whipping the ozone and is now going heavily for top honors to both leagues.”

  Vince attained that dubious honor. He led the National League in strikeouts. In fact, his 134 strikeouts were a new major league record. He broke the one set by Gus Williams of the St. Louis Browns back in 1914, and Vince’s record would not be surpassed for almost three decades. Vince remained one of the best fielders in the National League, but fans didn’t pay to watch a DiMaggio merely roam center.

  It didn’t help Vince’s cause that his club’s own fans were paying increasing attention to the other Beantown team. Tom Yawkey had bought the Red Sox in 1933, and his willingness to spend money on talent and the farm system in the intervening years was showing results. First baseman Jimmie Foxx, nicknamed “Beast,” had a monster year, with a .349 batting average, 50 home runs, and 175 RBI. The Sox finished in second place. Though they were 9.5 games behind the Yankees, it was their highest finish in two decades. The Red Sox could be just one or two players away from dethroning New York.

  Vince’s days in Boston were numbered. The team hoped that his homers and his last name would be of value to other clubs and was trying to get something for him in a trade. Vince hoped to stay, thinking the club had good potential under a manager he liked. For several months, nothing happened. Then, the following February, as he prepared to head east for spring training, Vince received word that he had indeed been traded—to the Yankees. That he might share the outfield at Yankee Stadium with Joe—and, who knows, maybe Dominic someday—was exciting indeed.

  NINE

  Vince would be gone from the Yankees organization before he could even put pinstripes on. In February 1939, he was told to report to the Kansas City Blues, a Yankees minor league team in the American Association.

  That stung. In addition to not being on the same roster as Joe, Vince would not be collecting a major league salary to support his family. And it was frustrating to be going backward to the minors. His first reaction was to try to buy his contract from the Blues and become a free agent. The club said no. Vince regrouped and decided that he was not going to sit around and mope about it. He’d had a rough 1938 season and obviously had work to do. Kansas City offered that opportunity. His new plan was to do well there and be called up by the Yankees.

  For Dominic, the season couldn’t begin fast enough. After two years of tutoring from Lefty O’Doul, he felt like a true hitter. All he had to do was lay it out there on the field. He was already one of the best outfielders in the Pacific Coast League, maybe the best center fielder of them all, as Vince and Joe once had been. At the plate he would drive the ball with more power now because he had put on weight, most of it muscle—when the Seals convened for spring training, he was at 171 pounds.

  In Boston, owner Tom Yawkey and general manager Eddie Collins thought Ted Williams could be the final piece to fit into a pennant puzzle. Tall and lean and bursting with confidence after his excellent season in Minnesota (where he had met his future wife), Ted knew that this year he wasn’t going anywhere but to Massachusetts after spring training. Like his future Red Sox teammate
still in San Francisco, he couldn’t wait for the season to begin.

  On April 20, the Yankees and Red Sox squared off in the Bronx for opening day. It was the first time Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams could look across a major league diamond and size each other up. It was also the first and last time Ted would play against a man he admired very much, Lou Gehrig. Red Ruffing struck Ted out twice. But on the third try, Ted lined the ball off the 407-foot sign in right-center for his first big league hit, a double. Even Joe wasn’t fast enough to catch up to it. Announcing himself to Boston fans on opening day at Fenway Park against the Athletics, Ted went 4-for-5, including his first homer, which landed in the right-center bleachers. His first two hits on the day were off Cotton Pippen, who had struck him out in his first at-bat with the San Diego Padres in 1936. Only four games into the season, the Boston Globe cheered, “Ted Williams Revives Feats of Babe Ruth.” He had yet to turn 21.

  Of the young ballplayers in the American League, Ted appeared very soon to the press to be the one to challenge Joe DiMaggio. As the season went on, reporters noted their very different personalities at the plate, which to some extent mirrored their personalities off the field. Joe continued to stand rigid, disciplined, focused, gazing intently at the pitcher. Ted, from the left side, liked to wiggle his bat as his eyes danced around the field, processing where each player was positioned, and then almost as an afterthought he zeroed in on the pitcher, challenging the pitcher to get him out. The strike zone was branded on his brain, and he never had to guess—Ted knew if the pitch was a ball or strike. If it was called otherwise, the umpire was wrong. Joe rarely acknowledged the umpire, but Ted would glare when an umpire called a pitch wrong.