The DiMaggios

by Tom Clavin

  According to Lepcio, “Dominic was pissed off and his ego was shattered. Did us young guys feel bad for him? Well, sure, but we also knew that Dominic and the other veteran guys had not won a thing since 1946, and maybe Boudreau was right to give us a try. It wasn’t handled in the best way, though.”

  Dominic continued to ride the bench through April. It was insulting that Boudreau did not even talk to him about the benching—this from a guy Dominic had roomed with the year before. Boudreau told reporters that Dominic “has been retarded by cold weather and heavy fields” and that he couldn’t play in night games because of his eye problem or in both games of doubleheaders because of his age.

  Dominic wasn’t playing at all. He wouldn’t complain to the press, though he did go as far as to tell a few Boston reporters, “I retain the right to change my mind, but the way I feel now this is the end of the baseball trail for me.”

  Being a smart man, Dominic figured out another reason he was being eased out. “In the insecure Boudreau’s mind, Dominic was a threat,” Flavin states. With Dominic’s intelligence, his service as the league’s player representative, and the respect he commanded from players, other managers, and the Boston front office, Boudreau knew, Flavin says, that Dominic “was the manager-in-waiting.” But “Dominic didn’t want the job,” he added. “He wanted to play baseball.”

  Behind the scenes, Dominic appealed to Tom Yawkey, who said he couldn’t overrule his manager. He then asked Joe Cronin to trade him or at least give him his release so he could sign with another team. Cronin refused. Out of options, and not willing to earn his $35,000 salary on the bench, Dominic retired.

  “I believe I could have played at least one more year of good baseball,” he told the press at Fenway Park before the May 12 Red Sox–White Sox contest, “but under the circumstances I prefer to turn my interests elsewhere rather than be a hanger-on.”

  “I was sorry to see him go, because he was someone us young guys could go to for advice on hitters, he was generous that way,” recalls Ike Delock. “His career was ending, but he wasn’t taking it out on anyone. One day he was there, then the next he wasn’t, and that was it.”

  As most writers pointed out at the time—and Dominic would readily admit then and for the rest of his life—he had always played in Joe’s shadow. Indeed, that would be the headline of his obituary in the New York Times. But it can still be argued that from the time Dominic arrived in the major leagues—that is, after Joe’s remarkable 1936–39 seasons—he was the better ballplayer. In the 1940–1942 and 1946–1952 seasons, no one in baseball had more hits than Dominic, and that includes Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio. He also scored more runs than any other player with just one exception: Ted. Dominic did not have Joe’s power and RBI production, but the simple fact was that Dominic was the best in baseball—or very close to it—at his strengths: getting on base, scoring runs, and almost never costing his team a run in the outfield.

  And he knew it. “Dominic is regarded as a nice guy, and he was, but he had a big ego too,” says Lepcio, who had a ten-year career in the major leagues and was involved in Red Sox events after he retired. “He gave 100 percent, and he expected his teammates to do the same, just like Joe did in New York. And you couldn’t bullshit Dominic about taking a backseat to Joe.”

  He finished his career with a .298 average, 1,680 hits, 1,046 runs scored, and 618 RBI. Like Ted and other very good players in the 1940s, serving in the military for three years had kept his statistics from being even more impressive—and in Dominic’s case, worthy of election to the Hall of Fame. Though he was very much appreciated by the fans in Boston and had the respect of other players—especially the runners he gunned down from center field—Halberstam could write legitimately that Dominic was “probably the most underrated player of his day.”

  And so, in 1953, for the first time since 1935, there was no DiMaggio playing major league ball.

  Dominic was not about to sit around and mourn the end of his career. He had been casting about for business opportunities to pursue at the end of his playing days, wanting to go beyond his investment in DiMaggio’s Grotto. The end had come a year or two earlier than expected, that was all. He and two partners formed the American Latex Fiber Corporation. It produced padding for cars, furniture, and other products. Next he bought an automotive supply firm, and the two companies became the Delaware Valley Corporation; eventually he would buy out his partners to become sole owner. He had a growing family. Life was good.

  This wasn’t much comfort to Dominic’s many fans in Boston, especially those who had grown up watching him play. “Dom DiMaggio had been my hero since boyhood, ever since the day I became the only boy in the fourth grade of Merrymount School in Quincy who had to wear glasses,” recalls Flavin, who would become the “poet laureate” of the Red Sox. “I was by then already a baseball nut and was fully aware that he was the only position player in the American League who wore glasses. Dom gave hope to me, as he did to countless other four-eyed kids. If he could do it, maybe I could too. . . . My whole life I’ve believed that Lou Boudreau hurt the Red Sox more in a Boston uniform than he ever did wearing an Indians uniform.”

  At the beginning of June 1953, Joe and the newly retired Dominic were in San Francisco for another funeral, a totally unexpected one—their brother Mike had died. On May 30, he had fallen off his fishing boat. His body was found in Bodega Bay, between his boat and the dock. Devastated family members believe that even though he was only 44, he’d suffered a heart attack, then gone over the side.

  “I was close to my cousin Rosalie, and I felt awful that she had lost her father at such a young age,” says Joanne DiMaggio Webber. “My Aunt May, Mike’s wife, was still so young herself and now had three children to raise and support alone. But she did a fantastic job, and Mike’s brothers and sisters did what they could.”

  Ironically, Joe had been on a boat off the coast of Mexico fishing when Mike died. When Dominic learned of the tragedy, he made calls and sent telegrams trying to locate Joe. “That was a terrible experience for Dom,” Emily recalls, “adding to what was a tough year. Mike was the first sibling to die. No way to prepare for that.”

  George Solotaire, a member of the Toots Shor crowd, was able to track Joe down and deliver the awful news. Tom, Vince, Joe, and Dominic were among the pallbearers. The funeral was in the familiar confines of the Saints Peter and Paul Church. Mike was buried in the DiMaggio plot next to his parents.

  Marilyn was at the funeral too, though under the circumstances the press was more respectful than usual. She was surrounded by Sicilians as friends, in-laws, and cousins showed up with food and wine.

  “It was different after my grandmother Rosalie died, because there weren’t really family get-togethers after that,” Joanne says. “Mike’s death began the exceptions—the remaining DiMaggios gathered for funerals each time one of them died. It was the toughest on Uncle Dominic. He was my favorite uncle, he took care of everybody, and I know it hurt him a lot to watch them go one by one.”

  Vince was not having an easy time of it being away from baseball. It wasn’t like he’d fallen from a great height. No club would be retiring his number. But Vince had played hard, done the best he could, and had done well by his family. Now he found he didn’t have much going for him outside of baseball. Joe would always be able to make good money just being Joe DiMaggio. Dominic had a head for business and immediately took to it. Smart guy like that, he would never have a problem making a living.

  But Vince was neither a superstar like Joe nor as smart as his youngest brother. He just knew how to apply himself. The problem was, to what? He moved from job to job. He spent six months as a bartender in Pittsburg. The owner was a friend who taught Vince how to make ten basic drinks. After that, he went to work for another friend who owned a dairy business. Starting the day at 4:00 A.M., he drove his route delivering milk, eggs, and butter. By noon he was done and dropping his
hook into the Sacramento River—making a living would not interfere with fishing.

  Then it was back to liquor, this time as a salesman peddling cases and bottles to stores and bars. This he liked because he could sample some of his wares and make his own hours. Still, it was reported that “Vince has had to scramble to survive.”

  Vicki was still very young, but Joanne was in high school and displaying real talent on the ball field. “I was a very good softball player,” she says. “I began to think about playing semipro ball. And of course, no one was more encouraging than my father.”

  Vince saw little of his brothers other than Tom. Growing a business, Dominic had little time for West Coast trips, especially after his daughter Emily was born in September. And Joe, well, he had his hands full.

  As 1953 progressed, Joe became more involved in Marilyn’s career. He thought he knew what was best for her. And being something like business partners allowed them more time to be together. When she was filming River of No Return with Robert Mitchum in Canada, Joe was there. When she got the script for a sure stinker of a movie titled The Girl in the Pink Tights, Joe told her she didn’t have to make crap like that anymore.

  “The title made me nervous,” Marilyn “wrote” in My Story, her autobiography actually written by Hecht. “I was working with all my might trying to become an actress. I felt that the studio might cash in on exhibiting me in pink tights in a crude movie, but that I wouldn’t.”

  When the studio suspended her for rejecting the picture, Joe’s solution was for the two of them to get married in Reno and the hell with the motion picture business. She wasn’t keen on that. They argued, and Joe left for New York. He didn’t stay long.

  “After much talk, Joe and I decided that since we couldn’t give each other up, marriage was the only solution to our problem,” Marilyn/Hecht wrote.

  Joe was delighted. He told Dominic, then took Marilyn to San Francisco to visit his sisters, who had gathered for Tom’s birthday party. His hometown was Joe’s favorite place to bring Marilyn. He shared fond family memories with her, they went fishing on his boat, the Yankee Clipper, and the attention they received was much more manageable than in New York and Los Angeles. Marie, who was divorced, lived in the Beach Street house; when Joe and Marilyn stayed there, she gave the actress cooking lessons. They were there that January 1954 when Joe wondered, why wait?

  When Joe, 39, and Marilyn, 27 and a true movie star by then, married on the 14th at San Francisco City Hall, it was a fairy-tale event for the gossip-lovers in America. No one from Hollywood attended, and even more curiously, it was not the typical DiMaggio family affair either. Joe’s best man was Reno Barsochinni, the manager of DiMaggio’s Grotto, and the witnesses were Lefty O’Doul, Lefty’s wife, brother Tom, and his wife. No Vince or sisters, no Dominic and Emily. Joe wore a blue suit and the blue polka-dot tie he had worn on their first date. Marilyn wore a brown suit with a white Peter Pan collar. Municipal court judge Charles Peery married them in a simple ceremony in his chambers. No church wedding for Joe this time, as he was a divorced man. He and Marilyn even passed up on a wedding reception to escape the aggressive reporters and photographers. They drove south until eight o’clock, when they checked into a motel in Paso Robles. The next day they drove on to a mountain cabin in Idyllwild, 50 miles from Palm Springs.

  After the fairy-tale wedding, grim reality set in. “What went wrong so quickly?” Kahn mused. “He was neat. She was sloppy. He was repressed. She was hyperactive. Each was willful. Each had a temper. Each was a star. Stars in collision. Marilyn liked older men, successful older men, DiMaggio liked younger women, blonde younger women. But when it came time to play house, reality came crashing all about them, shattering dreams into so much shrapnel.”

  Things started out well enough. With Marilyn still suspended by her studio, she could accompany Joe on the next exhibition tour of Japan organized by O’Doul. She was, of course, a sensation in Japan. Joe was still popular there too, but he was no longer an active player. She was the blonde bombshell from Hollywood. An oft-repeated story is that after a side trip with Jean O’Doul to visit troops in South Korea, Marilyn returned to Japan and commented to Joe, “You never heard such cheering.” His rueful response was “Yes, I have.”

  Bobby Brown, who by then had a medical degree, had served for a year with the Army in Korea and was still there when the DiMaggios arrived. He got permission to accompany them on the tour. “To me, he was Joe, and Marilyn was a real nice gal,” Brown said. “We had a great time together. We would give clinics, and the Japanese would entertain us at night. The Japanese just went wild. At that time, the two biggest things in their lives were baseball players and movie stars, and you had the two biggest right there.”

  In the months ahead, Marilyn had to spend most of her time in Los Angeles resolving her problems with 20th Century-Fox and its head man, Darryl Zanuck. Joe was traveling a lot, pitching products and fulfilling his broadcasting contract with the Yankees. After the suspension was lifted on April 13, it was back to work for Marilyn. Next on the docket was another musical, There’s No Business Like Show Business, which would be followed by a Billy Wilder comedy, The Seven-Year Itch.

  Joe was set in his ways. He liked to watch television and have dinner in front of it. He didn’t like to be out in public or go to Hollywood parties, especially accompanied by one of the hottest actresses in the world. He was unhappy with the salacious attention his wife received from men. Joe wanted to live in San Francisco. His idea of fun was golf, cards, and playing the horses with a few fellows.

  There were more and more arguments and fewer sightings of Joe and Marilyn together in public. One of the most iconic of Hollywood photographs caused a huge rift. In the fall of 1954, Marilyn was in New York shooting scenes for The Seven-Year Itch. One would involve her cooling off in the breeze blowing up through a subway grating. Joe was at Toots Shor’s that night. Walter Winchell insisted that Joe go with him to watch Billy Wilder direct the scene. When the breeze gusted and her dress lifted up to her shoulders, Marilyn seemed to be undressing in front of the 1,500 spectators who had surrounded the set on Lexington Avenue. With each take, Joe became more furious. Finally, he stalked off the set.

  The night went downhill from there. Joe returned to Shor’s, and Shor tried to sympathize: “Joe, what can you expect when you marry a whore?” Joe left. He and Shor would never be close friends again. Joe and Marilyn’s battle in the St. Regis suite later, during which Joe struck her, convinced them both that their marriage was badly broken.

  Where were the other DiMaggios? Of the sisters, Marie was the most concerned. The other sisters had their own families to look after. Marie and the much younger Marilyn had formed a sincere friendship. Tom had the family business to run. Vince had little to contribute—what Joe was going through was alien to him, and he had his own struggles just making ends meet, something Joe could do easily.

  The one who understood Joe best was his younger brother. Dominic had been lucky in love. He knew how stubborn Joe could be and the temper he had. He genuinely wanted his brother to be happy with Marilyn. But was there anything he could do?

  “Joe did come to Dad seeking advice on Marilyn,” states Paul DiMaggio. “First of all, Dad was the kind of person who gave counsel to a lot of people because he was sympathetic and smart and direct. With Joe, we have at least one letter in a safe-deposit box that Dad wrote to Joe with advice. He hoped for the best, but things didn’t go well.”

  In an interview, Dominic said he realized that “her career was first. Joe could not condone the things that Marilyn had to do. Joe wanted a wife he could raise children with. She could not do that.”

  In October, Joe was back in New York to cover the World Series. (For the first time in six seasons, the Yankees weren’t in it. The New York Giants and Cleveland Indians were.) Joe went to Marilyn, apologized for his behavior, and asked her to reconcile. She asked for a divorce. A few days late
r, humiliated in front of the press, Joe moved out of their Los Angeles home. “I’m going to San Francisco,” he told them. “San Francisco’s my home. It’s always been my home.”

  With incredible speed, Marilyn was granted a preliminary divorce on October 27, 1954. The public explanation was “conflicting career demands.” The fairy-tale marriage hadn’t lasted a year. Less than a month later, a “pale and drawn” Joe was hospitalized in New York with a bleeding ulcer.

  He had loved her deeply. He always would. Joe would live for 45 more years and never remarry. He could not feel that way about any other woman—or about anyone, for that matter. According to Dominic, “Joe had wanted that relationship to work. He held on to it for the rest of his life.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  The three DiMaggio brothers, together again on a ball field. This had always been a rare sighting, but with Vince, Joe, and Dominic out of professional ball for years now, it was a sight many fans thought they would never see again. But there they were, in Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. On a sun-dappled day in August 1956, they wore San Francisco Seals uniforms. All three had been Seals, though not at the same time.

  The reunion had taken some doing. Ordinarily the brothers’ paths rarely crossed. Without Marilyn, Joe had few reasons to be in Los Angeles. Most of his time was spent in New York and San Francisco and traveling for paid special appearances. Dominic was the hands-on owner of a thriving business back in the Boston area, and Emily was expecting their third child. (Peter DiMaggio would be born later in the month.) When Dominic traveled to the West Coast, he went to San Francisco—to check on the restaurant, look after new commercial real estate investments, and say hello to his sisters, Tom, and Joe if he was in town. But he and Joe had made this trip to L.A. for Vince and Lefty O’Doul, who really wanted a Seals alumni gathering.

  Even though he was soon to turn 44, there were times when Vince felt he could run out to center field and play ball again. He was fit and trim, still at his playing weight, his hair still dark (unlike Joe’s, which was showing streaks of white). With their Pacific Coast League memories intact, the DiMaggio brothers wanted to watch the Seals-Angels game that would follow the three-inning exhibition featuring the alumni. The Angels were having a sensational year. Led by Steve Bilko, who would win his second of three consecutive MVP Awards, the Angels would finish the season at 107-61, 16 games ahead in first for the PCL championship. (Governor’s Cup playoffs had ended two years earlier.) It was their last moment of glory: the following year Phil Wrigley sold the team and the ballpark to Walter O’Malley. By 1958 the entire PCL would be extinct and the Brooklyn Dodgers would have moved west to debut in Los Angeles.