Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (Touchstone Book)

by Cramer, Richard Ben

  Now, on summer afternoons, the boys of the neighborhood would break from their own pickup game or stickball game, and gather on someone’s porch, a front stoop, or in someone’s kitchen, whence the radio transported them to Yankee Stadium. It was almost better than going to the park—where, of course, not everyone could buy the best seats. This way, they could see every play, every pitch in their heads—and they all went to the game together. Big games, it was like the whole city went. You could follow the action down any street, from the candy store, to the butcher shop, the tap room and restaurant, all the service stations, any garage, and of course any appliance shop. You could get an update on Joe’s doings (in English or Italian) from almost any produce man; or simply find a quiet spot to loiter and listen: “ . . . the White Sox will have to bring the infield in. They can’t afford to give the Yanks anything more here. And here’s DiMaggio striding to the plate—the Yank-Key Clipper! . . .” The name, the image was now in the ether.

  For working men who couldn’t listen during the day, WHN started Today in Baseball, a seven-fifteen P.M. re-creation of the day’s action—a whole game covered in fifteen minutes. Ward Bond started as the host, but by 1940, the mike was turned over to a popular local athlete-announcer, Marty Glickman. Soon, the show was such a hit, they’d do doubleheaders, two of the three New York teams every night. It was all done from a studio, with turntables for sound effects—one for steady crowd noise, and one for rising crowd noise (say, when the New York team scored a run). Glickman had a mallet to smack on a drummer’s block for the sound of the bat on the ball. And he had the notes of what happened in the game. DiMAGGIO 2B HIT. NY 6 CHI 3 . . . . Whack! (Glickman would smack that mallet down) . . . “DiMag hits a scorchin’ drive PAST third base and Solters will haveta dig it out of the corner. Gordon has scored, Henrich is making the turn at third, and HERE HE COMES! Throw cut off and fired to second, but DiMaggio is IN THERE with his fadeaway slide! (rising crowd noise) . . . And the Yankees lead SIX to three!” . . . Now, as a matter of cold, hard fact, there may have been no play at second, and DiMaggio’s double might have been a pop-up that the right fielder lost in the sun. But not on that show. Glickman pumped up Joe’s at bats, because Joe pumped up the show. People tuned in to hear “What’d Joe do?” and by God, they were going to hear something good!

  The nicest part, the comfiest part, was that after Today in Baseball and the stories for the A.M. papers went to bed—say, seven or eight o’clock at night—then the hero machine was at rest, too. Actually, most of the men in the business went out to play, straight from the ballpark. They’d hand over their stories to the Western Union man, and head downtown: maybe say hello to the wife, maybe not; and by eight o’clock at the latest, they’d be at Toots Shor’s, two and three deep around the circular bar, trying to catch up. Hell, by that time the early birds already had half a load on. “Hey, Ziggy! Make it a double!”

  LOOKING BACK, you could see that as the last moment when the sports business was at human scale, a club where everybody knew who was who. If a player went to Shor’s for a couple of belts and a nice free steak, he could relax and say what he wanted, without fear of it coming back to haunt him in print. Maybe there were two hundred guys in the joint, but he knew them—or he knew they were known. They understood the rules, or they wouldn’t have been there. (Tootsie’d see to that.) They all knew what everybody thought about everything. If anybody thought something odd, well, that didn’t last long. He’d be outvoted, outshouted, or mocked into compliance. For example, Toots himself might bellow (in the most insulting way): “Gehringer better than th’ DAGO? Don’t advertise yer ign’rance!”

  Shor was the final arbiter on any topic worth his notice. Still atop the list were his problems: sports, money, friends. But now, in his own saloon, 51 West 51st, he had fistfuls of cash, his worries weren’t pressing, and Toots had time for other subjects—for example, food. Toots got along with three basic tenets: “Good food.” And “plenty.” But “nuttin’ fancy.” Shrimp cocktail, steak, baked potato—if you didn’t like them, why’d you come to his joint?

  There was the more complicated subject of booze, which Toots researched more or less continuously, beginnning every day about eleven A.M., and finishing at closing time, four A.M.—unless there were regulars who cared to stay, in which case Toots would lock the doors and drink with them till they got their full load on. For a week or ten days every year, Toots teetotaled and took the baths in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Other than that, he drank every morning, afternoon, and evening (save for New Year’s Eve, which he scorned as “Amma-cher Night”). From his beloved patrons (his “pals”) Toots expected a professional drinker’s decorum: no sloppiness, no puking, and show up on time the next day for work. If you didn’t drink, you weren’t a pal. And no nursing one lousy beer all night. “Any bum who can’t get drunk by midnight,” as Shor used to say, “ain’t tryin’.”

  With his best pals (“our guys”) Toots indulged in epic bouts—like the one with Jackie Gleason, when the comic maintained he could drink more than Toots. Toe-to-toe, drink for drink, they squared off before lunch, they drank through the rest of the day. Scotch for Gleason and, as always, fifteen-year-old brandy for Toots—and each was well into his second fifth, still trading insults, as evening drew nigh. Gleason was making a point at some length to the growing crowd at the circular bar—a point that Toots evidently found tiresome, for he interrupted to say: “You have the face of a pig.” Gleason replied equably: “And you got the body.” Then he turned back to the bar crowd and finished his point. It was after six P.M. when Gleason made murmur about the men’s room, arose, and started across the floor. He fell with a mighty crash directly under the arch between the bar and dining room; he lay with an awful stillness in the path of every waiting diner—under the maître d’s velvet rope. A captain and a waiter rushed to help the Great One up. “LEAVE HIM LIE,” Toots roared. “I want ’em all to see what happens when ya mess wit’ the champ.”

  The contests, the comradeship, all the lore from loads past fed into the most complicated subject—the matter of class. In the world of Toots Shor, class was a man’s greatest attribute, albeit elusive, hard to handle in words. Toots could explain it only obliquely: “Class is a thing where a guy does everything decent.”

  It had nothing to with social class, though Toots did embrace the millionaire blueblood Jock Whitney, owner of the Greentree Stables. That wasn’t for Whitney’s breeding, but the way he bred horses: Toots respected a champion. (Toots admired Whitney so much, he wanted to send him a birthday gift, but what do you give to a Whitney? Finally, Toots sent a Western Union money order for ten bucks. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY,” the wire said. “IF YOU NEED MORE CALL ME.”) Even so, in Toots’s joint, class was more than professional achievement. Toots wouldn’t think twice about snubbing some tony corporate president and all the yes-men he brought with him. “Jeez,” he’d mutter with audible disgust, “creeps are comin’ in from all over.” The Hollywood titan Louis B. Mayer fumed when he and his party had to wait twenty minutes for a table: “I trust the food will be worth all that waiting.” Said Toots: “It’ll be better’n some a your crummy pitchers I stood in line for.”

  No, to sun oneself in Shor’s approval, you had to match success in the outside world with largeness and true feeling for him and his pals. Only thus could you become the highest sort of man—a champion with class—forever welcome with Toots . . . and what a welcome that was. “YOU CRUMB BUM!” he’d bellow, as his eighth-of-a-ton disappeared you into a hug. “YA CREEPY BUM, WHERE’YA BEEN? I LOVE YA!” . . .

  Now, the Dago was a champion with class. And although Toots insisted that was the highest a man could go, in practice, DiMaggio stood even higher. The way Toots saw it, there were only two guys who could walk into his joint and everything stopped. Jack Dempsey was one, and Daig was the other. And even within that class of two—well, Dempsey was old, and had his own joint on Eighth Avenue. Joe D. was still fresh, in his prime, and all Shor’s. He could’ve been To
otsie’s kid, the way the old bear took care of him: fed him, talked to him, taught him, protected him.

  There were days when DiMaggio had one of those games: he missed a ball in the field, or popped up a fat pitch when the Yankees needed runs, or the team lost a tough one (they were losing too many in that 1940 season) . . . right away, Toots was worried for the Dago. It wasn’t worry about Joe’s hitting, his fielding—nothing like that. But how would he feel? (Joe could take it too hard, get all worked up. He might not come to dinner. He might not eat! Toots would have to send food to his hotel.) . . . That night, Toots would be holding forth in his dining room, when the captain would appear to whisper: “Mr. DiMaggio is outside.”

  Toots would run out the door. Joe wouldn’t come in—wouldn’t want people to see him. So Toots would have to walk with him, ’round the corner, down Fifth Avenue, back and forth through the side streets. Neither one would talk much. Toots might ask: Did Joe eat the food he sent? Or maybe he’d tell Joe something that happened in the saloon. But after that, they’d walk in silence—half an hour, an hour, maybe two—till Joe felt better, till he could go back to his hotel and lie down.

  Toots—well, you could call him sentimental. (His friend Rags Ragland used to say: “You can make him cry with card tricks.”) . . . But how could Toots not love a kid like Joe, who needed him like that?

  IT WAS A MEASURE of her can-do spirit that Dorothy learned everything she could about baseball—went to the games, tried to keep up on the statistics: she plunged into the baseball life. What else would they talk about? She told her friends about the time Joe fell into a slump, and his average was slipping, and she told him that she didn’t see the 5 on his back the way she always used to when he swung. The 5 was in a different place now. And Joe said that helped him, and he did start to hit again, and his average went back up, and pretty soon he was in the hunt for the batting crown for the second straight year, which was bound to happen because really there was nobody like him, and since that time when she helped him he was batting actually better than last year, more consistently, and she always said that batting was consistency more than anything else . . . . It was a measure of her self-involvement that she couldn’t see this was driving him nuts.

  He couldn’t see why she wouldn’t just be Mrs. Joe DiMaggio, why she had to be the center of attention. They were great together, the way she looked when they went out. The way she dressed, classy—he loved that. But sometimes they’d have to go home three times in one night, to change for different shows or parties. She ought to be able to see they couldn’t do the town every night in the season. Some nights he’d rather just be quiet, with the guys, maybe get a steak with Toots. (Was there anything wrong with that?) Or if he stayed in with her, he’d rather just listen to the radio and get some rest. He had to be right the next day. That’s what paid the freight. That’s why they never had to worry for money. That’s why she never had to work.

  She never could see why she had to give up work. She’d had her own life—and so many friends! What did she have now? Why should Joe get upset if she spent the day with her agent, Mort Millman? Of course, Mort would try to talk her into some audition or a movie role—keep her career alive—that was his job. But what meant more to Dorothy was that Mort thought she was special. He always said she had that—well, that something that would make her a star. Dorothy loved to hear it. And Joe wasn’t the kind who could scratch that itch for her. He’d leave in the morning, and sometimes by the time he got back—if he didn’t get a hit, or he’d struck out once, or even if he was perfect and the Yankees had lost—he didn’t want to talk. And if she talked, well, a lot of times he didn’t want to hear it. If she kept it up, he’d get so furious, he’d walk out and she wouldn’t see him that night, maybe nights on end. Then what was she supposed to do—Mrs. Joe DiMaggio? It would all be different if they had children. She knew that would tie her hands for a while. But, surely, Joe would settle down if he had a real family.

  Why couldn’t she just settle down? Joe wasn’t against her working, not really. But he couldn’t run around the country after her. She’d told the world she was giving up the movies for him. And now all she talked about was going back to work. Joe knew about the casting couch—or thought he knew. She didn’t buy that mink coat she had—he’d bet ten to one. Before they met, Dorothy used to go into the Automat and buy a little pot of boiling water, the kind they sold for tea. Then she’d pour in ketchup, and that was tomato soup—for a nickel. (So, where’d she get that mink?) . . . No wife of his was going back to that sort of life. Joe thought, it would be different if they had kids—she’d have her hands full.

  It was Dorothy who made the plan; she was always the planner—and by that September, 1940, it was clear they would have the autumn to themselves. As it turned out, Joe did win his second batting crown. She was thrilled. But he acted like that whole season was a failure. That was the first time, 1940, there was no World Series for Joe—and no tours, parties, banquets: that didn’t happen for third-place ball clubs. Joe didn’t even want to show up at Shor’s, where everyone would talk about the Tigers or Cincinnati. No, Joe said they ought to just head west, to San Francisco; they could stay with the family, wouldn’t cost a dime. He could spend some time at the Grotto. That would please brother Tom, be good for the business. And on the way back, Dorothy planned the visits to her kin in Minnesota, and Rice Lake, Wisconsin. The way Dorothy figured, that’s where she was going to make it happen: a few weeks after New Year’s, in Minnesota or Wisconsin. She had it all worked out: they’d conceive in late January—so the baby wouldn’t be born until after next season. Joe wouldn’t want a distraction.

  That visit to Rice Lake would be the Olsons’ first chance to see the marriage at close quarters. There was terrific excitement when Joe and Dorothy said they were coming. So it wasn’t just her sister Joyce, and her husband, Les, awaiting them. Sister Irene also came to visit, along with Dorothy’s parents and her grandfather, too. Joyce’s small apartment had beds stuck everywhere. And then, Les’s boss asked if he could meet Joe, and Les said, “Why not?” So the boss, Lindy Milbreth, and co-worker, Bob McKeon, came by that first evening, and the place was packed. Of course, they were chatting in a voluble way, as you’d expect folks could do in Rice Lake, in wintertime. Les, Bob, and Lindy were all great talkers: they were the divisional sales force for the Seal of Minnesota Flour Company. And they wanted to know all about their famous guests. Well, as usual, Joe was quiet, so Dorothy talked for them both. Joe got quieter. But Dorothy, as ever, was the life of the party. Joe was silent. Still, everybody had a wonderful time . . . until Joe stood up and marched out the door.

  Well, of course, they were shocked and concerned—though it wasn’t exactly concern for Joe. No one could get lost in Rice Lake. But as Joyce whispered urgently to Les, someone had to get Joe off the street. People would think that Joe didn’t want to be with them. As Joyce explained to Dorothy: “We live in a small town. We just can’t have this.” So Les went out and found Joe. He was sitting alone in a tavern. They talked for a while, and Joe came back.

  How could Joe explain it, to Les or anyone else? He wasn’t envious of those flour salesmen—or any other man, really. He wasn’t jealous of anyone in Rice Lake, except maybe Dorothy herself. Sure, he saw the men, the way they looked at her (couldn’t not look). Okay. But the one he couldn’t watch was her. She was so outgoing, beautiful, charming. She was turning herself inside out, for those . . . bush leaguers—that’s what Joe couldn’t stand. She was his.

  Even that had its good side. For though this wasn’t the sort of thing much talked about in Rice Lake (at least in those days), everybody in the family thought that was the night it happened. To be sure, Joe and Dorothy made something happen that night—clearly, you might say loudly (even in matters intimate, Dorothy was excited by an audience). And the way the family figured, that was the start of Little Joe. (Fifty years later, sister Joyce remembered: “We called it the shot heard ’round the world.”)


  By the end of spring training, 1941, Joe and Dorothy knew they were expecting; and then things got done on the double. They got their own apartment—thoroughly big-league: the penthouse at 400 West End Avenue. It was just a few blocks away from June and Lefty Gomez’s West Side penthouse. (That way, Lefty could drive Joe to the Stadium every day.) Dorothy went into decorating as she went at everything: whole hog. Peanuts, Jimmy Ceres, was humping Joe’s Cadillac all over town, bringing tubs of flowers for the terrace, house plants, gilded chairs, embroidered pillows, wallpaper books, and bolts of cloth—at Dorothy’s beck and call. She started entertaining right away: called her friends Lou Costello and Bud Abbott to come over for her specialty, chicken cacciatore. (Dorothy maintained every Swedish girl could cook.) And it felt to her now (at last), she and Joe were starting a real life together.

  BUT NOTHING COULD feel solid to Joe if things weren’t right on the field. In the end, eveything came from baseball—depended on the Yanks, who depended on him. After the Bronx Bombers finished third in 1940, heads were bound to roll. Crosetti was adjudged to be too old to play every day, so the Yankees brought up a kid named Rizzuto. Little Phil looked like he belonged in American Legion ball, but he’d burned up the Triple A’s with Kansas City, and deserved a shot with the big club. They brought up another kid named Gerry Priddy to play second base. Joe Gordon, the established second baseman, would now try his hand at first. And Babe Dahlgren, the first baseman who’d stepped in and saved the Yanks when Gehrig crumbled—Well, thanks very much for your efforts, Babe. . . . Dahlgren was shucked off to the NL’s miserable Boston Bees.