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

by Cramer, Richard Ben

  It was never remarked that Joe’s progress in business had carried him from Barry Halper, who loved baseball and adored Joe . . . through the Score Board boys and Jerry Romolt—they all liked baseball, but they loved a deal . . . and onward, to a cast of quick-buck artists who only loved a deal. What the hell—this was business. Why should they all have to be friends?

  And it was never remarked how so many of Joe’s new partners were losers—goners, after a while: bankrupt, out of the trade, or ass-deep in trouble with the SEC . . . . Except Romolt: he was still on his feet. In fact, Jerry came through with another deal, the year after the bats—some serigraphs, an art piece—nothing huge, but a tidy six hundred grand for Joe. And Romolt came down to Florida, hung around the Yankee Clipper Center for the signing, mostly for old times’ sake. Jerry even brought along a picture of him and Joe in Louisville, in the middle of all those bats . . . just as memento, a reminder of that chapter in their lives.

  Joe looked at the picture and squinted up. He said, without a question in his voice: “You want me to sign it.”

  “Well, yeah,” said Romolt. “If you would.”

  “Well, what would I say?”

  “Shit, I don’t know, Joe! How ’bout, ‘To My Friend, Jerry Romolt.’ ”

  Joe made a pained face. “Ahh, I don’t know if I wanna go that far.”

  IT WAS JUST after the Civil War when writers and fans started fretting that money was ruining the great game of Base Ball. The mustachioed professionals of the Cincinnati Red Stockings had yanked the game (forever, it was feared) out of the soft hands of sporting gentlemen, and debased it. Soon (as it was balefully foretold) this noble pastime would be nothing more than a grab for greenbacks—for miners, farmers, factory hands, city rabble, and immigrants.

  By the turn of the century, baseball teams were well-entrenched professional companies—with owners, with capital, with physical plants (stadiums) and workers who manned them. But still America would not swallow the idea of baseball as business. When the Philadelphia Phillies sued to keep their (twenty-four-hundred-a-year) star, Napoleon Lajoie, from jumping to the new crosstown Athletics (for a big raise—three thousand dollars!), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that poor Nappy must remain in Phillie peonage. In any other American business, a worker could seek employment wherever salary or whim might lead him. But baseball would not be like any other business. Even the grinding rigors of antitrust and contract law had to yield to the dewy myth that baseball was not about money.

  In the decades that followed, baseball became an even better business. And the myth that swaddled it grew stronger, too. With the construction of steel and concrete ballparks, the enterprise took on an air of permanence—almost timelessness—and fed the feeling that the Great Game followed ancient dictates, some order handed down from gods in the rosy, unremembered past. These great green spaces—the same spaces, in the same cities (no team had pulled up stakes since 1903)—were decade by decade encrusted with memories so brilliant, and so tied up with the civic well-being that it was possible (even while Joe played) to believe that players spent themselves for the glory of their team and town.

  Every once in a while, some ugly scar of rock would erupt amid these meadows. But all the gardeners of the Game (owners, promoters, sportswriters, and the fans who believed them) would then converge to cover over the telltale stone. In 1919, when six hired hands who played ball for Chicago gave away the greatest games of all (They threw the World Series—just for money?) . . . the scandal almost shattered the industry, because it shook the central myth. But the Baseball Nation responded with brilliant vigor, by appointing a commissioner—a showboat Republican judge, whose pose of incorruptible autocracy, whose godly white mane of hair, and whose thunderous name, Kenesaw Mountain Landis . . . seemed sufficiently Old Testament to banish Mammon from the public mind.

  True, every winter, every spring, there was some glimpse of the rock beneath the meadow—as some star player in some town said he wouldn’t play ball if he didn’t get more money. But as his only alternative was to sit out the season (and get nothing at all), the holdout usually folded in a matter of weeks, whereupon the gardeners of the sports page would cover over the rock again, with fulsome features: how that player had put all thoughts of money behind him. Now he just wanted to smack that horsehide—and win the pennant for his squad.

  If the holdout player went so far as to miss a game, he was roundly condemned by the Baseball Nation—and written up in the press not just for greed, but as some kind of head case, a problem child or troublemaker. Even Babe Ruth, for whom there were no rules, whose every other appetite was celebrated, was criticized when he showed himself hungry for money, too. There was the famous story from the Babe’s holdout (for eighty thousand dollars) in the Depression year of ’31. One writer harrumphed: Why should Ruth make more than President Hoover? Said the Babe: “I had a better year than him.”

  Like a body isolating and attacking some dangerous internal germ, baseball assailed any man who was open about the business as business—as Joe found out to his sorrow, in 1938. No man, no matter how talented, no matter how important to his club, was as crucial to the health of the game as the myth that protected it from public doubt. In fact, if Joe had played in some other town (New York, then as now, tolerated love of money); if the writers hadn’t spent two years making him God’s gift to baseball (even they couldn’t manage a U-turn in the course of a month); if Joe hadn’t made the Yankees champs for two years running (and could make them so again), his reputation might never have recovered. In the event, his chastisement was mild. But even so, it was never written that when he came back, every man in the clubhouse was with him. Every Yankee player knew Ed Barrow to be a sonofabitch. They knew Joe didn’t get what he was worth. Nor did they. They knew every man in pinstripes played (and played as hard as he could) for the money. And not one could say a word about it.

  In our day, we might call it a conspiracy of silence. We also call it the game’s Golden Age. It lasted from April 1902, when that Pennsylvania court affirmed baseball’s reserve clause in Phila. Ball Club, Ltd. v. Lajoie . . . for seventy years, until a speedy and daring outfielder named Curt Flood (who also didn’t want to be a Phillie) took baseball and the reserve clause to the U.S. Supreme Court. “I do not feel,” Flood told the court, “that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.” With that enunciation, baseball was revealed as a business—an unfair one—and the wall of myth began to crumble. So, is Curt Flood a hero of the game? Not hardly. He was pretty much drummed out of baseball, for understandable reasons. The Pastime has been ill, infected with ugliness and greed—strikes, free agency, small-market weakness, guaranteed multiyear millions—money fights and money fretting, enough to break a fan’s heart . . . more or less nonstop for twenty-five years, since Flood went to court.

  Disgust with money in baseball reached its nadir in the early 1990s, when the basic labor agreement was expiring (each side wanted the whole pie), legalese filled the sports pages, attendance fell off a cliff, TV ratings were down (and still sinking), the commissioner’s office was empty (no one who was anyone would take the job), and Bobby Bonilla (whom the Mets had to hide in the field) was leading the league with six point one million dollars a year. Newsday (the Mets’ hometown paper) heralded the ’93 season with a column by Bill Reel: “The spoiled modern ballplayer with his obscene salary and malcontent personality gets on my nerves. I wouldn’t buy a ticket to a ballgame. Damned if I’ll subsidize overpaid louts who complain harder than they play.” And it wasn’t just newspapers noting baseball’s woe—there were dirges and whines in magazines, like Esquire (“The Dying Game”) . . . from TV magazines, like Frontline (“The Trouble with Baseball”) . . . and even a five-part nosebleed from Lou Dobbs on CNN’s Moneyline. The Great Game had fallen into one of those public affairs “crises” that never seem to get better, and we’re all supposed to be “concerned.” They were chewing it over on Meet the Press—for God’s sa
ke, like Bosnia!

  No wonder so many baseball fans froze their loving loyalties entirely in the past, in that timeless Age of Not Knowing, when pennants and glory were the currencies discussed, when smacking that horsehide seemed a good and truth unto itself. It was no accident that the years of baseball’s monied discontent were also the glory years for the memorabilia trade. You’d see the fleshy men in the autograph lines, with reproduction Brooklyn ball caps hiding their pale pates, and they’d talk about two subjects. The first was the glory and grandeur of The Game, when they were there (not knowing) to see Branca face Thomson, or to watch Jackie Robinson stealing home, or to see the divine DiMaggio take Feller deep three times. (Aw, they played the game right, then. Not like these assholes who get millions today. These guys were beautiful! Lookit ’im in this picture, this one I got for ’im to sign, right here.) . . . And of course, the second topic was how much the picture would be worth, once he signed it.

  When DiMaggio hit the autograph circuit after the Score Board deal, in ’94, baseball truly had been wiped out by money. The big leagues were on strike. In the long lines that wound toward his signing table, Joe was held up as the embodiment of the Golden Age. The Clipper’s desire, his dignity, his ethics, were a living reproach to the bratty players of the modern day. (Six million, Bonilla won’t run out a ground ball. Now, fuck him, he won’t even play!) . . . Sometimes, at the head of the line, some fan would try to share these feelings with the Great DiMag—and if the fan made it snappy, if Joe’s mood was good, he might indirectly approve. “Well,” he’d say, “we did work hard.” But unlike other old heroes on tour, Joe wouldn’t bash the current players or their pay. In fact, Joe wouldn’t talk about money in public. Only amid his own network would he speculate on what he and the other players of his age would have done, if they’d had the power that players have now. “I’d walk into Steinbrenner’s office,” Joe told one friend, “and say to him, ‘Hello, partner.’ ”

  And even in those long autograph lines, there was only dim recognition of what Joe was doing now. All those fans knew they’d paid $150 or $175 for Joe’s signature. They could see there were hundreds in line, and hundreds more whose numbers hadn’t yet been called. Still, most of those fans seemed shocked to hear that weekend would net DiMag a cool quarter-million. And many just refused to believe that the highest paid major leaguer that year wasn’t the Six Million Dollar Man, Bonilla. The highest (at age seventy-nine) was Joltin’ Joe.

  Which brought up the strangest thing about Joe and business. And that was: Why?

  With tens of millions already socked away, it wasn’t that Joe needed the money. And, he wouldn’t spend it. So, what was it about?

  “EVERYTHING IS FOR the grandkids,” Joe liked to say. Paula and Kathie were grown up now—both married, with children of their own. They were the only family Joe dealt with, the ones he called when he was alone at night. Especially Paula, the blond one: that was a connection! She called him Big Joe—and they’d fight like a couple of lovers. But he had to have her around. He made the autograph show promoters fly her across the country, or her and her kids (first class) so he could see her. The promoters didn’t like it—plane fares on top of Joe’s quarter-million—but what could they do? At the end of the show, Paula would count the tickets, like the cashier-wife at an old Italian fruit stand. And Joe liked that. He could count on Paula—after all, she had an interest in the business.

  But Paula’s life wouldn’t be much different, if the trust that Joe bequeathed in the end was twenty million or thirty—or fifty. What would change? The short answer was, not much for Paula. Nor for Kathie. Nor for their kids. Every year they would get the interest from their portion of the trust. They would be well off. But they wouldn’t be able to touch the big pile—unless Engelberg, Esq. allowed them to. That was how Morris drew up Joe’s will. He (or his firm) would be the personal representative, trustee, and lawyer for the estate. In other words, the big pile would be in his hands.

  So it wasn’t Paula who was whipping Joe on to rack up the millions. Morris was Joe’s business buddy, and they talked about the money every day, over lunch at the Deli Den in Hollywood—or sometimes all day, if Joe came into the strip mall office, to sign some pieces, to get some letters written, to plan out some deal, or just to hang around. It was Morris who would identify all the threats and schemes that beset Joe on every side—threats that Morris would then vanquish. It was Morris who’d remind Joe how he’d been cheated on that deal for the king-sized photographs . . . who’d point out how Joe had made Halper rich by signing all that shit in his house . . . who told Joe which of his partners and pals (pretty much all of ’em) were up to no good.

  When Jerry Romolt came to Florida for that deal on the serigraphs, he and the artist, Carlo Beninati, sat all day in the strip mall, to keep Joe company while he signed. At one point Joe excused himself—Romolt thought Joe had to go to the bathroom. (With that Lasix diuretic the Clipper took, he might be in the can two or three times an hour.) But Joe didn’t come back—for ten, fifteen minutes . . . well, maybe Joe had taken a break for tea. But then Joe came back with Morris, who announced with chortling glee that he’d sat the Clipper down with another client—and Joe had made thirty grand, signing flats during his break. “All I could think of,” Romolt said, “was a hooker who goes to the bathroom, and turns another trick in the john.”

  If Joe ever strayed from the path of business, Morris was there to set him straight. One time, a kid came up to Joe with a scrap of paper, and asked—please—for an autograph. Joe had a soft spot for kids (as long as there weren’t too many of ’em)—and even he could see, this boy wasn’t looking for something to sell . . . so he signed. The kid was thrilled. And Joe was smiling, too. “You know what you just did?” Morris said, from behind Joe’s ear. “You just gave away a hundred dollars—might as well just pull out a hundred and throw it away.” The son Joe never had knew how to push the old man’s buttons.

  But Joe knew Morris was on his team. And, most of the time, DiMaggio didn’t need pushing. The money was how Joe kept score. Measuring himself against the other guys from the Great Game, or the partners in his own deals—measuring against the whole damn country—DiMaggio was going to come out a winner.

  That was why his teammates venerated Joe. (They honored him still, though he’d shown them his back for almost fifty years.) Maybe they couldn’t be friends—okay. But they remembered: the Dago made them winners. No one could stay on Joe’s team forever—but why wouldn’t they try? . . . As the band used to sing in the chorus of that old song:

  Joe, Joe DiMaggio, we want you on our side!

  He was always a winner—for sixty-five years. If he gave that up, who would be with him?

  WHEN JOE FINISHED signing the baseball cards for Pinnacle, there were two hours left on his contract. And the company had nothing more for him to sign.

  But they got an idea. They would run a nationwide contest, a promotion with Toys “R” Us, and the winners would get to meet Joe DiMaggio. In fact, the five winners would come to New York for a baseball weekend: a skybox at Yankee Stadium, lunch at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant . . . and a tour of Barry Halper’s storied baseball collection, with Joe DiMaggio as their special guide.

  Joe agreed: he owed them, by contract. So, Pinnacle ran the promotion, and brought the winners to New York. It was June 4, 1994. The tour at Barry’s house was the Saturday morning highlight. They showed up in five limousines: five winners and their five guests. And the Pinnacle people showed up, of course, and a handful of suits from Toys “R” Us. So there were quite a few cars out front. By the time Joe got to Halper’s door, precisely at ten A.M., Barry could see, the Clipper was in a foul mood.

  “How many people here—a hundred?”

  “Joe, it’s just ten people.”

  “Ten! I thought it was five.”

  “Well, five and a guest, and . . .”

  “All right, all right.”

  “C’mon, Joe. Sharon’s makin’ your favorit
e lunch with the shrimp . . .”

  So Joe walked in, the tour began. But it was not to be. Joe kept looking around, until he saw it: one of the suits. He was taking notes. Toys “R” Us had brought a reporter from Sports Collectors Digest. They were putting Joe on display.

  Joe stopped in mid-sentence, and made for the front door. Halper ran after him, out the door, onto the front walk. “Joe! I didn’t even know! It wasn’t my idea. Joe! Listen! . . .”

  But Joe wasn’t going to listen. That was in his contract: no press. He got into his waiting car—and he was gone.

  Halper was off the team, too.

  THE HALL OF FAMER, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK.

  WITH HANK AND NANCY KISSINGER AT THE TIME MAGAZINE SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY DINNER, 1998.

  CHAPTER 19

  JOE HAD A PAL NAMED ROLLIE ROLOVICH, AN EX-COP in San Francisco. They’d met when Rollie was on the detail for special events: anything big that happened in the city, Rollie was out there—like a Forty-niners football game. Rollie would always look out for Joe, and get him in—get his car into the lot right next to Candlestick Park.

  Then Rollie took Joe to his cousin Mike Buscati’s restaurant. They went maybe a half-dozen times. Buscati’s wasn’t the kind of place you’d know about—a neighborhood joint on Lombard Street, near the Marina—and the food wasn’t great. But when DiMaggio came, the food was spectacular. They’d bring out the special oil someone had brought back from Sicily, and make everything fresh—they cooked like Joe’s mamma. After the earthquake the joint shut down, because the city closed that off-ramp from Route 101, and the place was hard to get to . . . but by that time, Joe and Rollie were pals—which meant Rollie drove Joe around from time to time.

  One time, he had to take Joe to Vallejo, to the track, where they were having a DiMaggio Day, and the Joe DiMaggio Featured Race. The Clipper didn’t want to go—people would be on him like flies—but he was committed. Rollie said: “Joe, don’t worry. I know a way to get you in—no one’ll see a thing.” . . . And so he did. (That was Rollie’s specialty.) He drove Joe through a back gate, across the auxiliary parking lots, to a side door of the clubhouse. And no one even caught a glimpse . . . until Joe got out of the car, and protested: