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

by Cramer, Richard Ben

  “Joe, if it’s a matter of security,” Positano said, “we had the goddamn Shah of Iran! . . . Look, if it’s something—you know . . . put it this way: Would you rather have Sloan-Kettering, or a community hospital in Florida?”

  But the papers could get hold of it. Then it would be a circus. Joe told Rock that he was going to have tests—he’d take care of it—with the fellows in Florida. End of September, he would have it checked out. But Joe wanted to come to New York one more time, before that happened. Joe said that Steinbrenner was going to put together a DiMaggio Day, at the Stadium—September 27, last Sunday of the season. It was all kind of an ad lib, a last-minute thing—but Joe said it was important.

  And, hey—did Rock want to come?

  BOOK V

  THE LAST DEAL

  * * *

  1998–2000

  IN THE SKYBOX: THE HOST, GEORGE STEINBRENNER, HAS TO SIT IN THE AISLE. MORRIS ENGELBERG (RIGHT) INSISTS: “HE HAS TO LEARN HIS PLACE.”

  THE GREAT NAME IS DISPLAYED FOR A NEW GENERATION, IN HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA.

  WITHOUT JOE’S AUTOGRAPH, THE SPECIAL YANKEE CLIPPER BALL SOLD AT $25—AND SLOWLY.

  CHAPTER 20

  STEINBRENNER DIDN’T REALLY WANT A JOE DIMAGGIO day that September. Or the regulation Joe DiMaggio ball—or fifteen thousand free balls for Joe . . . that wasn’t Steinbrenner’s idea. (And the copies of Joe’s World Series rings—that was Barry Halper’s idea. He was still trying to get back with Joe.)

  Of course, in principle, a day for DiMag would be fine—Steinbrenner had no objection. In latter years G.S. and Joe D. had gotten along splendidly. And Yankee history was an asset on Steinbrenner’s balance sheet. The Clipper was Yankee history.

  But in 1998, the Yankees didn’t need a DiMaggio Day. That year, the Pinstripes were winning more ballgames than any AL club had ever won—that was baseball history. The Yanks were the darlings of New York . . . and the stands were full. Why not save DiMaggio Day for next year—say, early in the ’99 season? It could put some fannies in the seats (it could fill the whole Stadium) on some solemn Sunday when Minnesota or K.C. was in town.

  It was Joe who wanted to schedule his day before the ’98 season ended. Or, to be precise, the pressure came from Yankee Clipper Enterprises, of Hollywood, Florida—YCE, as it was called by Morris Engelberg, Esq., who ran it . . . . Joe told Morris, DiMaggio Day had to be this year, or never—and Morris jumped on the case big-time. Joe didn’t tell Morris why the big day had to happen now. Joe didn’t tell anyone, when he started coughing up blood.

  WHAT MORRIS KNEW WAS, he had to come through. No mistakes! This was the biggest payday he’d ever attempted for DiMaggio. Morris ran the numbers in his head, over and over. If that special Yankee Clipper baseball (autographed by the Clipper) could be retailed for four hundred dollars (Morris was sure it could), this deal could add up to five million bucks—or better. Even if they had to wholesale Joe’s signed balls (say, at two hundred a pop), that would net three million. And there was no Romolt in the mix this time, no one to look over Engelberg’s shoulder—this one would be just Morris and Joe. They’d been talking about this deal for so long—since that day in 1995 when the Yankees unveiled Mantle’s monument—and played the game with a Mickey Mantle ball . . . Morris had been working to create an official DiMaggio baseball for three years.

  That was how Engelberg, Esq. complained of his exertions to his new business buddy—Scott DiStefano, who was a young memorabilia salesman with the Lakewood, New Jersey, firm called B & J Collectibles. By long-distance telephone, Morris was at pains to impress young DiStefano with the amount of work that had gone into this DiMaggio Day, with the importance of the DiMaggio ball, with the seriousness of this deal as a whole. “This is a very big deal, Scott.”

  “I know that,” said DiStefano, who agreed with Morris often.

  “I mean, you’re selling two thousand balls that go for four hundred thousand dollars with no overhead and no cost.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s major,” said Engelberg.

  “Major,” said DiStefano.

  “Biggest deal you’re going to have for next year.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Okay?” said Morris. “So, we’ve got to get this wrapped up.”

  No one was trying any harder than DiStefano, who saw this deal, and Engelberg, and DiMaggio (especially a dead DiMaggio) as a ticket he could ride into business for himself. Young Scott didn’t want to flog baseballs forever for B & J Collectibles of Lakewood, New Jersey. In fact, he wanted out right now. (That’s why Scott wouldn’t tell his boss that he was doing deals on the side with Morris.) DiStefano had formed his own company, Atlantic Coast Sports. And he, too, had run the numbers in his head a thousand times . . . .

  Morris said DiMaggio was sitting on ten million dollars’ worth of autographed material.

  Let’s see—sales commission on ten million for the estate . . .

  And that didn’t count the stuff that Morris had squirreled away.

  Morris would split the profits with Scott—as long as he kept Morris’s name out of the sale . . .

  “But what do you think,” Morris was saying. “Can you make a hundred on your own?”

  “I think so,” said Scott. “I think so. If I keep doing things with you, yeah, absolutely.”

  Morris advised caution. He was fond of giving fatherly advice to DiStefano, his new protégé. Maybe Scott should keep a paycheck with B & J for a while . . . .

  In the months to come, Morris would claim that he knew all about DiMaggio’s illness. He just couldn’t talk about it, because Joe insisted on privacy. Of course, that was when Engelberg was promoting himself as “Joe’s longtime personal attorney, confidant, and closest friend.”

  But Engelberg didn’t know.

  Scott said he wanted to be in business on his own, so he wouldn’t have to share the big windfall, when DiMaggio died.

  “Yeah, but Joe’s worth ten more years,” Morris said.

  That was why he and Scott had to make their money now.

  YOU HAD TO UNDERSTAND, Engelberg had shadows, too—particularly one persistent shadow in the shape of a doll, with a painted porcelain face . . . a Madame Alexander doll.

  For years after Joe and Morris met (that was 1983) the office of Engelberg, Esq. did not display a single picture of DiMaggio. True, Joe D. was a client—but all that meant was, Morris directed a CPA in the office, Paul Schneider, to prepare Joe’s annual tax returns. Morris didn’t deal much with DiMag. And in the Engelberg inner sanctum, there were no signed bats or balls, uniform jerseys, magazine covers, lithographs of Joe . . . none of the collectible Clipper flotsam in which Morris would ultimately wallow. Through all the 1980s, in fact, Morris’s office was filled with dolls.

  Because in those days, the meal ticket (and the big payday of which Morris dreamed) was Beatrice Alexander Behrman, who was known to millions as Madame Alexander, and who was, by the mid-1980s, pushing ninety years old.

  Mrs. Behrman was the daughter of a Russian immigrant who ran America’s first doll hospital—and she had spent her life in the family trade. Her Alexander Doll Company had created the first licensed character doll (Scarlett, from the movie Gone With the Wind), the first dolls to honor living people (England’s Queen Elizabeth and the Dionne Quintuplets), the first full-figured fashion doll (CissyJ), with high-style (and highly lucrative) clothing outfits . . . . Mrs. Behrman’s dolls were prized worldwide for their detail and workmanship. And they were prized in the office of Engelberg, Esq. for the millions they had brought to Madame.

  For Morris had drafted Mrs. Behrman’s will. And by the terms of that will, when she died (how long could it be, now?) . . . Morris—or his law firm—would serve as Madame Alexander’s personal representative and as attorney to the personal representative (from which positions fat six-figure fees could be garnered) . . . and as preparer of federal tax returns for the estate (for which labor a percentage of the estate would go to Morris) . . .
and that didn’t even count the fees Morris could charge for disposal of property or litigation involving the estate. To put it baldly, when Madame died, Morris would be rich.

  But then, disaster struck. Before Morris could wave goodbye to the beloved Madame on her way to doll heaven, Mrs. Behrman’s daughter took over the old lady’s care. And at the same time, the daughter also took a look at the arrangements for Madame’s estate—and (to make a long and gamy story short) . . . a new will was drawn, and Morris was dumped.

  To be sure, that did not stop the avid Engelberg. Within hours of Madame Alexander’s death, Morris filed at the courthouse a document that he represented as the last will and testament of Madame Alexander. It was, in fact, the old will that would have made him rich.

  Needless to say, litigation followed—during which Engelberg, Esq. was accused of a number of lawyerly crimes—for instance, filing a will that he knew to be false. The litigation was protracted, expensive, and surpassingly ugly. And in the end, Morris was paid a hundred thousand smackers.

  Anyway, it should come as no surprise that 1990, the year of Madame Alexander’s death, was also the year that the dolls disappeared from Morris Engelberg’s office—to be replaced by the looming shadow doll that Morris would never quite shake . . . . That was also the year when a young associate in Engelberg’s office, the lawyer Les Kushner, went to a baseball card show at the Hollywood Mall. Kushner was a baseball memorabilia fan, and he came back from that show with two sets of Joe DiMaggio pics—six photographic prints in all. Three of them he gave as a gift to Engelberg.

  “Here, Morris,” Kushner said. “Why don’t you get Mr. DiMaggio to sign these? You can put them on the wall.” And that was the first hint Morris had of the evocative grandeur (i.e., the dollar value) of the Yankee Clipper’s likeness and image.

  That also signaled a change of practice in the office. Now Mr. DiMaggio’s affairs were not the sole province of Paul Schneider, CPA . . . but the personal business—nay, the life passion—of Morris Engelberg, Doctor of Laws. Now, not only did Morris take a copious interest in DiMaggio’s business—say, for instance, in the contracts that wooed Joe to autograph shows—but Morris would go along to the shows, to make sure Joe was well taken care of. And soon, Morris was handling all of DiMaggio’s business. In fact, everything about DiMaggio became Morris’s business . . . at the same time that Clipper artifacts took over the tables, credenza, shelves—in fact, every available space in the office, where dolls used to abide.

  But the larger shadow doll lingered—with the larger lesson that Morris couldn’t forget: this one must not get away.

  WHAT WOULD MORRIS do to keep Joe?

  What would he not do?

  Just for starters, Engelberg, Esq. undertook all of Joe’s legal work, got him his Florida residency, got California off Joe’s back, and made Joe compliant with the federal tax authorities. (That was a great worry off Joe’s mind. He had fretted unceasingly through the investigation that busted Darryl Strawberry and Duke Snider—among others—for taking unreported cash at autograph shows and personal appearances. No one had taken more cash than Joe.) And Morris undertook those labors without ever sending Joe a bill.

  Morris would name his office for Joe, and would park in front of it the van he’d bought with the pinstripes, and the DIMAG 5 vanity plate, and the words painted on—“Yankee Clipper.” But the van would not be parked directly in front of the door. That prime space—“Number 5”—would be “Reserved for Mr. Joseph P. DiMaggio.”

  Whenever Joe cared to use that space, Morris would host him in the office for hours, and take Joe to lunch every day, and dinner maybe once or twice a week. He would make a great and talky show of involving Joe D. in Engelberg family events—for instance, the wedding of Morris’s daughter Laurie to a young man named Herb Milgrim. (And Morris would complain for years—but never where Joe could hear—about Joe’s failure to bring a gift.)

  For almost a decade Morris would walk a tightrope between public celebration and private complaint about the Great Man. Morris would often boast that Joe held Laurie’s baby boy for his circumcision—Morris had insisted on Joe as “Godfather.” (Joe wasn’t comfortable with that title—he knew more about it than Morris did.) But just as often, Morris would complain about how much it had cost him to confer that honor. He had offered his daughter ten thousand bucks to name the kid Joseph. At the end of negotiations, Morris paid Laurie five grand for the middle name—Montgomery Joseph Milgrim.

  Morris would take Joe to the doctors. (Doctors mostly of Engelberg’s choosing.) Morris would detail the women of his office to pick up Joe’s dry cleaning, to get Joe’s car washed, to go to Joe’s house and clean it up. Ultimately Morris would get a free house for Joe in the gated community where Morris lived. In fact, Joe’s new house would stand no more than fifty feet from Morris’s house—so Joe couldn’t open up his front door to get his newspaper without Morris knowing.

  But mostly—most of all and constantly—Morris would have to make Joe money, and scheme for Joe’s money, and talk about Joe’s money, and pile up millions upon millions for DiMaggio. Morris would raise Joe’s prices, and enforce Joe’s prices, and make prices on things any other man might do for free. (A consortium of Reno, Nevada, promoters would be asked to pony up a million, guaranteed, for the honor of hosting the Great DiMag on his eightieth birthday.) . . .

  But there was one more thing:

  When Morris made money, Joe could never know.

  So, Morris was on the phone again to Scott DiStefano, in New Jersey—beginning of September 1998—adjuring Scott to sell more DiMaggio autographed baseballs . . . but not for Joe. These were balls that Morris had socked away in his own house.

  And, for all his efforts, DiStefano couldn’t sell fast enough:

  “Scott, I’ve got to get rid of these balls,” Morris said. “They’re taking up my whole closet. I can’t hang up my clothes . . .”

  “No problem. No problem.”

  “ . . . That’s all I care about. I don’t need the money.”

  What Morris needed—and the subject he returned to over and over—was secrecy.

  “There’s millions of dollars in this thing here if you don’t blow it.”

  “Well, just plan it with me,” said DiStefano. “I’ll do it whatever way you want.”

  “No, I’m saying you can’t mention my name to [the buyers] and these guys. It floats around the business. They tell Barry Halper, and it gets back . . .”

  “Right.”

  “ . . . gets right back to Joe,” said Engelberg.

  “Okay. No.”

  “Who you tell, it floats around.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “I got it,” said DiStefano.

  “Again, we’ve got to get those two thousand balls, Scott.”

  “I will get that.”

  “Okay,” Morris said. “Take care.”

  “Bye-bye.”

  SEE, THE MOST IMPORTANT part of this deal for Morris was not Joe DiMaggio Day, nor the World Series rings for Joe—not even the fifteen thousand Yankee Clipper balls that Joe could sign and market for three million dollars or more. That would be Joe’s three million. It would add to the estate, sure. And Morris was counting on a piece of that estate—but when? . . . Morris could not wait.

  So the crucial part of the deal was the two thousand balls that Morris would buy, secretly, through DiStefano. And then, Engelberg, Esq. could mix those in, while Joe was signing . . . . And the price of those balls—say, a cool four hundred grand—would be all for Morris . . . . Or Morris and Scott—of course, Morris would share! (He wanted Scott to know that.)

  “If I don’t get those balls,” said Morris, “I don’t want to go.”

  “I know,” said Scott.

  “I don’t want to do this,” Engelberg said.

  “I don’t blame you,” said DiStefano.

  “I’m running all over the place with Joe . . . . I’m going to do four straight days with this guy.�
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  “Good luck.”

  “Three days in Chicago and one day in New York . . . .” Morris wanted Scott to know: “It’s a tremendous strain on me.”

  That was why Morris had to make sure this would be worth his exertions.

  “Now, you’ve ordered two thousand?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “Do you think you can sell these at two hundred apiece?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m talking about my balls. I’m not talking about his balls. . . . But there are people you can sell wholesale, this ball?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got wholesale people lined up.”

  “But not ten balls at a time?”

  “No, like fifty or more . . . .”

  “I’m only going to let go of maybe a thousand or two for him, and my two thousand.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m going to make the money on my two thousand—not him.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  With the benefit of Morris’s Socratic tutelage, Scott knew very well what balls he had to get, and what balls he had to sell first.

  “There’s no money being made on his two thousand,” Morris said.

  Scott knew that, too.

  SO MORRIS SECURED his two thousand balls, and Joe DiMaggio Day was a go. In fact, you could call it a DiMaggio weekend—that last weekend of September 1998. It was a schedule that few other men of Joe’s age would have attempted. But for DiMaggio, it was more or less run-of-the-mill.

  Thursday, Joe and Morris would fly into Chicago on American Airlines. Joe mostly flew American, because they’d upgrade him, gratis, and if possible to seat 5D, which bore his number and initial. Then, a stretch limo would transport the principals of YCE to the Chicago Hilton Hotel and Towers, where Joe’s host, George Randazzo from the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, had secured a suite for the Clipper’s comfort. In fact, it was the Conrad Hilton Suite—with its fourteen-hundred-square-foot parlor (suitable for stand-up receptions up to a hundred guests), dining room (for sit-down dinners of twenty), private kitchen, sixteen-foot-high lake-view windows, eighteenth-century tapestries, crystal chandeliers, oriental carpets, a baby grand piano, the library with bar and billiard table, and three Mussolini-sized balconies overlooking the lake and the city—and that was just the top floor. Down the circular staircase was the master bedroom with the king-sized four-poster canopy bed, master bath, also with a view of the lake, and a video panel over the Jacuzzi, and two other king . . . well, you could see it yourself for four thousand two hundred dollars a night. The good part was it had a TV, on which Joe could watch an old western, until he dozed with the remote in his lap.