The DiMaggios

by Tom Clavin

  The only major league manager Joe had played for was gone, though he took some comfort in the decision to replace McCarthy with Dickey. But Joe and the team still struggled. The situation worsened when he developed a persistent pain in one of his heels. Then, while sliding into second, he tore cartilage in one knee. He was hitting only .266 at the time.

  Because of the injury, he would not be in the All-Star Game. The starting center fielder for the American League was Dominic. At least the injury saved Joe the potential indignity of playing backup to his younger brother.

  Dominic later reflected that Boston played better than their New York rivals that year because “most of the Red Sox players were lucky enough to be able to resume playing at our prewar level of performance. The Yankees, on the other hand, experienced problems.” And for the first time in many years, the Sox had an imposing pitching staff. Tex Hughson was back, Boo Ferriss was only 24, and Joe Dobson and Mickey Harris were also under 30. Mel Parnell was an exciting hurler in the minors who might be ready for the big leagues. “Joe Cronin had caught the rest of the league with its pants down,” Dominic said. “We just ran away from everyone.”

  That is precisely what happened. On opening day, President Harry Truman threw out the first ball at Griffith Stadium. Hughson pitched a complete game, Ted Williams socked a 430-foot homer, and the Red Sox won. At their Fenway Park opener four days later, Boston had only two hits, but they were enough to down the Philadelphia Athletics 2–1. The Red Sox were nearly unbeatable the first two months of the season, winning 41 of their first 50 games. A 2–0 loss at Yankee Stadium ended a 15-game winning streak, the longest streak in franchise history. In an 18–8 win over the Browns a week later, after Ted hit a grand slam, he was walked intentionally three times. During the first two weeks of June, the Red Sox enjoyed a 12-game win streak. Both streaks included thrashings of the Yankees in Boston and New York.

  Dominic and Joe were able to resume a practice they had begun in 1940, Dominic’s rookie season: “Joe and I picked up right where we left off in our brotherly competition.” In a game at Yankee Stadium in May, Dominic launched a ball to deep center field. Joe raced after it and climbed the wall to rob his brother of a triple. When the inning ended and the brothers crossed paths behind second base, Joe called out, “It’s 32–21,” representing the number of times one had taken a hit away from the other. Only the brothers knew that Dominic was leading the competition.

  In a doubleheader in June at Fenway Park, Ted proved he was playing as well as ever—or even better. The Cleveland Indians, now managed by shortstop Lou Boudreau, were expected to contend for the pennant. Instead, they were in sixth place. In the first game, Ted hit three homers—the first a grand slam, the second with two on to tie the game, and the third in the ninth won it 11–10. Boudreau had a homer and four doubles in vain.

  Between games, he had a brainstorm. After Ted doubled in the second game, Boudreau had his infielders, center fielder, and right fielder shift to their left to blanket the right side against Williams. The third baseman, Ken Keltner, stood behind second base. Boudreau figured that the only way Ted would get more hits was to keep putting the ball in the seats or slap it to the opposite field.

  “Gee, I had to laugh when I saw it,” Ted later wrote. “What the hell’s going on? This was my second time up in the second game. I had doubled to clear the bases in the first inning, giving me eleven runs batted in for the day. In effect, they are now telling me, ‘Go ahead, hit to left field, have yourself a single. We’ll sacrifice singles to take away your doubles and home runs any day.’ They’re tickled to death if I go to left because the only thing they’re really afraid of is the long ball.”

  Ted was tickled to death by the shift too. By the end of the season, he had hit .400 with nine home runs against the Indians.

  Vince had gone through Phillies spring training expecting, or at least hoping, to get as much playing time as the previous year. When the team broke camp and headed north to Philadelphia, he was set in center field. But not for long. At the end of April, he got word that he had been traded. The New York Giants were looking to bolster their outfield defense and had purchased Goody Rosen from the Brooklyn Dodgers. Manager Mel Ott thought Vince was the final piece of the puzzle, so he shipped pitcher Clyde Kluttz to Philadelphia. Ott pointed out to reporters that too many balls had dropped in for base hits early in the season, and “DiMaggio, an experienced fielder and fine thrower, should make the going a lot easier for our pitchers.”

  For the first time since San Francisco, two of the three ballplaying DiMaggios were living in the same city. Between the war and the fact that Vince no longer lived in the Bay Area, he and Joe had seen little of each other the past few years. But the time together in New York was short-lived. The Giants were tanking when Vince arrived, and he didn’t help. Ott had wanted some power at the plate along with his defense, and Vince had none left. His last hit for the Phillies, it turned out, was his last hit in the major leagues. He went 0-for-25 for the Giants, and Ott let him go.

  Vince managed to grab one dinner with Joe, then packed his bags and headed home. When no major league team picked him up, one in the PCL did—the San Francisco Seals. Lefty O’Doul would now earn the unique distinction of having managed all three DiMaggio brothers.

  Like the other teams in the PCL, the Seals had suffered during the war years, hurt by curbs on travel and lower attendance. But O’Doul remained enormously popular in the Bay Area as a manager who could get the most out of his players. In the 1943, ’44, and ’45 seasons, the Seals did not finish first, but they won in the playoffs to capture three consecutive Governor’s Cups. The 1946 team would turn out to be even better.

  The season had started auspiciously. The new owner was a successful businessman, Paul Fagan, and his goal was to elevate the PCL to the status of a third major league. His plan was to upgrade his own club to set an example, figuring other PCL owners would follow along. He spent liberally on renovations to Seals Stadium, including innovations like baseball’s first glass backstop, uniformed female ushers, and imported turf on the field. Fagan set the minimum annual player salary at $5,000, the same as in the National and American Leagues.

  Fagan had a ranch in Hawaii, and that spring he flew the team there for training. During the season, he had the team flown to play games in the more faraway cities, like Portland and San Diego, reducing the wear and tear on them. Fagan wanted to eliminate any differences between the Seals and major league clubs. His efforts would be rewarded with victories and a record 670,563 people passing through the turnstiles. (In 1946 the PCL as a whole set an attendance record of 3,722,843. With the Oakland Oaks drawing over 600,000 fans, that meant 1.3 million people attended PCL games in the Bay Area—higher attendance than most major league clubs could boast.)

  When O’Doul learned that Vince was available, he contacted him immediately. Vince was, after all, a DiMaggio, and he would put more fans in the seats. The team had both hitting, led by future Phillie Ferris Fain, and pitching, led by future Giant Larry Jansen. After the disappointments with the Phillies and especially the Giants, Vince found the Seals a very soft and successful landing spot.

  Joanne recalls that having her father join the San Francisco club made life less complicated for her. “When I went to school, I would spend part of the year in an eastern school and part of the year in a school in Hermosa Beach, and the east school was so far ahead. My mother would have to school me so I could catch up and be promoted to the next grade. Then when we came back home, I was way ahead so I just slid along.”

  One of Vince’s new teammates was Don Trower, an infielder who had joined the Seals in 1940 and had battled knee problems. He remembers that Vince was “happy-go-lucky,” but didn’t look completely comfortable at the plate.

  “He’d go up there and swing from the bottom of his shoes to the top of his shoulders,” remembers Trower, who was 92 when interviewed in 2012. “He was trying to hit a h
ome run all the time. We didn’t need him to, because we had a good bunch of boys on a good ball club. And of course, Lefty to steer us.”

  After games, “Vince just hung around with some of the boys and did some elbow-bending. He liked to talk and laugh. I’d get a kick out of him, though, when he’d strike out and throw his bat down.”

  Through the season the Seals had to fight off the Oakland Oaks, who had a new manager, Casey Stengel. The Oaks occupied first place for two months, but an injury in July to one of their best players, Les Scarsella, sent them adrift. The Seals went on to clinch the pennant, their first since 1935. Vince had contributed by playing in 43 games and batting .264, but a lone homer showed his power was waning.

  The Seals rolled through the playoffs. In the first round, the Hollywood Stars faded quickly, losing four straight games. Next up were the Oaks. They put up a sturdier resistance, but after the Seals won the sixth game in the series, they had their fourth Governor’s Cup in a row. Vince had joined a championship team, one that his parents and a few of his brothers and sisters could watch. He proved Thomas Wolfe wrong: you can go home again.

  Ted Williams continued to pound the ball, and “everybody was convinced I would win the Triple Crown,” he recalled. “Halfway through the season I was hitting .365, I had 27 home runs, 91 runs batted in. I was at peace with the world. I was even doing a column for the Boston Globe with a ghostwriter. Fancy that.”

  Meanwhile, Dominic had become arguably the best combination in the league in manufacturing runs on offense and preventing runs on defense.

  “I loved Dom,” Pesky told Fay Vincent for his oral history. “I loved Bob. But Dom and I were more compatible to one another because Bobby and Ted came first and then Dom and then me. And we—they said, here are the fearless foursome from the West Coast. We’re the fearless foursome, but we got on Ted’s coattails, and he knew how to handle it.”

  By the All-Star break, the Red Sox were an extraordinary 54-23 with a seven-and-a-half-game lead over the Yankees. The game was at Fenway Park, and many of the players who had been All-Stars before military service were back. With Bob Feller starting, the junior circuit held the visitors to just three hits while compiling 12 runs. Dominic was the leadoff batter for the American League and he went 1-for-2. Ted hit solo and three-run homers and two singles. Ted’s second home run came against Vince’s former teammate Rip Sewell on what he called his “eephus ball,” a bloop pitch that achieved a 20-foot-high arc before descending toward the catcher. Boo Ferriss was thrilled in the very first inning when Feller got into a bit of trouble on the mound and “they told me to warm up,” he recalls. “Imagine that, [if] they put me in to replace Bob Feller in the All-Star Game. It didn’t happen, but I had a great time.” It was a magical year for the hurler from Mississippi, who would go on to collect 25 wins against only six losses and complete 26 games.

  “You couldn’t help but like Dom, and he was clearly a leader,” says Ferriss. “You know, he became a top player and everything, but he was just as nice and friendly as one could be. And with Doerr at second base and Pesky at shortstop and Dom in center, that was great up-the-middle strength. That gave our pitchers a lot of confidence.”

  Ted continued to be hotter than the approaching dog days of summer. In a doubleheader on July 21 at Fenway Park against the Browns, he had seven straight hits and hit for the cycle for the only time in his career. By the end of the month, Boston’s record was 70-28. They played even better in August. Dominic and Pesky kept getting on base—the latter established a new Red Sox record of hitting safely 53 times that month—and Ted, Doerr, and Rudy York would drive them in. As the month came to a close, Boston had a .706 winning percentage and had extended its lead over the sputtering Bronx Bombers to 16.5 games.

  Joe couldn’t recover from injury as quickly as he used to, but he came back after only a few weeks because the Yankees were slipping out of the pennant race. The Great DiMaggio wouldn’t let that happen, most fans in the Bronx believed. But it was happening anyway. Dickey was managing well enough. And he was supportive of Joe. The ex-catcher and the younger man had been through many campaigns before. So it was another blow when, late in the season, Dickey was out. He wouldn’t agree with MacPhail’s personnel demands, so he was replaced by one of the coaches, Johnny Neun.

  It was a lost season for Joe. His heel still hurt. He couldn’t generate much power and hit only five homers the second half of the season. Then MacPhail unloaded a shocker: he proposed a trade to the lowly Senators, swapping Joe for Mickey Vernon, winner of the batting title that year. Adding insult to injury, the Senators nixed the deal.

  The Yankees finished at 87-67, not a poor season but not good enough. They came in third behind Boston and Detroit. In October, Joe listened to the World Series at home in Manhattan, where he was staying because he had custody of Joe Jr. every other weekend.

  The 1946 pennant was the first for the Red Sox since 1918, when Babe Ruth had been on the roster. Ted finished with 38 home runs, 123 RBI, and a .342 average. He won the MVP Award in a cakewalk, though he claimed it “surprised the hell out of me because I didn’t think I would ever get it.”

  And how did Dominic’s innovative salary structure work out? The Red Sox drew over 1.4 million spectators, third best in the American League. According to the formula, he earned $7,000 above his $16,000 salary, and he would also have a World Series share coming to him. He was catching up to Joe in more ways than one.

  Giuseppe and Rosalie came east together for the Series—but this time to watch a different son as the Sox squared off against the Cardinals.

  “I met his mother and dad when they came to the World Series,” Boo Ferriss recalls. “They were very nice people. You could see where Dom got it from.”

  The Series went the full seven games, with its share of cliffhangers and heartbreakers. The Sox won two of the first three games, then their pitching collapsed in Game 4 as St. Louis rapped out 20 hits off six pitchers to win 12–3. The durable Red Sox bounced back to win the next game 6–3, with Pesky collecting three hits. But the Cards were tough too. In Game 6, Harry Brecheen pitched a 4–1 complete game as the Red Sox offense slept.

  It came down to the final game in St. Louis on October 14. Ferriss pitched a strong game but got nicked for three runs early. Dominic drove in an early Red Sox run, but his team was still down 3–1 at the end of the seventh inning. Rip Russell and Catfish Metkovich began the top of the eighth with pinch-hit singles. There were still men on when Dominic came up with two outs. He drove a 3-1 pitch to right-center. It banged off the wall, and while Enos Slaughter chased it Russell and Metkovich scored easily. Dominic motored from first to second—and his hamstring popped. He staggered to second, then had to leave the game.

  With the most important hit of his career, Dominic had just driven in his second and third runs of the seventh game of the World Series, tying it at 3–3. But the player Halberstam called “arguably the most aggressive centerfielder of his era” would not be on the field when the Cardinals came to bat. With Slaughter on first base and two outs, Harry Walker came to the plate. He hit a line drive that got by Dominic’s replacement in center field, Leon Culberson. Without Dominic and his powerful arm in center field, Slaughter just never stopped running. In what became known as his “Mad Dash,” and with the Cardinals fans roaring, he simply kept pumping, chugging around second, past third, to home. He said afterward, “If they hadn’t taken DiMaggio out of the game, I wouldn’t have tried it.”

  With the Cards up 4–3, the Sox offense produced nothing in the ninth, and the Cardinals were the world champions. Dominic had given it his all. Ted Williams had only five hits, all singles, one a bunt. He was so disgusted with himself that he gave his Series check to the loyal clubhouse attendant, Johnny Orlando. “I was shell-shocked. I was so disappointed in myself. Just sick inside.” On the train ride back to Boston, “I went into my little compartment. When I got in there and closed the door I jus
t broke down and started crying, and I looked up and there was a whole crowd of people watching me through the window.”

  It was a long trip back for Dominic as well. He sure would have liked to be the second DiMaggio to wear a World Series ring. Joe already had one for each finger of his right hand.

  Photo Section

  A view of Strada delle Fontane, the street on which Giuseppe and Rosalie DiMaggio lived before emigrating to the United States, as seen from Isola delle Femmine’s fish market.

  (Courtesy of Margie Cowan)

  Thanks to his brother Vince, Joe DiMaggio became a star in 1933 on the San Francisco Seals, one of the more popular teams in the Pacific Coast League.

  (Courtesy of Mark Macrae)

  Team photo of the San Francisco Seals in 1935 with Joe (lower right) and their rookie manager, Lefty O’Doul (center).

  (Courtesy of Mark Macrae)

  Joe was an immediate sensation when he joined the Yankees in 1936. He would take over the leadership role from Lou Gehrig and lead the Bronx Bombers to four consecutive world championships.

  (Courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

  Left: Ted Williams was born and raised in San Diego, and while with the Padres of the Pacific Coast League he and Vince DiMaggio were teammates.

  Right: Thanks to his financial success, especially World Series winners’ shares, Joe was able to underwrite a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco operated by his brothers Tom and Mike.

  (Courtesy of Mark Macrae)

  Vince (left) joined his brother Joe in the major leagues in 1937 when he was signed by the Boston Bees.

  (Courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)