The DiMaggios

by Tom Clavin

  It wasn’t just the DiMaggio family angering Joe that summer. His Yankee family outraged him too. One night when Joe wasn’t at Shor’s, Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and Yankees co-owner Dan Topping were there, and they got into a legendary drinking competition. At some point in the long, drunken night they struck on what seemed at the time a brilliant idea: they would swap their superstars, with Ted Williams going to the Yankees and Joe DiMaggio to the Sox. Joe could bang balls off the Green Monster in left at Fenway Park, and Ted could threaten Ruth’s single-season home run record year after year given the short right-field porch in Yankee Stadium. The next morning a sober Yawkey realized three things. First, Joe was four years older than Ted. Second, Ted’s homers trumped Joe’s doubles. And third, even with Ted’s rocky relationship with the press and fans in Boston, Yawkey would be tarred and feathered if he traded Ted away and broke up the Red Sox core. He called Topping and canceled the trade. But Joe heard about it and greatly resented that ownership would even consider pulling the Yankee uniform off his back. Even so, DiMaggio-for-Williams scenarios remained a staple of off-season speculation for years afterward.

  While Joe was squiring beautiful ladies around, Dominic was looking to settle down. With his shy ways, short stature, and eyeglasses, he did not cut such a dashing figure as his big brother. He had to find the right woman, one who saw him for his many good qualities.

  In 1947 he did. He had first met Emily Frederick in 1943 when his Navy team played an exhibition game in Boston. After the game, he and his friend Jimmy Ferretti went out to Wellesley to visit another friend, Albert Frederick. There he met Albert’s daughter. They had a pleasant conversation. Dominic was impressed by her humor and intelligence as well as her looks, but she had no interest in baseball and he was due back to resume his Navy duties in Norfolk, Virginia. For the time being, that was the end of it.

  Four years later, Ferretti asked him for an autographed baseball. Dominic wondered if it was for Emily. When his friend said yes, Dominic said he would have all his teammates sign it and then deliver it personally. The 24-year-old Emily had just broken up with a boyfriend, and Dominic was ready to seize the opportunity. They went out to dinner and dancing. Dominic drove her home, and before Emily got out of the car she hid the signed baseball in the glove compartment. Of course, he had to see her again to return it. They started dating frequently.

  In the second half of the season, Joe’s legs swelled regularly, with pain in his heel, knees, and hamstrings. “I feel like a mummy,” he told reporters about his heavily taped limbs. Even his throwing arm hurt for some unknown reason. Bucky Harris repeatedly offered to rest him, but Joe wouldn’t allow it. There was no McCarthy or Dickey or Ruffing or Gomez anymore—Joe was the senior man. New York fans had seen what happened to their Yankees when Joe didn’t lead them. In 1947 he insisted on a world championship, nothing else, whatever the personal price. Boston writer Ed Rumill added incentive when he wrote, “Joe’d better get that heel fixed up or there’ll be a new king in San Francisco’s #1 baseball family.”

  Joe played hard the rest of the season, leading by example. No member of the Yankees could contemplate taking it easy when the team’s star, legs heavily bandaged and wincing before and after games, was giving 100 percent. And Joe wasn’t about to let his brother Dominic wear the crown yet as best center fielder—in 319 chances, Joe made only one error. The Yankees finished the 1947 season at 97-57.

  If Joe could carry the Yankees on his back, Ted Williams thought maybe he could do the same for the Red Sox. It didn’t pan out. The main problem was that Ted couldn’t pitch as well as slug homers, and the Sox pitching staff just did not deliver that season. Boo Ferriss recalls that while hurling a 1–0 win over the Indians, he felt something snap in his shoulder. “My arm was never the same again,” he says. “I was out for a while, then I came back and continued to pitch, but my velocity was gone. I was only 25 years old and lost my arm strength.”

  The Boston defense tried to make up for pitching deficits. The left side was especially strong, with Pesky at short, Eddie Pellagrini at third, Ted in left field, and Dominic in center. Ted was not considered an excellent left fielder, but Dominic more than made up for that, which Ted acknowledged. They were an unlikely pair: the bombastic, often cranky, tall, powerful “Kid” from San Diego and the shy, short, fast, bespectacled “Little Professor.” Yet in their second season back from the war, they had grown close as friends as well as players.

  Ted never passed on an opportunity to praise the man he often called “Dommie” during their playing days and afterward. “The wolves in left field were always yelling how he was playing his position and mine,” he wrote in My Turn at Bat. “I could have been a little miffed at that, but the fact was Dom and I got along good. He was quiet, but he was great to play with because he’d talk under a fly ball, holler good to let you know what was happening. And he was a great outfielder, he could get better position on the ball to left center, so I made it a point to concede to him.”

  It was frustrating for Dominic not to be giving the kind of performance at the plate he had in 1946. There were very good days, like the grand slam he hit on August 19 to beat the Browns, but there were no hot streaks and in too many games he wore the collar. For the first time his durability was suspect. Dominic collected only 145 hits, batted .283, and had 8 homers and 71 RBI.

  Apparently, Pesky didn’t get the memo about having an off year. His third year in the majors was his third one with more than 200 hits—he would lead the league at 207. He also scored 106 runs and batted .324. And of course, there was Ted. It is incredible to think that his .343 batting average was 63 points lower than his best year; it was still good enough for the batting title. He also smashed 32 homers and had 114 RBI—good enough for his second Triple Crown—and 125 runs scored.

  Ted did everything he could to keep his club in the pennant picture and was more responsible than anyone for the 83 Red Sox wins. But that was good enough for only a third-place finish, behind the Yankees and Tigers. A disappointed and worn-out Joe Cronin resigned as manager.

  Ted was denied the Most Valuable Player Award again—deservedly so, it could be argued, but it happened in the most bizarre fashion.

  Joe DiMaggio won it, his third MVP. He had indeed shown his value to a pennant-winning club and played the best he could through injuries. His leadership in the ’47 season was unquestioned. That he won the MVP by a vote of 202 over Ted’s 201 was unremarkable—it should have been that close. What was remarkable was that one of the voting writers—the Boston Globe’s Mel Webb—not only didn’t vote Ted number one, but didn’t even vote him into the top ten, leaving Ted’s name completely off his ballot. If Ted’s name had appeared in even the tenth slot on that ballot, he would have won the award. Clearly his combative relationship with Boston sportswriters had come back to bite him again. For Ted, it was another bitter end to a season. “It wasn’t the first time Williams earned this award with his bat,” Red Smith observed, “and lost it with his disposition.”

  Dominic did not head straight home to San Francisco as usual. He had a girl in Boston he wasn’t keen on leaving behind. In fact, he was pretty sure he was going to marry her. When he did eventually head west, he had Emily with him to present to the DiMaggios. He had been the last in the family to be born, he was the last to go into baseball, and with the approval—or at least without the opposition—of Giuseppe and Rosalie, he would be the last DiMaggio to marry.

  Joe was back in the World Series, his first since 1942, and his first without Joe McCarthy as the skipper. Perhaps McCarthy watched it on television—it was the first one broadcast to sets in several markets. If so, he saw one of the best Fall Classics in baseball history. The Yankees faced a young and exciting Brooklyn Dodgers team whose core group of players would elevate the “Bums” to greatness in the next decade—Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine, Don Newcombe, and Carl Furillo. That Robinso
n was the first African American to play in a World Series was just one of the many highlights in 1947.

  Game 1 was played September 30 at Yankee Stadium. Johnny Lindell and Tommy Henrich batted in two runs each as the Yankees beat Branca and Brooklyn 5–3. Game 2 was a laugher. Joe collected only his second hit of the Series, but his teammates piled up ten runs to Brooklyn’s three as Allie Reynolds struck out 12 Dodgers. At Ebbetts Field for Game 3, the Dodgers jumped out to a 9–4 lead after four innings and held on for a 9–8 victory. Joe’s two-run homer wasn’t enough.

  For the next game, Harris decided to start Bill Bevens, whose record was only 7-13, with a lackluster 3.82 ERA. Harris hoped he would keep the Dodgers off-balance long enough for the bats of the Bronx Bombers to do damage.

  Bevens set a World Series record by walking ten batters—but through eight innings he didn’t give up a hit. The Yankees eked out a 1–0 lead in the first inning when Harry Taylor, afraid to give Joe anything good to hit with the bases loaded, walked him. Joe walked again next time up but was thrown out trying to score from first on a throwing error. New York went up 2–0 in the fourth. The Dodgers scored a run in the fifth on two walks, a sacrifice, and a grounder. The score remained 2–1 into the top of the ninth inning.

  Lindell singled. Phil Rizzuto reached on a force. Bevens, with a no-hitter on the line, was allowed to bat. When he bunted, Dodger catcher Bruce Edwards failed to nab Rizzuto at second. Now the bases were loaded, Snuffy Stirnweiss dumped a hit to center, and Rizzuto held at third. When Henrich came up, the Dodgers brought in Hugh Casey, the same confrontation as in the 1941 World Series, when Mickey Owen had muffed strike three. This time, “Old Reliable” hit into a double play.

  The Dodgers went to the plate, bottom of the ninth, trailing by one. Edwards flew out. Furillo walked, and Al Gionfriddo was sent out to run for him. Spider Jorgensen fouled out to first. With Pete Reiser up, Gionfriddo took off for second and beat Berra’s throw. Bevens walked Reiser. Cookie Lavagetto was sent up to pinch-hit for Eddie Stanky. On an 0-1 count, with Bevens just two strikes from immortality, Lavagetto smashed a double off the right-field wall and both runners scored. On that pitch, Bevens lost the no-hitter and the game. He never started again in the major leagues—the Oregon native’s next stop was the Pacific Coast League.

  The Series was tied. In Game 5 at Ebbetts Field, the Yankees’ Spec Shea faced the home team’s Rex Barney, starting for the first time since July. Barney gave up runs in the fourth and fifth innings, the second on a solo shot by Joe. The Dodgers could manage only one run. The Yankees were returning to the Bronx with a 3–2 edge.

  Game 6 was another nail-biter, with the two teams trading scores in front of the biggest crowd of the Series, 74,065. Pitchers came and went as players crossed the plate. It was one of the most famous games in Joe’s career. In the sixth inning he came up with two men on and the Yanks trailing 8–5. He launched a long drive to left. Most everyone in the ballpark thought it was a game-tying homer. But Gionfriddo, not known for flashing leather, snared the ball over the railing atop the 415 feet sign, then tumbled over the short wall into the bullpen. He reappeared with the ball in his glove. Rounding second, Joe kicked the dirt—a natural reaction for any ballplayer, but a startling one from the relentlessly stoic DiMaggio.

  “The reason I let my feelings show then was that I’d never had a Series where I’d been lucky,” he told reporters after the game, barely suppressing his anger. “That catch by Gionfriddo was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  The Dodgers won it 8–6.

  In Game 7, New York scored a run in the second, two in the fourth, one in the sixth, and one more in the seventh to beat the Dodgers 5–2 and win the Series. Joe would get his sixth Series ring, his first in five years. Curiously, even as the players celebrated, MacPhail announced that he was resigning as general manager.

  After a few weeks relaxing in New York, Joe headed back to Baltimore for another operation at Johns Hopkins, this time on his right arm. A small bone near a nerve was removed, and he was expected to make a full recovery. His financial situation was starting to look healthier too. He wanted a big raise, and with the Series and another MVP to back him, he got it. His 1948 contract would be for $70,000, the most the Yankees had paid a player since Ruth. (Still, it was only the third highest in baseball: Ted Williams got $75,000 and Bob Feller $85,000.)

  In the PCL playoffs, Lefty O’Doul’s second-place Seals faced Casey Stengel’s fourth-place Oaks. Vince was looking for one more championship. Things went well for Stengel’s squad when they took the first two games. In the third game, Vince scored to put the Oaks up 3–1, but the Seals won it in the 11th. Vince had two homers, a double, and five RBI in his team’s 8–4 victory in the next game, then Oakland closed out the series with a 4–0 blanking of O’Doul’s squad.

  The Oaks then faced the Los Angeles Angels for the Governor’s Cup. They lost the first three games. In the fourth, Vince, going 3-for-6 with three RBI, powered the Oaks to an 8–7 victory. But the Angels took the fifth game and the cup. Thankfully, Vince had a hit in that losing effort, because it was his last game in a Pacific Coast League uniform.

  SIXTEEN

  To rebound in 1948, the Red Sox needed to retool their pitching staff. Hughson and Ferriss were questionable at best, and Boston lacked a minor league system as well stocked as those of the Yankees and Dodgers. So the club engineered one of the largest trades the major leagues had ever seen, with the St. Louis Browns, who after the war had returned to their accustomed place in the depths of the second division. Raiding Tom Yawkey’s piggy bank, the Red Sox sent $375,000 and nine players west for pitchers Jack Kramer and Ellis Kinder and a shortstop, Vern Stephens. This would turn out to be one of the better deals in franchise history.

  Joe Cronin had now moved up from manager to general manager. Who would replace him on the field? None other than Joe McCarthy. Though he had a lot of mileage on him at 62, McCarthy had recovered from his alcohol-fueled flameout with the Yankees a couple of years earlier. Cronin wanted a manager with a winning track record, and no one in baseball had a better one. Cronin wanted him to bring to Boston the Yankees’ disciplined behavior, which included players wearing ties and being clean-shaven off the field, no pipe smoking, plenty of hustle, and most of all a hatred of losing.

  A game between the teams on March 29 showed how intense their rivalry was getting. It was only an exhibition game, but neither McCarthy nor Bucky Harris would accept a loss. At the end of nine innings, the score was 2–2. They kept playing. Finally, after battling over four hours and using 33 players, the combatants agreed to the tie.

  Already the Red Sox player representative, Dominic was now elected the player rep for the whole American League. His free agency gambit had marked him as a player not intimidated by management. Other players had great respect for the Little Professor’s intelligence and ability to communicate. No matter how highly regarded Joe was as a player, he would never have been elected a spokesman.

  “In addition to being an outstanding player, Dom was really well liked by everyone who knew him,” says Cot Deal, who earned a spot on the Red Sox starting pitching staff in 1948. “He just had such a good personality, and he was viewed as a completely trustworthy guy.”

  Dominic played an important role in negotiating issues that would lead to the formation of the Major League Baseball Players Association. In the 1970s, what Dom started would result in free agency and other labor advances for players. He and National League player representative Marty Marion, the Cardinals shortstop, put together a list of concerns that included “conditions on the field. Probably meal money, that sort of thing.” (Perhaps Vince, still smarting from his experience with meal money, put his brother up to that part of it.) “And a pension. We felt that a pension was very much desired.” Though professional baseball had existed since well before the turn of the century, the professionals who played it still did not get a pension when they retire
d.

  On opening day against the Philadelphia Athletics at Fenway Park, the Sox lost both ends of a doubleheader. Boston got its first win on opening day at Yankee Stadium, 4–0. In the stands was Babe Ruth, who, many in New York knew, had been diagnosed with throat cancer. As usual, Joe and Dom did not socialize in front of the fans. “You have to remember that the umpires were pretty strict back then about opposing players,” says Yogi Berra. “The funny thing is, though, I can’t imagine any umpire stopping brothers from talking to each other. But Joe and Dom just didn’t do that.”

  “Dom was quiet, but compared to Joe he was an extrovert,” says Cot Deal. “But both brothers were total professionals, and standing around chatting just wasn’t something that either one of them would feel right doing.”

  At the end of May, the Sox were a frustrating 14-23, 11.5 games out of first, and fans were already calling for McCarthy’s head. But in June they caught fire, and they blazed white-hot into September, going 69-24. Dominic would have the best year of his career.

  Dominic and his teammates had become television stars in early June when WBZ broadcast its first game from Fenway Park, where the francise had finally installed lights. The first night game was played there on the thirteenth. Another, and bigger, milestone for the American League was that it saw its first African American player, when Larry Doby was brought up by the Indians.

  Cleveland was clinging to first place and looked to separate itself a bit from Boston when the Sox arrived for a three-game series in mid-June. But they were rudely manhandled by the visitors, with the final insult being Dominic’s home run that broke a 6–6 tie and ensured a series sweep. Boston now had won 11 of 14 games.

  The Red Sox celebrated Independence Day at Fenway Park at the expense of the Athletics. The score was 5–5 when Ted walked, and then the floodgates opened. Dominic doubled and walked, driving in a run and scoring three in the same fourteen-run seventh, which ended only when Ted grounded out his third time up in the inning.